Turbulence had a 3.4 rating. Injustice was the one that had the 3.3.

Thrilled for the crappy ratings.

I don't think Dawn would move Vampire Diaries to Wednesday solely because Vampire Diaries is new, shiny and, most importantly, Dawn's. She can boast about the numbers her new show is doing on a competitive night. Plus Vampire Diaries is actually doing well in the demos she wants (better than Smallville last season, I think). They'll probably just do repeats of Melrose Place on Wednesdays to build up viewership until Heather Locklear can come in to save the day and then mid-season replace TBL with the reality shows. I'm just glad that Smallville did poorly last night. My heart gave a little jump (in a good way) when I saw the numbers.

If the final numbers hold around the same number then they will have lost about 500K total viewers. Seeing as how it's on Friday nights now, I'm telling you they are going to view this positively. The only way they start to get really negative is if they fall under 2 million. And, if the good buzz about the premiere (and the buzz is good in other parts of the web, just not here) and Metallo then they may hold the viewers. I don't see them losing 20% of the premiere viewers simply because Smallville's ratings has always been susceptible to the previous weeks quality. If people are happy then the will stay the same or in some cases go up...When they produce episodes that people hate, the next weeks episode usually nose dives unless it's a Special Guest type of episode.

Either way, we'll know by Xmas. It's a shame, because with the exception of Nois, this is the season that I've been waiting for, for years.

2.48 million for a season premiere? Wow! That's way worse than I hoped/feared. I hope PS wasn't counting on Savior to help build up their viewership; based on those numbers (Savior's content probably didn't help either) they are so screwed.

Looking at the ratings fail, I wonder how the show runners are justifying the direction they took Smallville now? Is it sinking in how badly they fucked up by alienating so many long time fans? Probably not, but I hope so, because then they might get a clue and produce something watchable.

Me too, I'm ecstatic *G*



Is it? TVGuide doesn't seem to think much of it. Other stuff I've read aren't particularly postive either. I'm somewhat puzzled why you're obliquely rapping TWOP over the knuckles for not having a good view of the premier as "other parts of the web"? I've always wondered why the expected review from ehre is: I love you, sV, when the posters here are reknowed and supported for their criticisms of a show when the aura of Superman and the comics creates such a blinkered reviews of the show by people who follow dozens of shows at a time, and don't have the time to dig back into past seasons and see how the storylines and characters have progressed or in this case have been retconned into being something completely different.

Also, as I understand it, shows lose viewers as they progress. If the premier dropped below Failsday which suggests people aren't happy and aren't tuning it, why would it go up?

Which, would Metallo holding these viewers make it the next lowest rated episode? It makes me sad for BAG, he had a good thing going with TSCC.

ETA: I didn't think there was much buzz leading up to the premier and from the small number of reviews coming out after, I thought that reviewers had given up on the show, which the numbers bear out - this isn't a show with good writing, and it's steady degradation of Superman, culminating in this season can only be spun so far, I think. If the established fanbase isn't turning out to tune into Fridays, and that's fanbase that doesn't need the publicity, I don't think anyway, then they're in trouble. The Cnois blitz over the summer did it's work effectivelty in making sure that everyone knew there's nothing to tune into if you used to like a show called Smallville.

I'm not surprised CW is celebrating the dissapointing ratings. They have set the floor at 2M. My hope is that the ratings drop in an unambiguous rejection of a shallow storyline with the message that Superman brings out the worst in people, ruins good people's lives and is an ass.

There.Are. Four. Lights


Too early to dance on their worthless ashes but I am cautiously optimistic.

Well said, Carcassi. I think this is an accurate sum-up of the season: No Chlark = no Superman = no reason for me to watch.

The idea this show could pull off going into a S10 after this premiere makes me feel like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX8cjJz9-F4

Dawn will probably toot her horn about these ratings, but the problem is there. If the premiere does 2.5, what are the rest of them going to do. I think two statements by PS are coming back to haunt them. The one is the one Peterson made at CC, when he said that Smallville fans come back to watch the show no matter how much they are complaining. That's why the ratings decline every year? The other one is from Souders, who in hyping up the premiere said Clark and Lois fans shouldn't miss the premiere. I guess the rest of us were free to miss it.

