I bet Ostroff thinks those are the greatest ratings ever.
Like CTUN said,Smallville is the one show that makes their core audience who watched from day one feel betrayed.That's why I hope ratings for SV will be embarassing.And yes I hope TPTB get bashed for it from the media because they deserve it imo.

I think it's fair to say the OMG! crowd is not the target audience. Advertisement on the CW is for the CW watchers. I only turned on the CW after I saw SV on HDNet, otherwise ...never. Not even the WB. I did watch UPN for Star Trek but that's it. So.... advertising on the CW is literally the "SciFi pearls before swine" kind of a deal. It's not a good network (anymore) for this series. It brings in revenue so daffy Dawn keeps it going but she is counting on existing viewers and that's all she needs in her mind.

Which leads us to the new PTB and Warners. Where exactly do they advertise? If not on the network they are on, it has to be in the SciFi areas. That leads to a gazillian ICONIC! spoilers, pimping TV Guide, etc... I imagine they probably tried for an ET or Access Hollywood but both of those favor their parent networks (CBS & NBC). E! might do something but they seem to pimp E! original programming these days just as bad as ET pimps CSI (the CBS flagship). Regardless, I think we ARE seeing their attempts at increased publicity. If they had cash, there would be billboards and newspaper ads. They don't --- I bet we get cheesy CGI too... but anyway, they are looking to get free advertisement.

Since they don't have money or a supportive network, they sell away their plot (aka spoilers) early to get "column space" (or these days, blog space). At least that's what I see.

With Lex and Lana fan flight and the alienation of Chloe fans, will their ICONIC! gambit be enough to fill the hole? This is actually about the only thing I'm curious about at this stage. I've written off the season as a reboot where there will be a few meaningless moments but the rest is an obnoxious Cloiser's fanfic.

If you look at last night's audience (repeat ... was it Quest?) from pifeedback:



That is an indicator IMO of who will show up so long as SV has a pulse --- regardless of content. I think it's enough for daffy Dawn too. Now, it's possible you still have some fans who will walk away once they get a gander at S8 but my guess is that this is the "completionist" crowd who will stay til the bitter end. The question then, is beyond those people, who will come back? I honestly don't think the spoiler gambit will bump the numbers over last year -- but Justice League episodes have broken 5 million before. Presuming a number in that vicinity for Odyssey, I would expect the Plastique trailer to show Clark stopping the bus, Clois Clois & explosions. Will the trailer make them return and if so, will Plastique have them stay even longer? I'm going to hazard a guess that they will look good Week 1 and possibly Week 2 but it'll start to drop dramatically Week #3, with "Committed" (#5) being a nadir. Just speculation. Again, my hope is they settle under 3M because I don't want a S9.** If they do better than 4M, I think they'll try for a S9 with or without TW. Insane, but that's my guess. I also think numbers consistently above 4M will mean the second half of the season, regardless of what they have commitments for, will presume a S9 and will be abysmal. Then with 5 episodes to go, they will know if TW is on board and either wrap or further stretch.

Again, just my guess. This and watching the meta as various spoiler sources contort the spoilers and fan buzz is the horror movie I'm watching these days.

** 3M does not equate to not having a S9, I just think it might be enough to deflate their enthusiasm. Could be wrong, however, these guys like that "we're so great" Koolaid they drink.

Is it strange that they did not show the season finale last night when the new season starts next week?

I wonder if they are so out of touch with the show that they never even noticed. The previous week Smallville got bumped for a repeat of 90210 and I have a feeling that they just ran the next episode on the list, ignoring that Arctic was the last. Pure spec but what other logical reason would they have?

I guess they could be hoping we forget that Lex is gone, Lana is gone, and Chloe was proposed to, but why would they rely on "previously seen on" clips to set up the new season? Arctic was a cliffhanger, you show it to the viewers and they come back to see it resolved. Why skip it? Doesn't make sense to me.

Very true, there have been no episodes in which no one but Lois was featured. But Lucy, Combat, and Prototype are Lois-centric episodes with historically-low ratings. Here's a snipped from a site that tracks the ratings. This is an analysis of the decline in the first part of Season 6.

Again, though, it has to start with recognizing that not only did the Zod cliffhanger resolution, the Green Arrow with a second-rate JLA on the horizon, and Jimmy Olsen not draw, that package lost. Likewise more Lois Lane in the promotion, and billing Jimmy Olsen as a love interest for Chloe. The greater damage of the latter strategy has been to forego the potential ratings benefits that Clark-Chloe has been proven to have in this series. http://www.smallville-twist.org/Ratings/Ra...17-Oct-2006.htm

In other words, the author feels that the weak Zod resolution and weak introduction of OQ, *promoting* Lois, and Chimmy brought down the ratings over the course of four episodes. Of course, there are three other reasons listed besides Lois, and this is the author's analysis, so nothing official, but it makes sense to me. I made my correlation because two years later, they are still promoting Lois and Chimmy, and ratings are continuing to fall. YMMV.

