I'm wondering how many viewers the show will lose with the coming of the CW. My dad, brother, and I are probably going to be three of them simply because our local CW channel will be 28.2, a station our televisions don't pick up. We can't afford upgrades, not even to a receiver and converter, so we're going to be season sixless, at least until it hits DVD rental status ... in time to miss a hypothetical season seven. (I'm thinking - new station, people unable to get it, ratings drops, and shows that are on the channel all get axed...followed shortly by the decision that it was a mistake to create a new entity in a changing-yet-still-unevolved media landscape and the disappearance of the CW. But I'm a pessimist. And irritated that I likely won't get to see season six.)

never mind

According to a K-siter, the rating for last night's episode was:

According to Mediaweek :

Also at 8 p.m. was the season-premiere of the CW’s Smallville (Overnights: #4, 3.8/ 6; Viewers: #5, 5.04 million; A18-49: #5, 2.2/ 6),

Looks like the switch the the new network had an effect. These don't look that good. Maybe somebody can compare the other premieres. I know the 5 million viewers is about the same though. So as long as they hold onto their viewers they should be ok. Also a poster in the CW forums said while every show on the CW was down except America's top model, Smallville was the highest rated of all the scripted shows.

From Zap2it...



It looks like Ugly Betty just creamed everything except survivor. Every show was down.

Interesting figures.

As another perspective in the "is this the last season" talk, I have been interested to see where SV plays on Canadian stations as it gets moved around the dial. For seasons 1 - 3 is was shown on CityTV - the one that bills itself as the trendiest of the networks (and it is a mini-network which is soon to be gobbled up by CTV) and was on opposite to the showings on the WB - in season 4 it got moved to my local station (the former CFPL - now part of the A-Channel subset of the City group) and it began to be moved around hither and yon and it was very difficult to find on a regular basis. It was also added to SPACE channel on Sunday at 7:00 pm EST (Space is a specialty channel of City) and has been in that location ever since, but during Season 4 it was a week and a half behind - this is how I was able to miss all of season 4 except the premier, the season end and Transference - I just waited to watch if the episode looked good here. During Season 5 and after the move to Thursdays, SV appeared back on CityTV opposite the SB airing - either TPTB over there liked the ratings they were getting or they ran out of extraneous episodes of "Fashion Televsion" to show. The episode shown on SPACE was also that week's episode - no more week's delay so the viewers who watched on that were only 3 days behind.

This season it's back on my local A-Channel without very many promo spots - the number of those for 7thHev and Monk has been unbelievable. SV is still also on SPACE on Sundays, but they are showing the episode in the same week (or they appear to be, I won't be sure with them until Sunday). CityTV is now showing Ugly Betty in the old SV slot.

All of this is by way of illustrating that when it seemed to be a hot commodity it was shown on the more flagship station and when the ratings cooled it was shunted around until it almost couldn't be found. Season 5's more obvious buzz made TPTB move it back to a more prominent position, but now it's back languishing in the shadows of brighter lights.

This is also proof that Gough and Miller shouldn’t have abandoned the family audience and then they’d be pulling in bigger numbers.

I heard that 7th Heaven only did so well because it was billed as the series finale, and ratings are really down for its new season

You're right about this season's ratings for 7th Heaven Frelling Tralk.

Pulled from mediaweek:



I'm reserving judgment on the ratings news for at least the first four weeks. By that time most folks know what shows they are going to watch/drop for the duration and we'll have a better idea of how the shows are doing in terms of viewership.

From KSITE.



So they were pleased as a whole.

One episode does not make a season. Seventh Heaven is a show that’s done very well. Without the advertising push that Smallville receives it has survived and often thrived, beating Smallville many times, including last seasons finale. If one show with low ratings meant anything both 7th Heaven and Smallville would be gone. 7th Heaven has bounced back from low ratings before. It wouldn’t surprise me if it did it again, just like it won’t surprise me when Smallville takes it’s annual dive at the end of the season.