Just to clear up one misconception, Savior isn't the first season premiere to score lower in the ratings than the finale the season before. Exile (S3 premiere) got 6.8 mil viewers when Exodus (S2 finale) got 7.5. The other thing Exile and Savior have in common is that they launched the season when the show was moved to a new night. On the other hand, Arrival (S5 premiere) was also the launch of a season when the show was moved to a new night and it did better than Commencement (S4 finale), drawing in 5.9 mil when Commencement drew 5.5. Also, Exile drew in more viewers than Tempest (S1 finale) which had 6.0 mil. Savior, of course, can't claim to have drawn in more viewers than another episode (finale, premiere or regular season), but after next week that may not be true.

There is some justice in the crappy ratings. Maybe we can all take a lesson away from this. When we're producing a TV series and the network moves our show to the Friday Night Death Slot, we might decide against telling half our core fan base (the people who will rearrange their schedules to catch the show on a new night) to fuck off. It just doesn't seem that smart to alienate the people who love your show and are dedicated to watching it.

Except you can’t compare the premiere to the finale’s numbers and say it only lost 600K viewers (3.1 – 2.49), which is about 20% of its viewers. You have to compare year to year, so Plastigue (which aired on 9/25/09) brought in 4.1 million viewers, therefore the drop is 1.61 Million viewers, or roughly 40%.

Now it's not fair to expect SV to pull in Thursday numbers, so let’s look at year to year for Friday. On September 26, 2008 The CW was still airing Friday Night Smackdown and that episode pulled in 4.21 million viewers. So the drop for year to year on Friday night is 1.72 Million viewers or roughly 41%.

Either way you look at it, 2.49 million is very bad for SV. If you want to compare it to the following week when The CW aired EHC and The Game, SV is up by 500K as those numbers for the hour averaged 2.0 million viewers.

If the CW wants to spin it that they’re ahead of the game b/c SV is up against the comedies that’s their prerogative but it is just spin. Dawn put the magic number at 2 Million, if the premiere is any indication the show will be at or below 2 million very soon.

Also, lets remember that the numbers will drop, next week, numbers always drop off from premieres, so 2.5 million isn't the basement for S9.

I'm happy for the low ratings, thrilled in fact. I don't even feel bad about feeling this way because as a Chloe and Chlark fan they don't care about me. So *sticks out tongue* to them. I stopped watching, but I will continue to keep an eye on the ratings.

I never put much stock in Dawn's "magic number" anyway. Even in its current bare-bones state, Smallville surely costs a heck of a lot more to make than a comedy. So it needs to do a lot better for them to break even, I figure. Otherwise it's a toilet down which the CW is flushing money... which they can ill afford to do at this point, all things considered.



QFT.

The lesson being that those told to fuck off might just say, fine, I'm out of here. (Though the lack of a real fight in Doomsday probably had the same effect) Me, I had to not come home Friday night in order to make sure that I didn't fall back into this abusive relationship. Only reason I mention that is there was at least one person in my group that went out that didn't even realize that Smallville was back on the air and though I've tried to convince him otherwise, he probably will tune in next week.

I am pleased with the low numbers so far, but I don't dare do the happy or evil dance just yet for fear of a possible upswing next week. A steady decline will please me greatly, but I won't feel satisfied until I hear the official cancelation. Ideally that would mean being pulled midseason, but at the very least this MUST be the last season or there is NO justice in the world.

Very poor ratings

Bad karma wishing something to fail. I feel sorry for the hard working production staff who don't get paid that much and could be out of a job soon. They must be worried the most about the ratings, as this is not a climate to be out of work in.

I don't like the changes and am sad that a once great show is losing viewers, but I'm not going to wish a mid season cancellation and people out of work just before or after Christmas.

I wish I was this generous but since they chooses to give us the boot and just please the Nois crowd I think they deserve a cancellation and everything that comes with it. When I like a job or need it I work hard to please the clients. I don't believe in rewarding a bad service out of pity just because they might suffer... we all suffer they should had made wiser choices, YMMV.