Wait, there was once a time when Smallville got over 9 million viewers?

Yeah, but nowadays there are like 10x more options on TV, and things like DVR & Netflix weren't very common back in what, 2001 was the high point? It's like trying to compare atheletes from different time periods. It's all just skewed

Oh, sure. I guess I'd just forgotten that once upon a time The WB used to do decent numbers.

Nowadays 3 million and above is considered a hit for The CW right?

And having said that, what are the chances the premiere will break 5? The haven't done numbers like that since Cure.

Without MR and KK? Or an ad budget?

Not so hot, IMO. The first half of the season usually starts out pretty hot, but breaking 5 million seems pretty ambitious, IMO. 4.00-4.25 million live would not surprise me though, with a nice spike for DVR.

I'm betting on 3.5 million (live viewers, not adjusted for DVR), and sinking like a stone after that. That's probably worse than it'll actually be, given the JLA in the first episode, but considering the lack of Lex and Lana, the near-absence of advertising, and the kick-the-Chlarkers game TPTB have been playing, I think it's highly likely this will be the worst rated premiere of SV ever.

I think ya'll are *WAY* underestimating the ratings for the premiere.

Positives
Absolutely no competition - Everything will be in reruns except for Fox's sinking game show, Hole in the Wall
JL Ads - JL eps. regularly jumped 1 mil. viewers (to 6 mil.) in S5. The ads will definitely help ratings.
Hero frenzy - After IM,TDK & TIH, people could be looking for *free* superhero entertainment
No competition - bored w/reruns people seeing the JL might check out SV even if they haven't in yrs
Closure - Lex, Lana & Chloe fans may not stay, but watch until SV answers their cliffhangers
(E.g. Out of curiosity, I watched premiere after Mulder left to see how they'd deal with his absence.)
Premiere/Finale boost - SV premieres and finales always get ratings boosts. Some fans only tune in for these.
Lack of info - Casual fans may not know about the S9 changes. I'm amazed by how many lj people still think MR is coming back.

Negatives
No KK, No MR, No JG - But again, some KK and MR fans may not yet realize they're not returning.
Lack of publicity - The CW hasn't done much to publicize SV, but SV fans are loyal plus there won't be anything else on.
Spoilers - It's hard to know how many viewers read spoilers so it may or may not affect ratings

I'm predicting 4.5 million.

That is a big decrease from 5 million last season. If Survivor or UB were going to be on, then I'd go lower, but without any real competition, I think SV could benefit from channel flippers checking it out because they're bored with reruns.

Anything in the 3 million viewer range would be a shocking drop from SV's consistent Fall ratings pattern which are always much higher than Spring ratings. Of course, it is possible, but I'd be stunned to see a drop that drastic for a premiere. Now, I do think the Fall ratings may sink into the 3 million range, but the premiere has way too many pluses for me to see it going that low.

I think your right. Presuming casual viewers know it's returning (and the CW not advertising is not a factor because they are not he SV demo), it'll get the drop in viewer for the premier. EP2 & EP3 will be better indicators if they like show direction or not IMO.

I'd love it if Elly's numbers are right because big numbers in Fall mean a S9, I don't want that. I'm hoping the post-premier drop off is big enough to discourage continued Koolaid drinking.

Yeah I'm a total jerk. I want them bad enough to guarantee no Season 9 but not bad enough they get any less than the full year to wrap up 8.

With the way the show is done and if Lex knowing the secret could occupy less than five minutes of screentime, I'd say they could probably wrap up everything in 2 episodes. It might not be completely satisfactory but even if they had a full year, do you really think it would be any more or less decent?

Maybe if they rewatched the first half of season 5?

Regardless of the ratings, The CW will let the whole season play out. They need the episodes. They have nothing else.

And as someone from Australia, I don't understand the whole 8/7 central time thing. Can someone explain that to me? What time does Smallville show in Los Angeles for example?

In the US, we have 3 basic time zones (not counting Hawaii and Alaska), so on the East Coast time zone it is 8 pm, but in the Central time zone it is 7 pm. So many times the shows actually air at the same time (without a time delay) in the East Coast & Central time zones (thus 8/7pm Central). When you get to Los Angeles, it is actually 3 hours later than the East Coast. So people will see the show at 8 pm Pacific time zone, actually 3 hours later than the East Coast fans.

