If SW was to become Zod, I always thought they he should have become Zod after he split from Doomsday. This way he could have been part of the crew while working against them. S8 could have ended with him telling Tess "let's save a civilization." The way Davis went out was a major factor in turning me off of this show. If they could spoil his arc, why should I give them a second chance with Zod?

SV's arcs never seem to have satisfying resolutions. But they'd done such a nice job building up the Davis/Doomsday arc, I was hoping this time would be different. So, the week before "Doomsday" aired, I kept thinking, "Maybe they've finally done an arc I can go back and watch without it being tainted by a sucky ending. They just have one more episode to go, so not much time left for them to really screw this up. If they can just hold it together..."

But I wasn't really surprised when they did screw it up. Disappointed, but not surprised.

Every time the PTB start pimping the next great storyline, and promising how wonderful it's going to be, I can't help but scoff. Looking back on all the other storylines that were supposed to be so great, and how not-great they turned out to be, it's hard to think the next one will be any different.

Taking my response to All Seasons.

Overnights from TV By the Numbers: 2.3 million, 1.0/3.

ETA: pifeedback reports the same figures but compares them to last season (-44% ratings, -37% demo) and says, "I think it is safe to assume this is the final season of Smallville."

Tvbythenumbers called it one of Friday's losers. Fast national's are down again, with zombies and all. Not looking good.

Well the ratings are consistently in the low 2's but hey, the demo is up by .1. I expect a press release by Dawn O saying she's pleased. Seriously.

I love the smell of desperation in the morning. *Plays March of the Valkyries"

Fucking finally someone isn't afraid to tell the truth. I'm pretty sick and tired of TVGuide & Co and their blase everything is perfect, everything is EPIC about this season. If it was the show wouldn't be dieing so slowly.



But, wait MOAR zombie next week with Cnois sex! Can't you feel the already flex themselves to increase in anticipation? Pls.



I think that's a given. Can we point and laugh? These guys go by TVG as their indicator of how well their show is doing never mind people like Berman and Co.

I can't wait for the latest spin, ratings gold and all that.

While I don't think they should have a 10th season, I don't think they were expecting great numbers. If this show holds at this number for the entire year, then I think the CW will be happy. Not sure they will renew it, because it's just not cost effective anymore.

I honestly believe that the only thing that could get a genuine ratings spike is to put him in the suit. That's about it.

How dead is Dollhouse? They are even with Smallville, practically.

The viewership isn't important, it's all about the demo's and SV right now sucks in the key 18-34W demo, last week it pulled in a 0.7. That's extremely bad.

Not to mention SV is in the place of EHC and The Game two 1/2 hour sitcoms that cost significantly less to produce than SV (with it's 3 EPs, 2 stars - extended contracts; and 4 supporting cast salaries, plus SFX).

Compared yr to yr SV is up against the sitcoms by about 500K in viewers (about 20%) and about 30% in the demo.

I have to wonder if it's up enough. I would guess that SV costs at least double what those shows cost to produce.

ETA: Dollhouse is dead, it only got a 13 episode pick up for this season and with those ratings it's not going to get picked up for the remainder of the season.

...So the CW should be happy they only lost 44 percent of their audience from last year to this year? Why would they be happy close to half their audience jumped ship on their mainstay show on the network?

I guess this would make the 3rd Season 9 episode to make it onto the series' list of lowest rated episodes - is anyone keeping/updating the list?

Up a little from last week, but I knew those numbers were unnaturally deflatted by the New York area having the baseball game and Smallville being pre-empted. Next week should more solidly set the trend -hopefully downward- though I would love it if Kandor suddenly had a jump.

Not sure if it has any impact but SPN, OTH and TVD all hit a plateau in ratings around 3/4 weeks in then started downward again. So it's possible that next week will be around the same and then start a very slow decline.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Ugly Betty has a 1 hour premiere next week. I'm not sure if UB and SV share a similar fan base (I wouldn't think so) but it might draw that all important 18-34W demo away.

