Ever read a company's annual report to their stock holders? It's the same thing. Yeah they know, we all know it's spin. However it's not an outright lie. Like I said it's highlighting a positive any positive. I've read annual reports where they say something like well we didn't do as well as we'd have liked over all but, we did well in X and exceeded our expectations in Y and we improved slightly on Z. Next year we plan to do this and that to improve in the areas we fell short but overall the prognosis is positive

So in this case The CW is highlighting improvements on male numbers for Friday night touting how well SV performed compared to a year ago, while ignoring that they canceled Smackdown b/c it was a male dominated show which they didn't want and that the show they canceled (which by all accounts was a bad move on DO's part) actually out performed SV.

Which, I think, is the reason a lot of us find it funny...because it's like hey look how well SV did in the male demo...which we don't care about anyway b/c it doesn't fit with out network brand image...because we're trying to turn The CW into Lifetime and Oxygen.


I have no idea. I know networks can make these type of decisions, but I don't know that they did, I haven't heard any rumors that the S9 direction came from anyone other than PS(W).

I have a couple of friends who know the Hollywood industry very well and they say, without hesitation, that a big reason for this kind of spin is reputation. This has to do with hoping to sell more ads and pleasing more studio execs, even if the feeling is people will see through it. On top of that, and just as important, this reputation factor has to do with pride - plain and simple. Many people in Hollywood (I'm talking actors, directors and producers) care much more about what their peers think about them than what the general public thinks. So this kind of spin has much value in their minds and they'll take it whenever they can. It doesn't matter if it's silly or not. It's just "positive" and that is gold as far as they are concerned.

CW info from Wiki, not a spin or fake data, not my or ymmv and definately remembered by people, like me who loved the S5 Chlark kiss ending that started the rolling into a downhill of S6 Clexana cakes even unto S8 as the show's beginning epic fall once the WB ended and all of the money from that and the integrated cell phone tie ins and online sites ended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_CW_Television_Network

And I understand that, but still, it just seems counter-productive and pointless if everyone knows what they're doing. It's like taking out an ad in your local paper to extol the awesomeness of the batch of cookies your mom made for the recent bake sale, when your mom - and everyone who bought some - knows they were okay, but they weren't really that great. It makes you look like a moron in the long run and as much as we like to poke fun, I think DO and the CW at large are smarter than that. It just seems to me it only makes some kind of sense to do that if there are third party sources who might read your ad and make a point to go to the next bake sale just for your mom's cookies (and wow, did that analogy go somewhere I wasn't planning on).


Based on what you've posted, I think that means the CW took over in S6, then? S4 on my end was a guess, which is why I put a question mark after it. However, I do think saying that S6 started a "downhill" for the show is a MMV when ratings and DVD sales indicate SV held its own quite well compared to its previous history. Ratings on the WB went down, too, and statistically speaking, a show this long running isn't expected to keep up to numbers of earlier seasons. Frankly, it seems to be doing better than some other "big" shows on bigger networks that haven't been around as long.

For normal people in everyday life, you're correct. But we are talking Hollywood here. Tinseltown. It's all about reputation, especially amongst your peers and potential future bosses or co-workers. That's why the spin is so important.

FuzzyPink - I can't give you an answer better than that's just how it is. Everyone does it, everyone know about it, it's just accepted. Which is pretty much par for the course in business.

Or pretty much what FriendofBeth just said.

TV logic is not Earth logic, then. Bah. Stupid Hollywood. Thanks for the info/input regardless.

This week, the Globe and Mail had an interesting article about Friday nights as the timeslot where networks send shows to die. (No mention of SV; the TV critic is arguing that Ugly Betty deserves a better time-slot.):




Link

So I would suspect there's some network double-speak going on. The CW sends out press releases but is actually content to let the show wither. Regardless of how one feels about S9, I do think that's a cavalier way to treat the network's flagship show.