I agree. If a show turns its back on half its fanbase, then as part of that half, I have no problem with cheering when the show fails dramatically in the ratings. Telling a large percentage of your fanbase to screw themselves-- that's bad karma. Watching the show's ratings collapse as a result-- that's justice.

Indeed if the excuse is that we are having and economic crisis and that is why we should watch whatever crap they air WE are also on an economic crisis and TV is a cheap way to be entertained. This show does NOT entertain ME, so the economic crisis is also a good reason to wish a crappy unentertaining show to crash and burn in hell. So I will sleep sound and nice if this get cancelled. Also they can go an work on VD, if SV crash they have a Lana there so it shouldn't be so hard to make a transition.

They've been in this climate for the past 3 years. Last year they were almost fired and I believe didn't get the final renewal until February or so...Don't feel sorry for them. They will still get a years worth of checks because they are not going to cancel this show mid way through, no matter how many people want them to. And, with an early notice they will be able to go to other shows. FRINGE, Supernatural, Warehouse 13, and other shows all film in Vancouver.

SV numbers look to be on the high end of the bad range at 2.48, a 2.2 or 2.3 would really have been far worse. It will be interesting to see the final numbers, during the summer, they always went down 10 or 20 percent. The finals usually are out on Monday or Tues, and that could give us some better info.

I actually thought it would do a little better, a 2.6 or so. Next week could be the deal breaker. If they remain the same the show limps through it's last season, if they decline, and there are some stinkers supposedly coming up, the show could fade away, or get a shortened final season. If it does start hovering around, 2.1 or less, I can't see it sticking around.

The tech and behind the scenes people are usually the best equipped to get jobs quickly after a show folds, they can be in demand. It is the actors, producers and writers that will probably have a harder time finding work when this show finally folds.

It is very unlikely for a show with a 22 episode pick up to have the episode count cut, it's not unheard of but it doesn't happen often. It actually happened on LnC which had a 44 episode order and was cut back to 22 eps, as part of the agreement the network promised to buy a certain number of episodes of a show to be developed (from the studio).

I seriously doubt that SV will get yanked mid-season but anything is possible in this day and age. If the show was on any other night I could see a hiatus while they try out a new show in SV's slot but it's on Friday nights so I doubt it. I think it's just going to stay on Friday night until the end. Hopefully, the network will give the cancel order within the next month or so, so that TPTB can try to wrap up the series. Nothing worse than a show that ends on a cliffhanger or without much in the way of resolution b/c they thought they'd have another year.

According to Kryptonsite, "The Smallville Season 9 premiere is now on iTunes and is apparently one of the top sellers in the TV category."

Kryptonsite

I agree it's a tough climate to be out of work in but my dislike towards Smallville comes from it being a bad product. And if a product is bad, it should be taken off the market. If a show is bad, I want it off the air. I know there are plenty of people who work on the show- there are plenty of people who work hard on every show- and I don't think wanting a show to be canceled shows any animosity to the behind-the-scenes people worthy of karmic retribution. In the same way, when TW's contract negotiations were going on, I thought it was unfair to place the weight of the livelihoods of the entire crew on his shoulders. Shows need to go off the air (some need to more than others) and when that happen, the prop guy will lose his job but it's the nature of the game. The only other option, it seems, would for every TV show to remain on the air indefinitely.

Then the network needs to decide if they are going to have a season 10, giving the production staff time to sort out their options and not mid season cancel and pull the rug from under their feet.

This isn't exactly the equivalent of Rush rooting for Obama to fail before he even got started based on party lines. I may not be a Clois fan, but I would never say that the show should be cancelled because of it--I never did when Clana was shoved at us for the first few seasons. Nor would I root for failure to prove that my preference for the series' direction is superior to what's actually unfolded. The show should be cancelled because it's abandoned the original premise and now has absolutely no direction. The same old storylines are being regurgitated with different characters...series canon is being changed and retconned to accommodate new arcs that otherwise wouldn't work...the writing is bad, the budget is gone, the timeslot sucks, etc. It's just time to be put out to pasture, IMO. And I think that the ratings reflect this. It's unfortunate for the cast and crew, but all good things must come to an end. Shitty, stale, crappy things too.