Not to defend DO, but I wouldn't expect her to be honest in the press releases. She's spinning for the public, but I'm sure she knows how bad the numbers are. I also don't buy that she's happy SV's hanging in the low 2s because her other shows aren't doing much better. If anything, I think it gives DO even less incentive to keep SV going when most of her lineup is floundering. Younger shows have a chance at building its audience, but SV's way past its prime. And as others have pointed out, while SV is comparable to other CW shows in total viewers, it's floundering in demos.



Besides the terrible direction they've taken this season, that's been keeping me from watching too. I wasn't too keen on another spin at the Zod wheel anyway, but them blowing Davis's arc in the finale made me reluctant to get into another storyline. It's one thing for a storyline to have a frustrating conclusion, I'm used to that on SV, but Davis/Doomsday just fell flat. Of course, I haven't had to worry about liking a storyline too much this season.

I think the network will wait and see how SV does against Ugly Betty next week.

All jokes aside though, do you think that the TPTB are even starting to think maybe just maybe they did piss off alot of the fanbase and people really didn't want this direction this year? I have to think that their meetings are going to start to get pretty gloomy if the ratings don't go up and they might have to start coming up with some real answers to why people are not tuning in..

This is what finally convinced me that there was no chance of them EVER getting it right. They were so close to actually doing a fully decent character arc; the right ending practically wrote itself, but trust the Smallvill Powers that Be to screw even that up. No way that they can bring about a satisfying conclusion to the other more complex storylines and characters. Of course, I don't even think they are trying to create satisfying conclusions to characters or stories anymore as I think the ratings reflect.

I think that's a good point, The CW is hurting, it might not even last past next year (some are even predicting this year will be the last). It's something to keep in mind b/c newer shows at least have a shot of building an audience, while older shows are almost always on a set decline.

Older shows also cost more as there are always contract renegotiation. Also, keep in mind that the cost of the show is a factor in renewal. IIRC BTVS S6/S7 were considered a very bad move by UPN because; even thought the show made very good ratings for UPN; the network paid too much for it, so it actually lost money.

I just saw an interview on the news this week about the Jay Leno Show, and how the ratings were not good, the interviewer questioned if it would make the year/get a second season and the analyst responded that while the ratings were not great, the show had low production costs which made it more viable than a scripted show/drama at those ratings.

IA, she will spin, but I can't wait for the PTBs to come out with their next interview proclaiming how AWESOMELY they're doing since they lost 44 percent of their viewers from last year and just HOW much people are loving the ICONIC BS that when they turn their TVs to watch somethinng else, they really actually mean they want to watch SV.

Their old workhorse the ICONIC doesn't do squat for them anymore; neither to DC characters, so I'm just busting to see them explain this - granted, that would presume an interviewer would have the balls to call them on how severely they misjudged what their audience wanted.

Oh AND, anyone who doesn't agree that SV is at it's ICONIC best will all just be big mean people.

I would like to believe that. At the moment i don't think it's on their minds. The Echo trailer doesn't point towards that. It's filled with Toyman hints and out of the blue comes a Clark/Lois scene that i highly doubt is on that episode. Right on cue with the full titl forced Clois mentality that this show revolves around ever since Comic Con. They might think about changing gears after the first half of the season is over.

They already have like 8 or 9 episodes filmed, if they decide to change tracks it probably won't be noticeable until probably episode 12.

If anything you might see new interviews coming out in the next few weeks, especially around the start of sweeps that might address changes to the direction. Of course that's assuming that TPTB realize there is a problem. Who knows they might be OK with the ratings.

I think TPTB knew exactly what they were doing. Not that I think they did it purposefully in a sense that they wanted to alienate any part of their audience, but they clearly had decided on what direction they wanted to go in and they've stuck to it.

Do I think they're happy with the ratings? No. They didn't want the Friday move. They wanted to go on in their regular timeslot and, despite losing some viewers as I'm certain they were all too well aware would happen, it would be enough to get them S10. They kept their game faces on after the announcement they were moving to Fridays, but I'd be surprised if they weren't preparing for this to be the last season.