For those interested in following ratings, C+3 numbers and trends:

C3 Ratings Bring Good News, But Erosion Persists

That's the impression I got with UB and SV. With UB they pulled the show last season, put it on a long hiatus and then moved it to Friday night this season. It's just seemed liked CW and ABC put the shows out to pasture. If the shows do well, great they get some good ratings on a very bad night, if the shows don't do well, no skin of their noses they're not going to renew it anyway.

I think that holds true for CW more than ABC b/c CW is desperate for new blood/life. They really need a shakeup next season b/c I don't think it'll go on for much longer limping to the finish line.

Yeah, the CW got the show as of season 6. Did it immediately start to tank? No, but IMO season six is where the wheels started to come off with things like PodChloe, the NotBaby, Martha being practically cut out of the show, Lois at the Inquizitor, everyone being a college dropout and of course that old dead horse, Clana. I know the numbers dropped like a stone after Promise. Has itevery recovered?

Smallville Gets Bigger Boost in Ratings than Dollhouse in Week 2


The show just keeps chugging along.

Also posted by Robert Seidman:

He was actually responding to my post. I didn't response back, but I fail to see how 300,000 dvd sales really will help the show continue. So they sell for 12,000,000, Question, how much of that does the network & WB bring back in total. Is it enough to cover the lower ratings & the lower advertising rates the network is getting for Smallville. Their website has a story about Heroes & its dvd sales possibly not being enough to bring that back, so how is that a valid response. In terms of mentioning Gossip Girl..guess what last week that show did 2.5/7 W18-34, while having similar rating overall. That is what the network really wants, no matter the spin about male viewers on friday nights. If they wanted male viewers as was noted before, Smackdown would have never left the network.

His response was in a question about how an 18-49 demo rating going from 1.0 - 1.4 in DVR viewers is really good. I noted that the premier went from 1.0 - 1.5 so actually decreased. I don't know how you can not be at least somewhat worried when you are at such a low level in live viewers. Oh well, we will just wait & see what happens going forward.

I don't get this at all. This is the disclaimer on the Media Week Link


So basically, having a lot of DVR viewers doesn't really help a show if it has low live+same day viewers (finals ratings). Which I think many of us have said already. I still got to go back to the cupcake analogy...the 18-34W demo is what's most important to The CW, which for the 1st 3 eps was a .7 avg.


So this answer to Adam (Dollerman - was that you?) makes absolutly no sense to me. So it's safe b/c of the DVD sales...which actually fell by 10% for S8 and only topped out at $11 million before it fell off the charts (obviously it could have made more money but we'll never now as it dropped out of the Top 30 after 3 weeks).

I also don't know how much the DVD sales influence a network? I mean maybe the DVD sales make it valuable for WB Studios to produce the show but The CW Network doesn't get any of that DVD money so how does that make it a done deal for the CW to pick up S10?

Yeah that is me...and your right, the main thing is the womens demo. they did .7 the last 2 weeks & this week will probably be .8 or maybe .9 since rating did go up a bit, but who knows with the show. Still way below the other shows like VD, GG, One Tree Hill & even Supernatural. It seems like they want to spin it like they are looking for men viewers on friday, but we know that isn't the case. Their history in terms of such shows (smackdown) says its not. DVR is a # I look at to get an idea of viewing patterns, but until they change how they count that viewership (forcing people to watch commercials) it doesn't seem like it really will benefit the network. This is a discussion we have had for a while, but seems to be no change in site, so just need to take the #s as they are presented.

Finals per Travis Yanan at pifeedback.com
minor drop, the demo still is bad (if the demo matters)

Eh, I was close, I said it would go back down to the premiere numbers.

Yeah the 18-34W demo still sucks.

cw-prime-posts-largest-percent-increase-of-any-network-from-dvr-viewing

No one can accuse the CW of not crowing - what it crows about is a different story. But, keep on keepin on, Smallville.

Ah, you have to love % you can make anything look good. I am sure that people on ABC & CBS are extremely jealous of the dvr viewing of Smallville & 90210....yeah probably not they will take the 15 million people who watch Grey's Anatomy or CSI every week & not the 3 million who watch smallville.