This is very generous, but really, the show's been on probably twice as long as most series last and every year, to the shock of everyone it seems, the network keeps renewing it. Anyone over there who hasn't been considering other options and preparing for a plan B since at least S7 has to be crazy.

How much is it? I'm just going to speculate that there are certain people out there buying and rebuying this to up the number of downloads. Wonder how many times ED and her family have downloaded it? lol

$2.99 per download.

I suppose it's due to people downloading who aren't willing to sit in Fridays and watch it.

Good luck with paying the show with that TPTB.

TheTTys people buying it are those who watched it last night and those who want the episode to screencap/ cut the clips so they can make fanvids.

You don't have to buy it in order to get a good enough copy to slice it up or just have it until the DVDs come out. It's not like people weren't doing the exact same thing before this season when it wasn't available legally. That people are buying it at all seems like a fairly good sign to me.

Not necessarily, all 3 of SPN's episodes are on that list and they were much higher when they were first released yet (sadly) the ratings keep dropping every week.

I don't know how the iTune revenue gets divided up, but it seems to me that would be something the studio would profit from, not the network. So, maybe it helps offset Warner Brother's cost and encourages them to pick up more of the budget, but it doesn't generate ad revenue for the CW. Heck, the CW logo isn't even on the iTune version.

There's a chance that iTune cuts into the ratings even further, if viewers who might have tuned in prefer to download the episode instead.

Seriously. I decided to stop watching after Doomsday, but I was still surprised by how aggressive TPTB were in pushing Chloe fans away. Trying to turn Clark into Batman didn't help.

I more meant that trying to offset how well SV is doing on iTunes by chalking it up to people who just want screencaps or video fodder likely isn't accurate, because people have been screencapping and making videos from free copies (although illegal) for some time now. I think it's a positive sign for any show that people are willing to pay $3 or however much it is (I don't have iTunes so I don't know if $3 is the average price for an hour long episode or not). Especially if they do it all season; it adds up to more than what the DVDs eventually will be.

Possible, I imagine it's a combination of people who forgot to watch; watched/DVR'd something else; don't have CW in their area; want HQ screencaps/videos; not home, no DVR, etc.

However, I don't know how that translates into anything substantial. I also don't know how many downloads it takes to make the list or the top of the list. I mean, The Beautiful Life is in the Top 100 but the show drew in a million viewers, so how many others are downloading and why?


It's my understanding that the Studio gets the revenue from DVD sales, syndication and online sales. The Network draws it's revenue from ad sales, which are dependent on the demo ratings. So I would imagine that help the studio but not the network.

The thing about DVD/online sales is that it's not really demonstrative of general appeal. I think FOX learned that lesson with Serenity/Firefly. FOX canceled the TV show but the DVD sales were so good they were convinced that a movie would do well and it didn't.

Someone else mentioned on another board about Dollhouse's ratings meaning FOX won't pick it up beyond the 13 episode order but all 13 eps would get produced b/c FOX knows Whedon fans will buy the DVDs. However, that doesn't really apply to SV b/c SV was already give a 22 episode order so (most likely) WB/CW will produce and air all 22 eps no matter the ratings or the online sales.

However, I don't think online sales will convince The CW to pick up SV for S10 b/c I don't think they get anything out of it. Or if they do, it's probably minimal.

Oh, I don't think it does, aside from indicate that there is still interest in the show, despite dropping ratings. Not that I expect the CW is really all that upset about the ratings.

I think they'll finish the season too. I haven't been following spoilers too closely, but I assume the writers are on their 9th or 10th episode by now, so it'd have to be canceled VERY quickly to only get through the mid-season. I would love a mid-season cancellation though, I fully admit it.

DVD sales for S8 are down compared to previews seasons, and SV used to have strong numbers in that arena. That's not helping the bottom line.

It's also 1.99 for the standard definition. 2.99 for HD.