Personally, I think the damage wrought by the Cnois direction of the show will not be able to be repaired to any great degree by then. A big episode might draw in some viewers, but SV will be unable to keep those sorts of numbers, IMO.



Yeah, if they're going to change, by sweeps we should be hearing something. I just feel, for me, they're just that thick-headed enough to believe the CNois did them in, so why bother trying to repair the damage? It's not like it's a 3 or 4 season show or anything like that. They come out with the spin that the UST is gone so people are tuning out so they're going to keep Cnois apart...only, they've been pimping the CNois 2gether 4ever as their great hook for a couple of seasons, finally gave in and it killed the show. Considering the way these people write episodes, this is exactly the sort of rationlization they would come up with.

This sort of ratings fail is a hell of a addition to your CV too, especially if you are it's first time EP like TW is: 2009-2010: Killed a long-running show by misjudging what the audience wants, so yes please let me run your new show *snorts* I'm curious, what would make them happy with this sort of ratings fail though? Apathy? After Failsday, I wouldn't be surprised.

I am just dying to point at CNois and go naner naner you killed the show. HA, now that's a well deserved epitaph for the tombstone of this show.

I think TPTB grossly overestimated how many of Smallville's core audience wanted to see CNOIS softcoreporn EPIC romance, going by Peterson's remarks @ ComicCon. He told fans (actual number: only 104) who participated in OWC for more Nois, up ED their efforts were being rewarded. Doesn't seem like a good choice for direction in light of the record low ratings, IMO.



Almost half your viewers isn't my version of "some", but YMWYW.

They haven't owned up to the fail that was Doomsday, so I'm not holding my breath that they'll admit to messing up with the Nois focus.

To quote Nelson:

HAW! HAW!

I feel bad that Tom is EP for a season that's not looking good.

They haven't lost half of their viewers. You have to judge them on what they got at the end of the year, with what they are getting now. Yeah, they've lost almost a half of the viewers from the beginning of the year, but they were losing those viewers long before this season started. It's also not fair to compare their numbers to Thursday's at 8pm. They are now on the graveyard shift of TV right now. There was no way in hell they were going to hold their numbers. It just wasn't going to happen.

But, they've only lost about 700k from last year's finale. That's about average for every year. The show isn't getting a 10th season, that much is certain. But, I'm not sure you can really blame the story line for that. General audiences don't watch the episodes through shipper lenses, and they don't go on the internet and post at 1230am..(Jesus I have to get to bed) about the show. I think this audience is just over the show. It's on it's 9th season. As great a show as the XFiles was, by the end it was a boring ass show and had lost almost all of its appeal. People just stopped caring.

I think, what we might start getting is not so much less Lois, but they may decide to put him in the suit during February sweeps. I used to think that they would never do this until the final episode, but TW now has a financial stake in the future of the show. He may agree to speed it up a bit and see what happens. If the show gains its old viewers back then they may consider a spinoff.

You cannot compare the viewers we are getting now with last sesons finale. Viewers are bound to drop as the season go, and you can better the last few episodes of season 9 will be doing a lot worse than these first 3 episodes. There's no way in hell they'll get their viewers back either, the show has become far too damaged.

I agree but I think there is a plan into their madness since the episodes are back to back till at least the 9th or 10th (I don't remember), they will have a hiatus to promote the hell out of a new direction if they think they can get afloat by changing gears...Of course, that is if they are aware the Cnois crap could just fall flat, if they are in denial then this show will get a sudden canceling, after their first less than 2 million rated episode, IMO.

It will be interesting to see the final numbers on Tues, but for the third week in a row, the ratings are down. TVbythenumbers also said the numbers were down in the second half hour, never a good sign.

The show has gotten alot of publicity and pimping from TVGuide, especially ED. Those numbers are not good for her long term career.