Heh funny and a few weeks later (after getting 1.9 million viewers) will canceled it by telling it that is a wonderful story they want to wrap up while still on top and thanking all the loyal fanbase for their time and asking them to join then in whatever new project they have in mind. *rolleyes*

In the link provided by DashDixon (above), I found this response interesting (if it's to be believed):

$70,000 per commercial? But didn't we see a chart that indicated they were only getting $54,000 last year, on a prime night? Surely they aren't getting that much this season?

Who is Dillian? If he's correct about the cost of the show, then WB is losing money on the DVD sales, if they spend $22 million on the show per season they'll probably only make back $12-$13 million on the DVD's (not even factoring in production and marketing costs for the DVD's).

That means they have to make up at least another 10 million from overseas sales (possible, I have no idea). Just to break even, I have no idea what they're profit margin is but you figure they'd want to make at least 10%-20%? Maybe more?

Also that $70K on ad revenue sounds off, they were only getting money like that on ANTM. They were getting $60K+ on OTH and GG and $55K on 90210 last year. I can't see how they went from $54K on a Thursday night to $70K on a Friday...that does not compute.

Also, we know that The CW is actively losing money, it's been in the negative since it started. So if they were making money hand over fist on SV why the hell would they shove it in the Friday night death slot?

ETA: I was just doing some reading and I came across this article on TV Ad Rates, it's funny for all the talk about Ad rates and nights, it never occured to me that they'd be affected by the recession. According to this article Fox had to cut Ad rates by 2%-3% and NBC (4th ranked Network) cut rates by 8%, no word given on The CW but I'd guess they had to cut back as well.

And even if the cast/producers/whomever have signed two year contracts that doesn't meant they will be getting paid the same amount for both years.

In fact, doesn't SAG mandate that any contracted cast members on a TV show must get a pay raise each season?

Monday CW finals:


So do the above numbers mean that a bunch of 18-34 yr old women are sitting around together watching these shows in one house? Are the advertisers really happy with these numbers if the overalls are so low? Or are they happy that their products are reaching exactly the audience they want, even if the audience isn't large at all? I wonder: is it theoretically possible that the actual number of 18-34 yr old female eyeballs that watch Smallville is greater than GG or OTH (I really don't know what the shares/percentages represent numberwise).

Ignoring the logic of selling the network to a specific group (18-34W). If you're marketing strategy is to target a niche market you fully expect lower general numbers but higher penetration in the specific market.

As such, The CW is selling their ad rates based on the 18-34W, which makes OTH and GG very high sellers among their shows, which leads to them being considered "winners" even if a "real" network would laugh at them. Both of these shows pulled a 2.0 or better in the 18-34W that's very good. I have no idea if this is the best strategy for the CW but it's what you have to consider when looking at the numbers.


I think I understand what you're saying and no I do not believe that is the case.

It is my understanding that the share number (like 2.0) is a reflection on the entire viewing audience for the night across all the networks and stations, not just relative to an individual show's viewership.

I think that is right in principle at least.

An explanation, short as I can make it:

Say you have, for example, a 2.5/6 in W18-34.
- the 2.5 is called the rating point
- the 6 is called the share
- a 2.5 rating point means 2.5% of women aged 18-34 who own TVs were watching that show
- a 6 share means 6% of women aged 18-34 who own TVs with their TVs turned on during that hour were watching that show

[edit - small clarification: by X% of women, we're referring to Americans only, naturally]

Thanks Scrappy. I knew what the rating point meant but couldn't remember the share. Any idea what the actual number of US Women between the ages of 18-34 is? The Futon Critic gives you the number of adults between 18-49A as 132 Million but I couldn't find a breakdown beyond that.

Actually, even if a bunch of 18-34 yr. old women are sitting around together watching a show in a Nielsen house, they're still getting counted. This is because the 18-34 yr. old woman who is in the Nielsen family is going to represent not just her girlfriends sitting next to her, but hundreds more 18-34 yr. old women in her area.