I want to comment on this if I can stop laughing enough to type. They aren't comparing year to year. The CW's attempt to spin this is so transparent. They are determined. I'll give them that. If they compare year to year, they'd have to admit to a 29% drop in Adults 18-49 and a 19% drop in 18-34. Ad buyers (who are the only ones who really matter in these ratings wars bc ratings are done for them to fix ad purchase prices) look at year to year and week to week comparisons to figure out how secure an ad purchase price on any particular show is. For this reason, Mediaweek does week to week and year to year comparisons. The year to year comparison is important for an established show like Smallville bc Smallville premieres at stronger numbers and declines over the course of the season with much lower ratings in the spring. It is predictable in that way. So, the CW picked an air date in the spring (which starts the base much lower) for comparison with the premiere ratings to make them look better. It's just hype for the masses. The ad buyers know what they are doing and they'll look at the yearly's and the show's ratings history to decide what to pay for ads. It's still amusing that the CW picked this way to try to spin the numbers.

Yeah, but you gotta cut them SOME slack since they're changing to a whole other network, in many markets moving to a whole different channel on the dial. I think they were just praying their ratings didn't completely bottom out from this. As media mergers go, this one's looking fairly painless.

On the other hand, premieres and finales usually do better than the filler if I'm not mistaken so I don't see a huge rise for the series either and a potential for at least a slight dip especially if things go wonky. And as well as Ugly Betty did, it's not Grey's Anatomy or CSI in terms of crushing ratings competition. And the advertising is less than . . . stellar.

Omar - OR you could look at it as the network lost a competitor targeting the same market (18-34) so their ratings should have gone up as they did for ANTM and OTH. ANTM went up especially and beat all the other networks in 18-34 and trounced them in women 18-34. ANTM's performance established that The CW is capable of getting much better numbers. The ratings disappointments have come from scripted shows. So, there is a problem there. Yeah, no one really expected UPN ratings + WB rating = CW ratings. But, the successful shows should have all gotten a boost of some kind from the deletion of the other netlet from the picture instead of going down.

And Smallville's numbers are especially bad considering they could have gotten a push from Superman Returns this summer and all the Superman hype Warner Bros. put out for that. The show didn't seem to get any boost from that although I'm not surprised bc the movie wasn't the hit people had expected and it was completely overshadowed by Pirates.

Also, since this is sorta the money/financial status thread, I thought I would post a link to the ad rates for all primetime shows. I was somewhat surprised to see Gilmore Girls collects more ad revenue than Smallville even though they get comparable ratings and much is made of Smallville skewing male which is suppose to be a more lucrative demo. I'd speculate that GG attracting a more upscale female audience (I've heard, I've never seen actual numbers posted) than Smallville's male audience accounts for the difference.
http://adage.com/images/random/tvchart06.pdf

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there some markets that were actually lost due to the merger? I know some people in the US who couldn't watch SV b/c their cable company, which had offered the WB before, did not carry the CW.
Is there any way to look at the pre-merger markets versus the post merger ones to see which were lost?

I think any time you take a show from one channel and put it on another (or when an entire network disappears and is replaced with something unfamiliar), you should expect a dip in the ratings, at least until people figure out where to find it and get used to it.

Yep, they lost UPN as a competitor, but that Thursday night timeslot is even deadlier this year. It's a good point ,though -- I know some people who are seeing "Everybody Hates Chris" for the first time because it's on Sunday nights when they can actually catch it now.

If Betty gains momentum, I can see it hurting Smallville even if it's not exactly the same demo. I think Survivor will be bruised this year - interest seems to be waning fast.

you are not wrong Stina. There were markets that were lost, including 2 whole states in Hawaii and Alaska. There have already been some Hawaiin's on SDK's blog that are upset...You know I think they should offer Smallville for download for 1.99 on Itunes. This could offset the lost markets by charging 2 bucks to see the episodes right after they air. And if it's popular that is good press for the show and the network.

Why did they lose two whole states? Shouldn't one or the other network have stations there?

Ugly Betty (which I LOVED btw) is skewing odd. The 18-49 is not as high as I would have expected from the total viewer numbers. I haven't seen if this means that it is skewing really young (teen, tween, kids) or older (50 +). The next few weeks for that show will be interesting bc it went up at the half hour mark which I don't think another new show has done this season and it did exceptionally well considering it had no lead in. However, ABC and Stephen McPherson did an amazing job promoting the show and the good reviews were everywhere so that could have drawn samplers for the premiere who won't stick around for the next episode and if so, those viewers will probably be gained by something else.