I disagree with this statement. Ships are important in most shows, and people do tend to get invested in them. For example, I was invested in the Kira/Odo ship on Star Trek: DS9 long before I ever heard of fandom OR shipping. It was a storyline I enjoyed, that's all. General audiences (whatever that may mean, exactly) may not know what a ship is, or what Chlark or Clex is, but they know what storylines grip them, and oftentimes romance storylines are among the most compelling storylines in a show. Romance is something people are interested in, simply as a matter of human nature (look at how many paperbacks sold are romances!). Therefore I believe you can't reasonably assert general audiences don't care about ships-- certainly not without citing surveys to back up the assertion, anyway.



In numbers, it may be, but the percentage of viewers lost grows larger as the overall number of viewers drops. They've lost almost fifty percent of their viewers since last September. That's a huge number which I don't think can be entirely accounted for by the change in nights.



I agree that the audience is over the show. But that's not really an explanation. Why is the audience over the show? It could be bad writing, a sudden focus on a ship that was never really focused on before (which is another symptom of bad writing, IMHO), a sudden focus on a character who was previously always secondary, pushing Chlark into the background... it could be a lot of things. But most of those things do have to do with the storyline. It doesn't seem to me to be coincidental that we have a huge drop in audience numbers at the same time we have a massive shift in focus on the series. Shipping (with the sudden huge pimping of Cnois) is part of that change, but there's also the focus on Nois (who has always been a somewhat divisive character, it seems) and the abrupt lack of focus on Chlark (not just romantic, but friendship Chlark too). If people don't like these changes, if they were more invested in the show as it was previously, then they (as I have done) will naturally tune out, and the numbers will drop.

In short, I think the ratings have to some extent dropped due to factors other than shipping, but that shipping is part of it, for sure.

Steve Wright - You always compare year to year, not season finale to season premiere. So Smallville lost half it's audience, same as Supernatural is down 20% this year compared to last year, you compare the episode dates.

You can also compare the slot year to year and it's up against the comedies by 20% in viewers and 30% in demo (18-49). However, I can't help but wonder if that's anything to crow about, in the 2007-2008 season Smackdown was pulling SV (Thursday night) numbers in that Friday night slot.

It seems to me that SV on the Friday night is the same as ECH and Game on the same night, a stopgap while trying to find something to succeed in that slot. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if The CW gave up the Friday night slot altogether and cut back to a 4 day schedule.



I think if the focus of the show is a ship (Cnois) then that's going to be a factor in why people watch or don't watch. I loved BTVS but the B/A ship was a large part of the early Buffy storyline...it's one of the reasons that I hated S3 as much as I did.

If the ship is only a B or C subplot that pops up occasionally (Jack/Sam on SG-1) then no it's not a major factor in why someone tunes in or tunes out (same with Benson/Stabler on L&O:SVU). However if it's Clana or Cnois where it's the main focus of the storyline then yeah you have to attribute some of the defection to the ship. On a personal note, I really enjoyed NCIS, I still watch the reruns on USA however, I stopped watching last year and haven't tuned back in because of the continued focus on Tiva (Tony/Ziva). I had no problem when it was an occasional issue but when TPTB started focusing on it, I dropped out. Now, given that NCIS is doing better in the ratings then ever before, I have to wonder if part of that is people loving the Tiva ship? I know a large part of it is contributed to the USA reruns but I also know a lot of people love Tiva.

Let's face it TPTB have spent most of their time pimping Cnois, not the suit, not zod. Every interview given has talked about Nois/Cnois, it's their main talking point for the season. That to me indicates that more than anything they thought Nois/Cnois would draw in the viewers.

That's why romantic subplots are so common in TV and film. Romantic novels compromise 55% of all paperbacks sold in North America. I may be obsessive about Smallville, but I'm a casual viewer of a lot of other shows and I notice when the ship is crap or when it works. The show demonstrated that Clois suck pretty thoroughly last year already. There were plenty of non-fannish journalists saying Lois was unlikable and Clois had flat chemistry.


They essentially told the audience that all the show had to offer anymore was forced crap romance. Pretty much the spoilers indicated to me that the show was going to be all Clois all the time. Recipe for ratings disaster.

