That's the big question.

VD has been Dawn's only surefire hit. And if that trend continues she will have at least one of her babies attracting the demo she wants. So, if SV opens with very low numbers due to spoilerage and the Friday time slot, she might decide that SV isn't necessary to continue on her network since it will no longer be the CW's life-saver and cancel it. Because if VD does well on a weekly basis the network won't crumble. Let's say VD gets 3.9 in the ratings until SV goes on and only gets 2.5 and that continues. The newer show outdoing the older one. It's what Dawn has been working for all this time. From a business sense it would be more profitable to get rid of SV, which is a more expensive show.

I think it's a good thing in a way since it will finally put SV to rest and there will be no Season 10. And with SPN possibly ending next May it will free the CW to become the "girls only" network, due to the increasing number of women who watched VD.

It's not even the overall ratings that SV needs to worry about it's that female demo that TVD dominated on Thursday night. That's what earns The CW their advertising revenue. If TVD continues to kill in that demo then SV will drop from 4th to 5th place on The CW while being the most expensive (I think) show on The CW.

You're, right it all comes down to the bottom dollar line. Getting rid of the more expensive show, especially if it brings in less advertising revenue (based on key demos, plus I suspect The CW lowered their ad rate when they moved SV to Friday nights). While throwing their lot behind the new lineup.

I'll be interested to see how GG, OTH do on Monday and how the premiere of The Beautiful Life does on Wednesday. Given that it's an Ashton Kutcher production, I'm shocked as to how little promotion they've given TBL. However with all the money they spent on MP and TVD I guess maybe they couldn't afford it.

Just trying to estimate what the shows ratings might be this year. According to Nielsen's, the repeat of VD in SV new spot(Frid at 8) did 2.4m, while the SV repeats have been doing 1.04m. VD did 4.8m on Thurs, so it lost half it's audience in the repeat. MP which was on at nine, did a 1.05 as a repeat, it's Tues rating was a 2.27. It could mean much, or nothing. Just thought I would share.

It will be interesting to see what SV new ratings might be.

TVD pulled in another 1.35 Million on Sunday and Melrose pulled in .85 Million.

I have no idea if this will translate to a ratings gain on Tuesday/Thursday or a chance to maintain current level of viewership.

I'm rather interested to see what SV does on Friday. BTW it premieres against a full hour of Brothers on FOX. I'm not really sure if that matters, but it has CCH Pounder & Carl (Apollo Creed) Weathers in it which is enough to peak my curiosity.

Is VD the only thing the CW has going for it?

Pifeedback



Time was ATM was the only thing the CW had that could top SV in total viewers but now it's averaging less than Stiletto. A 34% drop for SV translates to around 3.3 million for next week's premier.

Since SV was going to be paired with ATM re-runs all along it makes me wonder. If TBL never cracks 1.5 million would Dawn consider moving SV to Wednesday mid season.

Not surprised at TBL's ratings, The CW never promoted the show. I didn't even know about it until a few weeks back. I think they spent all of there advertising budget on TVD and MP.

I'm still not so sure MP will get canned before or at the end of the Season. The CW really pimped that show out, they might try to save it, especially if the rumors about trying to get Heather Locklear on are valid. IMO, she all but saved the show the first time around.

"Vampire Diaries" slipped against Bones, but the CW is still bragging about how much better it's doing in the demos than Smallville. TV by the Numbers posted this from the CW:

I'm telling you, it's the shiny black hair and dead parents. Clearly a winning combination.

I'm mildly amused that the CW publicist is crapping all over Smallville's performance to boost Vampire Diaries. Not surprised though.

Also, Bill Gorman writes for TVbythenumbers and I noticed two of his comments to people talking about the ratings.

Bill Gorman says:
September 18, 2009 at 9:14 am
keanna, total viewership is meaningless, adult demo groups viewership are what matters. Adults 18-49 is a good indication of the advertising potential for a show.