And while I see your point about changing the channel, 67% of ANTM viewers had to find it on the old WB channel and 8% on a entirely new channel while only 27% of Smallville viewers had to find it on the old UPN channel and 8% a new channel. If channel confusion was the issue, ANTM should have gone down instead of going up.

Well I know here in the Philly market(one of the largest in the country) it switched channels. I actually had to tell my dad what channel it was on so he could watch it.



I have no idea. I just know people from both states are bitching about it. Hawaii especially. From what I remember reading, they both will have the channel in a couple of months. Something to do with the CW and the negotiations between the affiliates.

I actually think Ugly Betty will grow if the quality stays consistent. My first thought after seeing it was, "Damn, I wanna see another episode!" It's definitely a big warm fuzzy amid all the procedural dramas and supernatural wannabe shows. Lots of people were talking about it at work today and people who missed it last night are planning to watch it on ABC.com or catch it next week.

Neither the WB nor UPN had 100% coverage so there were already some markets that couldn't get the netlet's programming. Now, the question of the CW's current coverage versus the WB's coverage and UPN's coverage in population figures is something I haven't seen posted anywhere. I'd expect that to be a very complicated issue bc I think the WB and UPN claimed some areas as covered bc they were available thru cable in those areas, but not to non-cable subscribers and now some areas can't get it bc Time Warner dropped it from their cable lineups but there might be other areas that can get it now without cable that may have required cable before so unless someone at the networks has already done the math, it'd be very hard to know how that balanced out.

ETA: Omar - Yeah, I called my sisters to tell them to watch it bc I enjoyed it so much. I saw some people on the UB board say they called friends during commercial breaks to tell them to watch. And as I said the show did go up at the half hour mark which was very remarkable. But, it did get a lot of hype and there are definitely "samplers" in the audience who check out everything new to see if they like it and then leave. I'd guess that's why premieres tend to be higher than regular episodes for most serials. The question will be whether UB will get enough good word of mouth to pull in viewers to replace the serial samplers. Also, you and I are in the target market for Ugly Betty and I'm not sure whether the telenovela jokes and other Hispanic touches will "connect" as strongly with the general audience. I'd like to think they are universal, but I'm biased by my own life experiences so I couldn't really guess if they are. The French love Jerry Lewis which I don't get. There is such a thing as cultural bias and that can be especially apparent in humor/comedies which could have a factor in UB's future. But, again, I'm rooting for it to be a big hit.

I don't think you should blame the move totally. After all, people manage to find brand new shows on TV like Heroes & UB.

Alaska has 600,000 or thereabouts total population according to the tour guide so I don't think it accounts for that big a drop in terms of viewership.

The CW expected a drop-off because of scheduling confusion and whatnot, so the ratings are pretty much as they expected. Other new shows are premiering on established networks, which isn't really the same thing as what's happening on the CW.

I'm not sure what the deal is in Hawaii/Alaska. When the merge was initially announced there was some scramble to figure out which of the WB/UPN stations in independent markets was going to get the CW contract. It's fairly easy to figure out that if you have a WB station and a UPN station in your city, and one is owned outright by either CBS or Warners, that that station is going to become the new CW, and the independently owned station is stuck without an affiliate. But it's the markets where neither of the affliates is owned/operated by either CBS or Warner Brothers that negotiations had to begin to try and figure out who was going to win affiliate-ship. If you say that Hawaii might have a CW station soon, that tells me that maybe their UPN/WB station there did not like the offer for affiliation from CBS/Warners. Hawaii is so small that Honolulu is the only market there, so if there's not a station to carry the CW then the whole state is out of luck.

This may be a naive question but how is the promotion of the show divided up? Does the CW take care of television/magazine promotions and SV PR takes care of cast member photo shoots?

I'm going to stay with Smallville for the now. As soon as I get annoyed with too much Ollie/GA/Lois/Clois, I'll change to Ugly Betty live and watch Smallville later.