Last year the show demostrated in a huge way they don't pay off their narrative arcs by not giving us a Clana break up, not giving us a Doomsday fight, and then they build up and failed to deliver a big emotional Chlark resolution. So to emphasize they intended to pay off only the the weakest link in the show was a pretty big mistake, IMO.

Ratings wise, I think Chlark could succeed where Clois fails largely because if and when it comes it's about a dedicated partnership with a shared mission and ought to be in the context of fighting the good fight together against a compelling villian.


It's what the announcements regularly report. It's a standard way of judging because there are common patterns across shows like spiking for premiers and finales, fall off in the spring etc. Mind you this show isn't spiking much for finales or premiers much which ought to say something about casual viewer excitement for how the show pays off it's story right there.


We have little enough to enjoy this season. Ratings justice glee is worth grabbing.

From trends across the years, the impression I've been left with regarding ratings trends is: most of the time, it all comes back to Clark.

If it looks like Clark is getting somewhere, people seem to show up for it. Even in the days of the core four, I recall it was quite rare for any episode that focused on anyone besides Clark to get high ratings (even if the episode was Lex-centric and had to do with the plot).

After Failsday, the show came back with Clark dressed like Neo, which I really don't think ups his goodwill with the casual viewer who is looking for something to happen: moving away from red and blue looks more like a step back from changing into the red jacket in a phone booth.

And now, Clark's arc right now is a mess. The apocalypse is apparently coming in a year, and he's chilling at the Planet despite knowing this, just waiting for Lois to drop clues in his lap as opposed to asking her for them. He quit his training as soon as he started it. It feels like we're just meandering towards midseason waiting for the plot to knock on Clark's door.

Meanwhile, Nois is getting upped screentime, even over Clark. Central focus on characters besides Clark never translated to ratings gold when they were Lana, Lex, or Chloe, back when the show was doing good numbers overall. Why would they think it would work now?

It's no secret that I'm a Chloe fan, and personally I'd be watching the show every week again if they put Chloe back at the Planet. And I think their treatment of Chloe probably doesn't help them in terms of overall atmosphere of the show, especially since people associated with the show have long referred to Chloe as the eyes of the audience as recently as last year, and she feels very distant now like never before. I think she's a definite factor, but she's not the factor for the ratings overall. (I think the lack of Chloe is hurting them in the target demo, though. Nois episodes always skewed older and male in the demos. In S9, the target demo numbers are all but rock-bottom. If they want the target demo, Nois isn't the way to get them watching. Lana and her ninja training montage working target demo magic were what got us into the mess that is S9 in the first place.)

But "Make Clark's arc the center and the heart of the story" and "Don't try making anyone else besides Clark more important in every episode" were pretty much the two rules for better ratings traditionally. And right now they're breaking both of them. I don't even like Clark, but it seems pretty clear to me that if they want better numbers, they need to have Clark doing something besides making googly eyes at Nois until sweeps, cut back on her screentime, and if they want to get really crazy, write Clark to be less of a douchebag.

This is my estimation, I have no real proof just supposition but I think it's sound.

20% - due to move to Friday night, no real logic but I think it's a fair number. It would also seem to fit around Dawn's comment about 2 million for S10. Figuring they'd start the season mid-low 3's and end the season mid-low 2's but still above 2 million viewers. I don't think she counted on the demo and ratings starting out 45% down.

10% - due to dissatisfaction with the Davis/Doomsday arc. I base this on the fact that DVD sales for S8 were down 10% from S7. I can't say it's a direct correlation but I think it's fair to assume that people being unhappy with the finale just didn't want to waste the money on the DVDs.

BTW - This is how I came up with the low-mid 3 million estimate for the premiere, figured a 30% drop would end up with 3.2 million viewers give or take a few 100K.

That leave 10% unaccounted for and I have to assume it's due, at least partially Nois and Cnois being so prominent in the spoilers & first 3 episodes. I have to believe that a decent amount of viewers tuned out b/c they were just beaten to death with Nois, Nois, Nois.

Every interview, every spoiler released was about Nois and Cnois; even at Comic Con. And the one really interesting thing, the idea of the Eradicator was shot down almost immediately (which could have just been a cover story, but TPTB should have played coy). Even the suit was hyped more by the fans and fan sites than the freaking PTB.