Bill Gorman says:
September 18, 2009 at 9:15 am
ryan, we don’t have any viewership numbers yet.

And to continue to sound like a broken record, average viewership has almost no meaning for the success of a show.

I've said the same thing many times and I've had people ridicule me for it. It's nice to have someone else whose actual business is ratings analysis state so clearly that only demos matter. I could hug him for it.

Totally. I learned this lesson a few years back when I kept wondering WTF The WB was thinking when it kept renewing Charmed without question, while ATS and Roswell were always on the bubble.

From what I was told Charmed was a financial win for The WB b/c it hit their key demo's even though the show sucked (I'm looking at you, last 2 seasons) while ATS (minus S4) and Roswell we're much better shows.

Friday 7-10 Redsox vs. Yankees

How does baseball normally affect ratings?

Not sure in general but a BoSox/Yanks game is going to draw a lot of viewers. Especially, if the stupid, freaking, Yanks don't get their s%!t together and win a game against the Angels and secure the playoff posistion. If the BoSox/Yanks game on Friday night is still a race to the playoffs, I'd imagine the ratings will be huge.

Go Yanks!

I'm more intrested in seeing how SV does in the female 18-34 demo as it's never done well (ranked 4th last year) and what will happen to the overall ratings against Friday Night SmackDown.

Given the changes on the show, I do think the CW is trying HARD to pull in female viewership. Now of course I think they are going about it in the most wrong way possible, but I do think that is what putting the clois relationship front and center is supposed to do. But can they really pull in new viewers at this point?

To be fair, Friday isn't being called by the networks a place for shows to go and die (this season at least). NBC ( Law & Order) and ABC (Ugly Betty) have scheduled programing there in an attempt to grab some of the solid numbers CBS (Ghost Whisperer) has been pulling. But they don't seem like they'd be the same demographics as Smallville. Fox just has a couple lame sounding sit-coms so again, I'd say not really working against Smallville.

I'm no expert, but I suspect Ghost Whisperer does well in the key demo that the CW wants, but history doesn't indicate that Smallville will ever lean high in the target female demo so GW may not make a difference either.

I do think the season premire will probably to fine at least by viewership number and probably the male demographic, but I suspect we won't see the real average numbers until the following weeks. I suspect a quick drop, but on the other hand the still slumping economy might keep more people at home and available to tune in.

Smallville is pretty different from any of the other offerings, but once again I have to wonder who starts watching a nine year old series in the ninth season? Also to be fair, it's not like the prior eight years really matter anymore and so new viewers likely wouldn't have a hard time catching up, but who would actually want to risk finding that out?

I'm not so sure. I haven't looked at the ratings but I remember reading an article that indicated Ugly Betty was pretty much DOA. I don't know if they're trying to save Betty by moving it to Friday or just getting it out of the way to make room for new shows?

As for L&O I think that's just a decent performer no matter when/where they slot it. I'm a huge L&O fan and right now the original and CI are my favorite while SVU is getting annoying. In any case, L&O isn't the pride and joy of NBC; last season, they took it off the fall schedule and used it as a mid-season replacement. So, I don't think they're putting L&O on Friday night to boost ratings mostly I think it's just a slot filler. If the show does well, NBC will be happy, if not I don't think they really care.

A quick glance around Google indicates it was considered "on the bubble," but ABC did announce it would be renewed a month ahead of the upfronts. I don't think it's the solid winner in ratings it was a couple of years ago, sadly.

I was just searching for the article I read and I came across this one from Ausillio ABC Defends Ugly Betty. The way I read it is that Betty was on the bubble, it got pulled last year to make room for a new show and now it's back but moved to Friday nights in order to make way for Flash Forward. To me the move wasn't about helping Betty but getting it out of the way for Flash Foward. In this case, I do think that ABC views the Friday night slot same as NBC with L&O it's not a chance to help/improve the show but a place for the show to go. If it does well, cool...if not it'll get replaced.