It is like many said before, this is exactly what you get if you take half of your fanbase and spit them in the face.

I am thrilled.. I desperately wish that they get canceled in the middle of the season without a conclusion. Ohhh the irony..

Yes, the ratings are lower than they have been in the past. But they aren't bad and I guarantee you that not only will this show make it through the entire Season 9, but I guarantee you that the CW considers this a succuess. (I'm not defending the CW's marketing stratedy or their business model but I think its the truth.) First off, the ratings have been down all across the network. Second, The show moved to Friday nights. Everyone knew that the ratings were going to drop because most people don't watch TV on Friday nights. I'm a diehard fan of this show and even I am going to have to DVR it several times in the next few weeks because I have weddings and other commitments and I just won't be home on a Friday night to watch it. I have several other friends who watch the show who also told me they had to DVR it because they had to be somewhere on Friday night. Whereas, I rarely ever had a commitment on Thursday night that kept me from watching it. I think that a drop in the intial ratings due to this factor was not only to be expected but probably has been taken into consideration by the network. I'm sure that once the DVR numbers are factored in the ratings will go up. The bottom line is that the way we view television ratings is changing. More and more people have access to DVR and Tivo. More and more people have access to Itunes or Amazon.com where yo ucan purchase an episode as opposed to watching it. Cable networks have started producing so much of their own programming that even the big networks like NBC and ABC are watching their ratings take hits. Shows like "True Blood" on HBO are considered huge "hits" and yet their highest rated episodes come in around the 4 million range. Shows like "Mad Men" win Emmy's for Best DRama series and they don't even pull in 2 million viewers. And these are shows that are not in their 9th season! These are shows that are still relatively new to the TV scene. There are more channels on TV and more to watch. Television is changing and the rating system is going to change with it.

I have no idea who profits from the Itunes downloads but I noticed that today it was #4 in terms of TV downloads and the "season pass" for Season 9 was in the Top 10 after only one episode. The only shows ahead of it were Grey's Anatomy 2 hour season premiere (1 and 2) and Vampire Diaries. It was ahead of popular shows like House, Glee, The Office, etc. So I'd say that shows a positive interest in the show. There is no way that all of the people who bought that show were doing it just to make fanvids. The bottom line is that the majority of people who watch Smallville don't come to these message boards and they don't make fanvids. We are a relatively small number of people compared to the number of people who watch the show. People are buying the show because they either want to own it or they want to watch it. Being at #4 is a success for the show.

Bottom line, while the ratings dropped, they didn't drop in a way that was unexpected or alarming for the show. In fact, I'd argue that considering this show is it's 9th season and was just moved to Friday nights (and yet is still pulling better ratings on a FRIDAY than many of the other shows on the network) that the show is doing just fine. Not only will the show finish it's 9th season but I'd say that a 10th season pickup is still a real possibility.



You say tomatoe, I say tomata. :) You think the show has abandoned it's original premise and has no direction. I think the show is finally fulfilling the original premise after several seasons where they seemed to lose it. The premise of this show was to show us how Clark Kent took up the mantle of Superman. How the boy became the man. I saw the boy for the first 7 seasons. I saw glimpses of the man (whenever Lana wasn't around) during Season 8. During "Savior" I saw real glimpses of the man. I saw Clark moving towards the man he is supposed to be. He's not there yet. The journay is clearly not over. He hasn't gotten it yet. But he is learning day by day how to be the hero that he is destined to be. As for direction, I think the show did a great show of laying out an interesting arc for every single character in the premiere. You see retcons, I see a show that is trying to move these characters forward and mature them. And I believe that change and conflict are a part of the maturity process and the growing pains of life. I'm glad that all of the characters are growing and change and evolving because that's what we do in life: we change as we age and we learn from each experience. I thought the writing was good for Smallville. The special effects were great for television. The timesloe is not desirable but hey...I've got DVR and so does a large portion of the viewing audience so that's no problem for me. Honestly, I'm happy for the cast and crew. They were clearly proud of their "product' because they sent out both 9X1 and 9X2 to be reviewed prior to airing and both episodes have gotten plenty if positive buzz. Yes, there have been those that weren't happy. But there have been plenty of people who were.