I've said in this thread and others that right or wrong TPTB tied their success to Nois/Cnois in the believe that (a) Nois is a very popular character and (b) that this would draw in comic book fans b/c its ICONIC and MYTHOS. Personally, I think they backed the wrong horse.

I think it is fitting in this comparison that X-Files lost it's main characater and because of that, broke up it's scooby partnership, and started focusing on other characters. I watched to the end, but only because the show never stomped on the main character's original close friendship and connection. We didn't get to see the relationship, but it was never broken like what Smallville has done to Chlark. X-Files dropped like a stone because it no longer delivered what it used to deliver and I think in that aspect, Smallville is the same. People didn't love the new direction of the X-Files (if only because they knew what they were missing) and it wouldn't surprise me if the same applied to Smallville.

Oh did you forget the show for the way it ended? Because I didn't :( I adored that ship.


I agree with you if shipping wouldn't had been a factor on ratings the publicity wouldn't had been focused on any ship in any time. First it was Clana and now is Cnois is just that even if many people hated Clana enough people loved it enough to keep the ratings in a decent number and later give it a bump. But it looks like Cnois is not the same as Clana in ratings, now if the show ever did publicize Chlark as a ship, then we will have the chance to see how many people are really diging the tiny blond with the big dumb alien...I wish they actually do that to see the results.



I agree if they would had keep David Duchovny with Gillian Anderson as the partners that made the show live, the show would had not gotten so weird and boring. Also giving they did a horrible job with not ever showing the ship getting together (I waited 9 years for some hot heave FBI agents sex and never got it!) and with their son.

Actually, I was just fine with the way it ended. I don't require a happy ending, just an ending that makes sense to me and fits with the characters. That one worked for me.



I agree, SV has long been heavily focused on romance. That's one reason it's reasonable to believe ships do matter in the ratings, IMHO.



The thing is that I think no matter how unhappy people were (and there can be no arguing that people were very unhappy with Doomsday, virtually across the board), good spoilers could have lured a lot of the loyal viewers back. Instead we got neo!Clark, which I don't think is the draw for fanboys they hoped it'd be; a new focus on Nois, who like Lana has dedicated fans AND dedicated antifans; and a huge emphasis on ONE ship, which alienated the only other shipper group they had. So at a time when they really needed to pull viewers back in, thanks to their big screwup of the Doomie arc and their shift to Friday nights, they actively went out and alienated a substantial portion of their most rabid fanbase. It isn't surprising ratings would drop as a result, IMHO.

I think Dawn will be pleased as punch that Smallville finished #3 in A18-49 demos for the night. When the finals come out I expect Rabid to have similar numbers that Supernatural received for the week. Not too bad for a Friday night show on the CW.

Probably, it seems that most SV fans are very forgiving and want to like the show. Hell the Eradicator idea is still something that appeals to me even though I detested the sheer cop-out of Failsday.

However, I'm sure many also follow the "fool me once, shame on you" (Lex), "fool me twice, shame on me" (Davis) mentality. I think people would be hesitant to just jump into the Zod storyline out of fear that TPTB would just frack it up the way they did Lex and Davis.

The issue for me is that PST have forced Smallville to be viewed through shipper lenses... specifically, Clois shipper lenses. Clois was pimped more than Zod at ComicCon. Clois is the focus of all of the promos. Clois is all PS are talking about. The Clois romance, and Lois's future-vision, are the major plot arcs this season. Most of the spoilers we have are focused on Clois. So, IMO, this is less about me viewing Smallville as the fan of a particular ship, and more about the entire fracking show being dedicated to a single ship.

Clois is dominating everything about Smallville. As a result, I have a no incentive to watch anymore. Based on the ratings, I am hardly alone in that choice.I am sure Dawn will issue a happy press release, but for the CW the only demo that matters is W18-34, and IMO those are not exactly setting the world on fire.

"The only demo that matters to the CW is W18-49, W18-34" talk around these boards is a bit hyperbole.