While searching for Betty news, I came across this article for Melrose, looks like The CW is trying to save the show. If Heather Locklear does for the reboot what she did for the original (essentially saving both shows) the only stinker will be TBL.Melrose get's new life?

TV by the Numbers: 2.5 mil, 1.0/4.

Wow. In my wildest hopes I didn't dare imagine it being that bad. And this was the premiere. Nice to see the show get what it deserves, IMHO.

The CW’s Smallville plummeted to its weakest season-premiere ever.

---------------

8:00 p.m.

ABC – FlashForward ®
Viewers: 4.65 million (#3), A18-49: 1.4 rating/5 share (#2)

CBS – Ghost Whisperer (season premiere)
Viewers: 8.37 million (#1), A18-49: 2.1/ 8 (#1)

NBC – Law & Order (season premiere)
Viewers: 6.05 million (#2), A18-49: 1.2/ 5 (#3)

Fox – Brothers (series premiere)
Viewers: 2.82 million (#4), A18-49: 1.0/ 4 (#4t)

CW – Smallville (season premiere)
Viewers: 2.48 million (#5), A18-49: 1.0/ 4 (#4t)

Looks like Ollie and the JL were not the only ones who left the building when Jimmy died.

I'm disappointed Dollhouse did so poorly since I quite liked the premiere episode. But it was more Dollhousey than Echoey, and I always prefer that.

Anyway, I'm glad Smallville did poorly. I feel as though a minor victory was achieved. With TBL"2 dead and CW showing reruns of the not-doing-great Melrose Place in its stead, I wonder if CW will move Vampire Diaries to Wednesday and bring Smallville back to Thursdays. It's not like they had any sort of campaign announcing the changed timeslot.

You know I was all worried about SPN this week, it only scored 2.6 million but, it's been up in the key demos for the past 3 weeks and that gave me some consolation.

SV's premiere numbers just aren't good, hell the whole CW lineup except for TVD really isn't doing too good. I'm not sure if SV is DOA but it (along with The CW) is on life support.

2.48 is disastrous, but the problem is all the other CW shows are doing terribly too, bar TVD. I think Melrose Place might be rescued once Heather joins the cast, but everything else is on the rocks. Still, SV doing this badly on the season premiere is fantastic. Its only downhill from here. I think after the X-mas break it'll drop into the 1 million region.

Allow me to enjoy this moment. Dance with me people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrR7nlYc98

I know there are pre-emptions and stuff to spin, it's Friday etc, maybe DVR numbers will improve, the CW sucks overall so they will air any piece of crap. But damn, this sounds like justice for the moment.

Season premieres of Smallville

Season 1
Pilot - 8.4

SEASON 2
Vortex - 8.7

SEASON 3
Exile - 6.8

SEASON 4
Crusade - 6.1

SEASON 5
Arrival - 5.9

SEASON 6
Zod - 5.0

SEASON 7
Bizarro - 5.1

SEASON 8
Odyssey - 4.4

SEASON 9
Savior - 2.5


I think we can divide the season ratings into 4 groups:

Seasons 1 & 2 - SV at its best
Seasons 3,4 & 5 - SV when it was still good
Seasons 6 & 7 - SV when it started to go wrong, but still held its own
Seasons 8 & 9 - SV when it became a disaster

I think it'd be interesting to compare the season premiere and finale numbers. I believe that usually the rating go up from finale to premiere. This is the first time the ratings have gone down and they're the lowest ratings ever for the show (even taking into account "Stilletto"!).

ETA: I watched the "FlashForward" repeat. It's got potential!

Yes its the first time ratings when down after a finale. This episode is also now the lowest rated episode, beating SuperShoe.



Top 5 worst rated episodes

1 - Savior - 2.5 (Season 9)
2 - Stiletto - 3.0 (Season 8)
3 - Doomsday - 3.1 (Season 8)
4 - Beast - 3.2 (Season 8)
5 - Turbulence - 3.3 (Season 8)

You have to wonder if they didn't anticipate such a drop, moving it to Fridays, and adjusted the budget accordingly. I expect the effects this season are going to be pretty thin -- whatever can be whipped up with some off-the-shelf Final Cut software and duct tape.