Massena, it's funny you mention the Spanish novelas because just now I was talking to a friend and she didn't even notice them...while I was laughing like crazy at those little novela skits with Salma Hayek so the general audience w/o exposure to Spanish soap operas may not even realize those little clips on the tv.

They actually aired the premiere episode of Ugly Betty on ABC Family Friday night so I was able to catch it then. I really liked it.

I agree with MsSullivan, if Smallville starts to go in a route that I don't like, I'll switch to that and just download episodes of Smallville or tape it/Tivo it (when I eventually get it lol).

I don't want to see Clark and Nois forced down my throat and her lightswitched into a role that she doesn't deserve and most importantly, didn't earn.

Ugly Betty is about the underdog prevailing. And that is why I love the story of Lois Lane being once named Chloe Sullivan so much.

Count me in as another SV fan who's considering switching to Ugly Betty. In fact, I was so annoyed by the CW's promo campaign for SV (pushing AM into the background and pimping ED/TW), and I'd heard such good buzz for UB, that it was Ugly Betty I watched live--and I LOVED it. Finally, I've found a show where substance counts more than looks.



Amen, MissIndependent. I'm still taping SV in the hope that this happens. I think I'll keep watching UB live, though.

That's exactly why I love UB. Unlike a certain character, Betty doesn't get thew crap beat out of her metaporically. She actually comes out on top occasionally.

Topic? Anyhow, I noticed due to certain Lexana spoilers, a couple of viewers gave up on this show. So we'll have to see what happens.

My first "oops" of the new TV season - I watched Betty and forgot about the SV premiere.

Does anyone know if there are plans to re-broadcast?

The CW must not have done a good job promoting the show bc it sounds like you didn't exactly have the new season of Smallville marked on your calendar. To answer your question, I don't think they'll air a repeat, like the premiere, until after November sweeps, so sometime in December will probably be your first shot to see it on tv. It is probably online somewhere though.

Marta - The problem I have with channel confusion being blamed is that One Tree Hill, another former WB serial, saw no viewership decline from its premeire last Fall even though its ratings also fell throughout last season. Its ratings were almost identical except for a slight increase in women 18-34. If it was a channel confusion problem, I think OTH's viewership should also have decreased. Also, if OTH viewers could find the show, there is no reason to think GG or Smallville viewers couldn't do the same. I refuse to consider that OTH viewers are smarter for some reason. If someone doesn't have cable, they'd only have a few channels to go thru to find their program. If someone has cable, they can go to the TVGuide channel to look for their program. Heck, they could even flip thru their channels to find it. That would only take a few minutes.

Lack of access bc of merger and loss of coverage as a factor was asked about. I still don't know how many areas now have The CW which didn't before, but someone called Cyrius on the zap2it.com forums posted a mathematical analysis of the loss of coverage (population wise)due to the merger affecting ratings.



I can't verify the population figure bc I didn't do the math. The percentage of Americans watching non-cable tv during primetime seems about right to me and there is no reason to assume tv viewership is higher or lower in the areas without coverage bc of the merger. The 10% viewership share for Smallville actually seems high. I think the /4, /5 or /6 share that is typically reported for Smallville is the % of households viewing the CW out of all the households watching tv at that time. So, it's usually 6% or under.

Ms.Sullivan - When those novela clips came on Ugly Betty, I was laughing hard. It's interesting that even if other people didn't get them, that they still loved the show. On my livejournal friends list, I've seen a lot of people say they caught Ugly Betty on ABC Family or Soapnet or watched it at abc.com and that they're hooked and will watch now and I don't think very many of the people on my flist are Hispanic so it seems to have a broad appeal. Interestingly, all of the people on my flist are/were Smallville fans (and generally mostly Chloe fans) since that's what we have in common. I guess Omar could be right and Ugly Betty could cut into Smallville viewership. People are in love with the setup. It does have a satisfying feel-good vibe to it.

Editor Chick, Smallville "Zod" is on again at 2:00 AM eastern time on Space channel. I hope this helps :)

I agree, I have non-hispanic family memebers that are looking foward to next weeks episode. Even my brother a long time Superman fan wanted us to watch UB in my room instead of Smallville (He left SV when Lois Lane "came to ruin this telling of Superman"). So its not only women/girls facing a possible jump to UB, even young 20 year old guys.