Hopefully I didn't confuse you further.

Now can you return the favor and explain to me why South Australia is off by 30 minutes from New South Wales & Queensland, when it comes to Australian times zones. I enjoy a show filmed in South Australia and am always trying to figure out what time of day it is there!!!

Here's a link to US time zones at Wikipedia.

That was great, thank you. I was basically trying to figure out what time MY time Smallville is on.

Here in Australia our times vary from state to state based on daylight savings. South Australia is 30 mins behind Victoria, where I am. Western Australia is two hours behind.

According to my iPhone, it's 10:33 PM on Wednesday the 17th in New York, while it's 12:33 PM on Thursday the 18th here in Melbourne. So we're 14 hours ahead of you guys (depending on your zone apparently!).

As much as I'd love to see the premiere fall flat on its face. I think it's realistic to expect Odyssey to get at least 4-4.5 million viewers.

Teen Titan

This messes with my mind. I've never before heard of times zones or daylight savings being in anything but hour increments. I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation, but I can't think of one.

Too bad you being a day ahead of us doesn't translate into you seeing it first and reporting back.

But compared to other season openers isn't that Low?

Newfoundland is also a half-hour ahead. I think it has to do with where you are in the latitude, but don't quote me on it.

I'm not sure how badly this will affect the ratings but because of stupid baseball, Chicago's supposed start time for the premiere is 10:30 pm as opposed to 7:00 pm.

I am sorry if it was already discussed but I was wondering if the Canadians will once again see the episodes prior to the American audience ?

Last year this provided some much needed advance information about the level of suck of each individual episode.

No, luuke, we all suffer together this season.

Well, that's comforting.. thanks wwg23

I'm kind of glad. I way over-spoiled myself on Wednesdays last year. The episodes seemed even more dull.

I still somehow managed to know ahead of time almost everything that happened in Odyssey. Now I'm anxiously awaiting the ratings. I want them low to reflect that the currently advertised direction the show is supposedly taking (clois) isn't an effective way to sell this show.

Me too. But as massena pointed out above, the premiere is likely to have decent (if somewhat depressed) ratings. If the ratings fall dramatically, I figure they'll start going down in the next few weeks.

Ouch! That's quite a drop from last year.

Deleted. Ratings info from MediaWeek was here.

Wow. That does seem low. Could it be that it's debuting relatively early and people maybe didn't know it was coming?

Then again, it had very little competition and "Gossip Girl" seemed to have done just fine even earlier with its premiere. Yowzers. Maybe it's the Lex effect.

Huh? Did I miss something? As in THE END? They aren't going to do a full season?

It seems the "New Adventures of Nois & Clark" is not bringing in any new viewers & driving off long time fans. Heee!

Unless something has changed in the last two weeks since I talked to BP, no, that doesn't sound right.

Christmas came early for me.

After weeks of Clois4EVAH and ED's "I win", my response is "you lose".

I appreciate that they wanted to move Clark forward, so did I, but Clois4EVAH as a promotion strategy was stupid.

ETA: While I would love to say it was Clois that killed the SV, I think it's the age of the show and the loss of MR and KK fans that dropped the numbers. Clois and "ICONIC!" were not enough to draw a new crowd but that is not all that surprising.


I think it comes back to wrap up S8 after the hiatus.

Must not gloat... must not gloat...

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? GLOAT!!! I always find these numbers confusing-- I wonder what that equates to in absolute numbers? I guess we'll find out soon enough.



Amen. I expected this, but I'm nevertheless pleased about it. Here's your first lesson as showrunners, guys: Don't suddenly and violently change the show's direction in its final season and expect the audience to like it.

I'm sorry, but I have to say that the Clois and the Chimmy push didn't work. It could be the ED interviews, but I thought those were pretty obscure outlets. Why don't they talk about Clark and Chloe for a change? Try a different strategy, maybe, see what happens?

I think this guy is seriously misinformed. Just because Smallville's taking a break after the 10th episode and Reaper is taking it's time slot in the mean time, doesn't mean it's THE END. :S

And can someone translate those numbers, somehow? Are they good? Are they bad? I always forget what they mean.

I totally failed in that department.

But, as I said in my edits above, it's more to do with the age MO than the Clois4EVAH pimping. I wouldn't be surprised if DVR numbers were higher. I did DVR and watch this am when I found out the Clois damage was limited to what had already been over exposed on line. The Chimmy is "perfect" was difficult to see though.

I don't know, but "down 19%" is clearly not good news.