This is the first time I haven't watched Smallville's premiere. First time since I got into the show a few months before its S2 premiere. It was just time.

Anyways, I knew the numbers were bad, but I didn't know they were this bad! That is a HUGE drop, S8 premiere to S9 premiere. You mean Doomsday did better than this?? I can't blame the time slot move for this. The numbers were on a steady downtick all last season, picking up mostly around Legion/Lana's return.

I know I made fun of them a lot, but I really think the big mistake here was letting AlMiles go.

ETA: That's what I figure too, Omar, especially since they upped the supporting cast's contracts. The budget had to be cut somewhere.

Maybe the producers should start thinking about ending the world around December instead of waiting the full year.

Just sayin'.

Let's be honest, Season 8 was bad for ratings, and if there was a reason for SV's resigning was because of the Legion/Lana arc which had decent ratings, but most importantly, the episode Power which had record high demos. The decision to sign SV was after that episode.

SPN is in a killer timeslot. It always has been, of course, but it's even harder now since a show that attracts the exact same kind of audience has moved to the same timeslot. I can't count the number of people I know who watch both SPN and Fringe.

SV's numbers definitely weren't great, especially considering it was a premiere.

I'm floored. I didn't think that the Nois Show would tank as fast. Even in my wildest dreams it was at about 2.9 million. This has just made my life and shown me that SV has been on a massive down woosh! since after Legion assuredly.

It doesn't seem so ratings gold or invulnerable as it used to be.

Also Omar - dont' knock duct tape. It's good for a lot of things and probably too expensive. They get Scotch Tape instead.

Problem right now is CW could move Smallville to either Tuesday or Wednesday. It would leave them with repeats Friday but they could always have TVD repeat there.

Since TBL was dropped CW shows MP reruns. They could string that show along till mid-season, move it to Wednesday (where it's repeats are now) and drop it come mid-season to replace it with LU which is supposed to air in that time slot.

That leaves the Tuesday slot open for Smallville to be moved there. Or they put MP and LU on Tuesdays and Smallville on Wednesday.

I fear it's a possibility since I doubt CW has anything right now to replace TBL. I would love for Smallville to stay where it is just for laughs but who knows...

According to an msnbc.com article on TBL's cancellation, the CW's already prepping a couple reality shows to fill the empty slots. This is just my opinion, but I don't think they plan on moving SV to another slot this season.

I agree, I don't think Smallville is going to be moved. And even if it is, moving a show around so people can't find it is just about as bad as the Death Slot.



It's like I was saying yesterday on some thread or other; AlMiles did at least understand that they needed to keep their whole fanbase watching. Smart showrunners don't tick off half their fanbase, especially not when they've moved nights. People are much less likely to follow you if they are angry, or worse yet, indifferent.



Wow, the worst rated SV ever by half a million viewers. And this was a premiere. I doubt it'll hold steady-ish like it did last year; I expect it to crash and burn from here, personally.

If they move it to Wednesday it'll go up against Glee. Unless they cancel Melrose I don't think they'll break up 90210 and MP on Tuesday night nor TVD/SPN on Thursday night. They already have a mid-season replacement lined up and have ordered 13 more episodes of OTH. They're also ordered 9 additional Vamp Diaries (episodes or scripts - can't remember) and 6 more scripts from Melrose.

Plus with all the money they're spending to get Heather Locklear back I don't see MP going anywhere before the end of the year. Plus The CW has already ordered 2 reality TV shows.

I'm not sure what they're going to do with SV nor do I think you can blame the Friday night slot completely for the massive ratings drop.

or this? Heh heh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b54lObQCfQ#t=0m35s

I think the PTB had this idea that they could lose the old SV fans, and replace them with viewers who would be pulled in by their more iconic "vision." But expecting a flood of new viewers for an 8 year old show is always an iffy proposition, no matter how many changes you make to try to attract them.