Right like MissIndependent said the underdog will prevail in UB which gives the audience the message that HARD WORK does pay off.

According to ABC MediaNet, Smallville had the highest ratings out of any CW show with 4.96 million. (Note: These are the final numbers).

PepSinger - Thanks for the link. Smallville's finals regularly go up bc Smallville does better in non-urban areas than GG or ANTM so when those areas are taken into account in the finals, its viewership goes up. But, that's not really a good thing. The network would rather have urban viewers bc they tend to be higher income and have more disposable cash. That's probably why ANTM and GG while not drawing bigger audiences could charge more money for their ads this year than Smallville.

Ratings are all about ad revenue so it'd be better for Smallville, like ANTM and GG, to have higher overnights from the urban markets.

Boy how bad do the CW wish they had greenlit Aquaman? Runaway is a runaway disaster.

For all the jokes I want to make about Mercy Point...

For all the crap the Goughlar would have eventually done to piss us all off

And even considering what a lame hero Aquaman is...

The raw power that is Ving Rhames would have guarenteed a higher rating than Runaway . The Neison boxes would have automatically added 3 million people out of fear for the amount of shit Ving would raise if he was in the lowest rates show of the week.

Hell, change the name of the show to Ving Rhames and his loyal sidekick Aquadude and you would have the ratings hit of the year.

Poor choice, WC. Poor choice.

Add: I caught the replay of Ugly Bety on ABC.com last week after Supernatural, and I am hooked. As a Chloe fan, a story where the smart, hard working underdog wins is already looking pretty good.

I feel kind of bad for Donnie Walhberg.

As much as I despise them, SV PTB do bring in money for CW.

Thanks, PepSinger. I'm glad that SV did well, although I don't often understand what the numbers mean. But that's why I come here; the discussion is always very helpful. Thx!

I just hope the ratings stay level, and of course if it is to move at all, I hope it's up, *g*. The premiere was very strong; maybe it will generate some positive word-of-mouth for "Sneeze". :)

It has to do well. The new CW show isn't doing too well.

No problem at all bringing it over. I just hope the ratings increase over the next few weeks. And I'm glad SV is the highest rated show on the CW.

That may be difficult with 2 of the biggest markets in the US involved in the Baseball playoffs...They will probably fall off a bit for the next couple of weeks..

According to a K-siter:

According to Zap2it:
At 8 p.m., the second episode of ABC's "Ugly Betty," 9.5/15, held on to most of the audience from its premiere. "Survivor: Cook Islands," 9.4/15, was just behind in households but won the hour in viewers. "My Name Is Earl," 6.0/10, and "The Office," 5.4/8, rebounded some from last week. FOX's coverage of the National League Division Series was fourth, beating The CW's "Smallville," 2.8/4.

According to Mediaweek:

Last, but still worthy of mention given the severity of the competition, was the CW’s combination of Smallville (Overnights: 3.6/ 6; Viewers: #5, 4.60 million; A18-49: #4, 2.0/ 6)

Wow it didn't lose as many viewers as I thought it would because of the baseball playoffs...For a show that targets the exact same audience that will be watching the baseball games in the 2 biggest markets it didn't do half bad.

From ABC MediaNet:

(10/2-10/10)

1. ANTM 5.25
2. Gilmore Girls 4.62
3. Smallville 4.52
4. 7th Heaven 4.17
5. Friday Night Smackdown 3.84
6. Veronica Mars 3.36
7. Supernatural 3.34
8. OTH 3.09
9. Girlfriends 2.85
10. The Game 2.69
11. All of Us 2.40
12. EHC 2.36
13. Runaway 1.86

Edit: I forgot wrestling.

Let's see 7Th Heaven hold on to those numbers in it's new timeslot.

Ouch, EHC is bombing badly. Smallville lost the first spot, not a surprise really.

As long as SV's ahead of 7H and OTH, I'm good.

Well Smallville was beaten by Gilmore Girls all year last year, so that's not a surprise...They are most likely going to battle for the top spot among scripted shows all year long.