I would like to supply a quote from Bill Gorman who runs TVBythenumbers.

.

While I was watching Rabid on my DVR I noticed all types of advertising including:

GMC Sierra Trucks, Degree Men V12 Special Edition deodorant, State Farm Insurance,Chili's , Popeye's chicken, iPhone (young males are the largest tech buyers in the world), Stepfather(movie, horror genre which is overwhelmingly male slanted), Window 7, Skittles, University of Phoenix, Old Navy ( they sell mens clothes), and Progresso soup (high fiber).

None of those ads scream W18-34 to me.

I agree with RepairmanBob. The show didn't have to be shippy and I'm sure plenty of viewers don't watch to see who ends up with whom. (Myself included somewhat.) But TPTB made it shippy at the expense of all the other characters and plotlines. And I found the way they did it incredibly condescending. I don't get condescended easily but the vibe I got from them (one of "the audience is morons, if we just say Clois, MYTHOS and ICONIC enough they'll think it's so awesome that they'll have to watch") was a major contributing factor in my escape.

Which would be fine, if the CW was getting great ratings with that 18-49 average, or even if they found success with a huge niche of ANY specific demographic. But with the ratings doing a steady decline overall, very soon the show won't be able to charge enough for its ad time to pay for production. At which point the new focus will be how to explain a ratings-killer like "Smallville: The Clois Enema" on their resumes. *pauses in homage to karma*



Oh, Bob. You are so not alone.

IMO, Massena1 made a good argument when she said The CW is like Ann Taylor, not Wal-Mart. Smallville earned less commercial money for the CW than about every other show that was not canceled or named Supernatural in the 2008-09 season - and that was when the ratings were quite a bit higher. I would be surprised if Dawn asked for more this year, with a nine year old show moving to Friday nights, but YMMV.I am sure Dawn is selling ads - but as hexzek pointed out, they are not ads that appeal to her beloved W 18-34 demographic. They are not ads that bring in as much money as the much cheaper, more young-female friendly shows the CW has on other nights. IMO, Dawn's treatment of Smackdown showed that ad rates and cross-over appeal > ratings. Not that Smallville is setting the world on fire with its ratings, either. Of course, YMMV.

I'm not convinced that Smallville costs more to produce then GG or 90210. Gossip Girls does a crazy amount of location shots in New York City, and that shit ain't cheap! Does anyone know the Ad rates for the CW shows this year?

Sure, Dawn luvvves the W18-34 demo, but that isn't the only demo that counts. Smallville is still making enough money to keep it on the schedule and I think a Season 10 is going to happen. Of course this is just my opinion and I could be way off, but people way more educated in this business than me, seem to think a Season 10 is a real possibility.

I dunno. The way things are going with the network, if they throw away money on a Season 10, it will most certainly be Smallville's last, because the CW probably won't survive to air a Season 11 (Which I'm convinced the SV PTB will be hyping out-of-the-gate should they be granted a Season 10). They may not even have a time-slot for the mythical Season 10 if they go through with cutting back to 4 days - which seems pretty likely at this point. A while back, my local news even reported that the CW had already decided to do away with Friday programming. They were mistaken (another reason why I hate local news), but it speaks volumes as to the sustainability of the network. Crazy.

Rabid screentime

Clark 24:25
Chloe 5:55
Lois 16:24
Oliver 8:19
Tess 3:09
Zod 3:35
Emile 6:44


season 9 season 8

Clark 52:20 57:00 -5:00
Chloe 25:49 39:00 -14:00
Lois 50:32 26:00 +24:00
Oliver 12:00 34:00 -22:00
Tess 15:19 32:00 -16:00

Screen time totals don't go in the ratings thread. I think they go in the episode thread.

Any show in their 9th year, should have a core audience built. They are not going to bring in new viewers, IMO. So the losses for Smallville are from that core audience, & I simply think the entire focus of the show/spoilers on CNois has turned a huge portion of that core off. I personally am livid @ what they are doing with Chloe this year. Allison Mack & her character deserve better.