Possibly. I don't think they could overcome the loss of MR and KK either. I wasn't a Lana fan but she obviously brought in viewers. I am a big MR/Lex fan and if it weren't for Chloe I probably would have stopped watching at the end of Season 7. I felt the spoilers for 9 was pretty much a big FU to me as a Chloe fan. I like..liked..Clark too but there's only so much character destruction and bullshit writing I can put up with. I didn't watch.

Bitterswete, I mistook "more iconic" for "moronic." Sadly, it looks as if TPTB did the opposite. I'm happy that their idiotic Retconville is getting the ratings it so richly deserves (imo). My faith in the casual SV viewer's taste is renewed. :)



Gutting Chloe and the Chlark relationship was the last straw for me, too, wirebiter. IMO, Clark was the most Supermanly when his relationship with Chloe was strongest. Now that the writers have torn them apart to service the lightswitched Cnois, it seems to me that he's further away from being Superman than ever. No Chlark = no Superman = no reason for me to watch. YMMV.

You know there is a small part of me that is saddened the show for a premiere about the days leading up to Supeman, had such low numbers. Who would of thought when that pilot aired all those years ago, we'd be hearing about Zod, Clark training at the FOS, working in Metropolis, the Daily Planet, a Lois Lane, etc., On paper, this should of been huge. But alas, I know better. They only had to rape their own canon and like Dark Helmet hit the ludicrous speed to get to that point. The show has pretty much shown me the door. The only thing I am left is with my dark humor. On that note...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS1cLOIxsQ8

Well those were lower than expected, especially after the promotion the premiere got from blogs and the network.

All I have to say is: TANK, SMALLVILLE!

Ditto. First episode I didn't watch or record. The ratings just feel me with a warm fuzzy feeling :).

They need to start promoting Smallville like this (song fits too IMO): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AuqP_Rr_ks

I'd like to add.. There are Four Lights!

I didn't really expect them to match last years numbers. It's not really fair to them to compare numbers on a Friday from Thursday. If Smallville hovers around 3 million or slightly less then they will see that as a win. It would have taken a miracle for the show to match last years numbers.

That being said...For those expecting this show to get canned mid season...don't hold your breath. They'll let it go the full year. They have to pay them all anyway and the studio will make more money off of a full seasons worth of DVD's rather than a half season. What this will do though is let these guys know that it's over by November so they can plan the end of the series.

Smallville is already significantly less than 3 million viewers and it's unlikely that the numbers will go up without something major to attract viewers i.e Lex or Lana returning. Given that on average a show drops 10% to 20% in it's second week, SV is looking at 2.0 to 2.25 million viewers next week (give or take).

That being said, I highly doubt mid-season cancellation is likely they'll just let SV continue to crash and burn on Friday nights or put it on hiatus and burn off the remaining eps over the summer.

I can't imagine CW putting the final episodes of SV on over the summer. While major networks will put the final episodes of long running shows over the summer (IIRC, NBC did that to both Just Shoot Me and Third Rock from the Sun among others), neither of those shows were ever as important to NBC as SV is to CW. Also, CW doesn't really have anything to replace it. If this the final season, the final episode probably will get much stronger numbers than if aired during the summer.

I'm loving those numbers. Smallville is officially a cancellation candidate now and I know this will probably make me look like a totally mean person but I hope the CW pulls the plug. The show has been utter crap for years and I hate to see good shows get yanked off the air left and right while this abomination keeps on hanging year after year after year.

Oh, I don't think they'll do it. However, I think it's more likely than mid-season cancellation. Frankly I think they're just going to leave it where it is.

I love these numbers, maybe my dream of less than 2 million viewers will come true before the end of the hear! Can't wait till the next episode to see how much are they going lose! You can say that a show is in trouble when you are more interested on the losing ratings than on watching the show.



And this is my idea of what the show should do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zruFhtDLcY