I thought the premiere was great. It wasnt shitty, stale or crappy to me. To me, it was a solid premiere and breath of fresh air. I Not the best one ever but very very solid. The special effects were great. The cast was awesome. But as always, I respect that you disagree and we can just agree to disagree on this one. Yes, I wish the ratings were higher. But I can't control the CW. They chose to move the show to Friday. I don't really care what night it's on. That's what my DVR is for. :)

I still don't get why they would beach their flagship show in a terrible timeslot - don't they want to at least try for the maximum amount of viewers? Especially if there's still hopes of a JL spin-off show or movie.

No idea how networks think. However, I doubt the CW is all that behind SV, or has ever really been aside from reluctantly. From their standpoint, the show is ending either this season or next - and despite Dawn's lipservice, I do not think S10 has ever been anywhere near a lock even before ratings came out - and they are, in effect, putting it out to pasture. I'm sure had Reaper done better, they would have done this sooner and that it was only done this year because they were convinced of TVD's success. But for them to put their "flagship" on a dead night and still pull in 2.5mil, which for the CW is good, and have a new hit on their hands pulling in the kind of numbers SV used to in its old timeslot, they're kind of winning both ways. It actually looks like a very smart move on Dawn's part, so far.


I would be very surprised if there are hopes of either. They keep going to the spin-off well and it never works out. If Dawn really wanted one, I think we'd have one by now; they had gold with Kara (who was actually in line with the desired demo) and they squandered her. That right there indicates to me Dawn does not want another Smallville. She'll let the show end and then let the whole comic business be, imo.

As for a movie, that's not really the CW's decision. Honestly, I think the WB could cash in on Smallville's overall success after it goes off the air. Whether or not they want to is another case altogether and considering they're dragging on making another Superman movie period, I have a feeling they're waiting until the copyright issues get switched over and they can reinvent Superman with what they've got left.

Actually, I think what SV did to the character made most people lose interest in seeing a Kara/Supergirl spin-off. And, as interest died down, the chances of their being a spin-off faded.

As far as premiere's go it ranks ahead of only MP and TBL; Vamp Diaries, SPN, 90210 ANTM, GG, and OTH all did better in overall ratings and key demo.

As far this week goes: It ties for 4th in overall ratings and comes in 7th in demo.

TVD - 3.81 Million 1.8 demo
ANTM - 2.84 Million 1.3 demo
SPN - 2.62 Million 1.1 demo
OTH - 2.48 million 1.2 demo
SV - 2.48 Million 1.0 demo
GG - 2.09 million 1.1 demo
90210 - 2.17 million 1.1 demo
MP - 1.45 Million 0.8 demo (on life support)
TBL - 1.09 Million 0.5 demo (already canceled)

Also this isn't a fair comparison you can't compare the ratings for a season premiere against shows that are already on the 2nd or 3rd episode. If you look at year to year numbers (SV against last episode of Smackdown same night/time slot it was down 41%) If you compare Savior to Plastique (aired on 9/25/08) it was down 40%. If you compare 9.1 to 8.1 it was down around 44%.

If SV starts out at 2.5 million it won't stay there, there's going to be a drop, even if you discount the standard 10% drop from premiere to 2nd episode, it's still going to drop once the spring rolls around, all TV does. If SV is lucky it bottoms out at 2million; if it follows last season it'll drop below 2 million.

I don't know how anyone can count that as a win for the most expensive show on the network? Especially when it's not drawing in (and never really has) the key demo.

BTW - The fact that Smackdown pulled in 4 million viewers on Friday nights means that it can be done, so I don't think the slot can be totally blamed for the bad ratings.

I can see launching Vampire Diaries in the old SV slot - but they had the rest of the week to reschedule SV and they go for Friday? When they know they'll lose viewers? Why not put SV on Wednesday @ 8pm & move "ANTM" to 9pm? Or use SV in the 8pm Tuesday slot to launch 90120 at 9pm & Melrose @ 10pm?