SV always has significant increase when you factor in DVR numbers. I think there were a number of factors, a loss of Lana and Lex fans being among them. However, I think the relentless flood of "Clois4evah" pimping likely drove away Chlark fans, too. I've said before that I think it would have been smart of them to keep playing both sides of the shipping war till the last possible moment, rather than go on and on about Clois' amazing chemistry and iconic-ness and yada yada yada. There are only two major ships left, and they've done some pretty hard-core stomping on Chlarkers. Not smart, IMHO.

I think the final numbers will probably be around the high three millions low four millions. Wasn't last year's premiere surprisingly high considering the ratings drop that never recovered in the final portion of Season 6? So taking about 20% of that number will probably land us somewhere within the average for last season.

Still though. Nearly a fifth of the audience. Ouch. But a good retention rate for Supernatural is a bonus I guess.

Someone I know who has watched Smallville from Day 1 & a hardcore Superman comic dude, made this remark about Clois4evah direction, "Why watch that? Seen it before, It's been done repeatedly..."

"Bizarro" had 5.08 million viewers, according to Wikipedia. I'm not great with math, but a drop of about 20% would presumably equate to slightly more than four million viewers for this one, I think. If Wikipedia is correct (always an iffy assumption), the show dipped beneath 4 million after "Blue" and never rose above it again. So 4 million would actually be an uptick, but a small one. Given SV's usual pattern of high premiere ratings that slowly sag, I think this could be a pretty bad rating.

Whoa! 19% drop.

You know participation in the Ksite awards dropped 20% this summer from last year, too. Almost the exact same amount. SueB posted the numbers. Based on votingpatterns it looked like it was Clana and Chlark fans/supporters who dropped out of fandom. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Lex fans who left with MR might have also been Chlark voters/supporters in the past. I didn't expect the Nielsen ratings to decline almost the exact same amount. I figured online fandom would react more sharply and be more upset about the changes than more casual fans. I guess not.

I'm torn.

Reasons to be happy.
-Goodbye ridiculous S9 talk.
-More evidence pimping Miss "Nener Nener" and "I win"/ICONIC! Nois & Clark adventures won't help ratings
-Maybe old school fans will finally be taken seriously because they really did walk!
-The CW is run by idiots, it doesn't deserve any success.

Reasons to be sad
-I heard despite the *MASSIVE* amounts of obnoxious pimping they did for The New Adventures of Nois & Clark All.Summer.Long. the premiere actually wasn't the crapfest one would have expected.
-SV still has so much potential
-AM/TW are still on the show, they work really hard and they deserve success



I'm not sure that's right. Since I stopped following ratings the way I use to, I can't check, but I remember Bizarro getting a boost in the finals. I thought it might have been even higher than that number.

While there may be loss of various fan bases, I think the numbers can be attributed to absolutely no promotion by the CW. For the last month, and longer, we were subjected to a bombardment of publicity for 90210 and GG and the other new shows, and almost nothing for SV. Where were the publicity photos? Why the trailer so late in the game? All month we should have seen a beautiful TW in a suit or wet with stubble, and a rippling, shirtless JH smiling at us a few times a day.

It's clear to me that Dawn's strategy is out with the old and in with the teen soapy rich-but-sad-and-evil angst. The network is floundering, SV is expensive to produce, and old farts don't buy enough hair and skin products.

I suppose this rightly belongs in the bitterness thread, but it's only bitter towards the CW, not PS3 and company. While we might disagree on whether or not PS3 should have done this or that with the characters and their arcs, there's no doubt that Dawn is ready and willing to jettison her most expensive albatross.

Don't judge me bad for this but... naner naner :)

I think the back to back first ten is a strategy to know what to do with the rest of the season. They sold the show as even newer adventures of Nois and Clark and if that fails maybe they will try to go to what this show was all about before that concept ever plagued the it..so ratings keep drooping...just keep droping.

If I were a Chlarker I'd rather not be led on and lied to just so these guys can get ratings and keep their job. I can see how keeping up a ship war may be considered smart and even a good business practice but to me it's just jerky behavior, infinitely more so than "I win" comments. YMMV. If the show can't survive without purposefully causing discord within its fandom I don't think it deserves to stay on the air.

The fast nationals are out at pifeedback.com.


So looks like it's the CW's top rated scripted show for the week so far.

Ouch. Even when you figure in the DVR spike, that is rough. If the ratings follow the traditional patern of falling after the premiere... double ouch.

More importantly, this was up against repeats. When Survivor, Earl and Ugly Betty come back... damn.

The chances for season nine just got a kick in the balls.