They could use the Friday slot to repeat shows. Since the CW aims youthful, their target audience isn't home as much on Fridays anyway.

Maybe, they are not now but all depends on how it does next week. If they drop less than usual and keep themselves a float, meaning that all the people that forgot about the new night are tuning in next week, it might be nothing to bother then but I will be surprise if we don't get the usual drop on the audience, during a second episode and the danger is that they need to earn at least enough to make even, something that I think is not unless they keep themselves over 2 millions, and about that time will tell, YMMV.

Smallville has NEVER down well in the CW's demo and it probably never will because it's not a show catering to young girls. Hell, I am actually in the CW's key demo. I'm a 20 something woman. In fact, I would fall into the perfect demo for them because I have a good job as an attorney which means I have money to spend on the products that they are trying to sell me through the advertising. So I would be a key target for the advertisements. And Smallville and Supernatural are the only shows that I would ever watch on that network. The other shows do nothing for me. I could debate the way the CW chooses to run their network until the cows come home. Bottom line, Smallville is never going to win their Demo numbers. And thank God for that because I think the shows that they cater towards their "demo" kind of suck. :)

It still tied for 4th in overall ratings. So it did still do better than Gossip Girl, 90210, Melrose Place etc. So again, I'd argue that's pretty damn good considering this show came on Friday nights. I was actually home to watch the other ones and I still didnt watch them.



You're talking about a completely different crowd of people that watch Smackdown vs. a scripted drama. Are there some male viewers that might watch Smallville and also watch Smackdown? Sure. I'm sure that there are. But I wouldn't consider Smallville and Smackdown to necessarily be pulling the same audience nor attracting the same people.



Fuzzy, I agree. It basically looks like they are getting to have their cake and eat it too. I don't think the CW cares about Smallvilel at all. I think they knew that if they moved it to Friday that it would drop viewers but that it would still get enough to make it worthwhile. So they can use Smallville's old slot for their new show and yet still use Smallville for all it's worth on Friday nights.

I'm not so sure Dawn would have really cared, to be honest. I think if she was gung-ho and excited about the potential of having a girl superhero show on her network to design to her key demo and take over from Smallville, she'd have pushed for it regardless. Instead, it seems to have been nothing more than an idea floated out by TPTB prior to S7 that Dawn showed no interest in actually developing.

Her only real problem with cancelling SV either at the end of S9 or S10, is that JH and S&P will need to be given other work. JH would be the easiest to deal with, just by adding him to an existing cast for the duration of his contract, but S&P will need something to produce for two-three years. Unless they buy their contracts out, which I suppose is possible.


Yep. They know they'll lose viewers, but the show is 9 years old, so sagging ratings are a way of life. So why not put it on Friday where it can rest and pasture in its last season(s) while still pulling in numbers that make Friday nights look better than they have before.

Except you still keep comping a season premiere to shows in their 3rd week. That is not correct. If you want to compare them head to head then look at the season premieres for all the shows in which it came behind everything but a canceled show and a show that's on life support.


A couple of reasons, SV does not draw in the demos nor does it make as much in ad revenue as the shows geared towards the female 18-34 demo. Another reason is that The CW/WB/UPN has never done a 3 hour block, they have exactly 10 hours (5 nights/2 hours) to deal with now that they gave up Sunday night programing to local affiliates; so they couldn't premiere MP at 10PM.

The parings they came up with for every other show match up very well. With the possible exception of TVD/SPN - however that has totally worked in SPN's favor in that it has increased the shows ratings in the female demo - so Dawn's plan actually worked.

One other thought, whether you love or hate the show it's going into it's 9th year, long past it's sell by date and it's been on the bubble for the past 2 seasons. The fact that The CW put the show out to pasture may suck (if you still love it) but it's not the stupidest move in the world.

It's the same thing that NBC just did with L&O, the show is starting it's 20th season, pulled in 8+ million for the premiere in the Friday night at 8 PM slot. The show is old but it has a loyal fanbase. If the fans followed L&O to its new time slot great, if not no biggie they have something to fill the slot. That's most likely the same logic that was applied to SV.