For example, my parents are a Nielsen family. Nielsen looks at their demographics (Married, over 50) and their demographic represents not just them, but hundreds of Married-over-50-families in their area. So when they watch a particular show, the Nielsen's count it as hundreds of families with the same demographic as watching that same show, because they are supposed to be representative of that group.

So the only way that a scenario in which those 18-34 yr old women watching the show at one Nielsen house would be negatively affecting the ratings is if all of them were also from Nielsen families and weren't watching on their own televisions. Hope that helps.

Thanks Scrappy for that very clear explanation. I don't think I ever specially understood what the number meant beyond "higher the better".

A few weeks back a local station bragged about its ratings for a Monday night football grudge match between the Vikings and the Packers. Only now do I fully appreciate the Men 25-54 51.0/85.4 stats. (Mpls market. It got a national 9.0 for adults if anyone cares...and no, I didn't remember those numbers off the top of my head.)

The reason I bring it up is I do know that crazy high numbers like that (even if was mainly local) just don't happen anymore, but wouldn't shows that have much larger audiences in general like a CSI (usually in the low teens each week-in millions naturally-no, I do NOT watch) have a larger niche market automatically built in than any show on the CW?

Even if say that kind of show had 15 million viewers and only 2 million were young women 18-34, wouldn't it still make more sense to skip the rinky dink CW and stick with bigger fish?

Is that demographic so very hard to capture that even a 2.0 something from One Tree Hill makes advertisers do cartwheel? Frankly, now that I know what the ratings and shares stand for, I am amazed that any advertiser bothers with Smallville or anything on the CW. Am I missing some logic here?

--Laurelnola--I bet having a Neilsen box in the family is both tempting and stressfull.

Bkwurm - I think I understand your question but if my answer doesn't make sense let me know.

So the question is why would an advertiser bother with the CW when they could advertise on "real" network show that gets a larger demo and by extension, one would assume a larger piece of the 18-34W?

The answer I have is $. I am willing to bet that the money you'd spend on a 30 sec ad on Greys or Bones would be much higher than a 30 second add on SPN or TVD. Now, the question for the advertisers is how to best spend their money? A lot of smaller companies don't have the advertising budget to buy very expensive adds so it becomes a matter of where do I get the most bang for my buck?

All this is making me mildly curious to find out what SV's ratings are like up here, but that would require work on my part and I frankly don't even know where to start. I wouldn't even know where to find ratings for our won shows, let alone American ones. Not that it would make a difference, because the station that shows it nationally also reruns it several times a week and the one that shows it in sync with the CW isn't national. But still, it makes me wonder.

It's not that it's hard to capture a 2.0W18-34 but the advertisers interested in the demo don't want to pay for viewers not in that demographic.

Think of it this way.

Imagine a "Generic Show" (GS) with 12MM total views segmented evenly with 2MM viewers in each W18-34, W35-49, W50+, M18-34, M35-49, and M50+.

Next imagine a "Young Womens Show" (YWS) with 2.0MM total viewers segmented into 1.5MM W18-34 and 0.1MM in W35-49, W50+, M18-34, M35-49, and M50+.

If Pampers (or Ann Taylor, Victoria's Secret, etc) knows that 90% of their customers are women 18-34 would they rather buy an ad on GS for $120,000 or an ad on YWS for $75,000?

The GS ad would cost them 6 cents per eyeball (120M/2MM) they want to reach vs only 5 (75M/1.5MM) cents for the YWS ad. Both Pampers and YWS win because the high concentration of a target demographics allow YWS to charge about 60% as much as GS even though it has less than 20% as many viewers while still giving the advertiser a lower per eyeball cost.

OTOH companies like Wal-Mart who want to reach everybody aren't going to touch a YWS ad for $75,000. The ad on GS is about 1 cent per target viewer (120M/12MM) versus almost 4 cents (75M/2MM) on YWS.



Advertisers want to reach eyeballs. The CW charges per eyeball about the same rate as everyone else. Imaging an "Aging Show" (AG) with the same demographic distribution as GS but with only 2.5MM viewers. To meet the per eyeball rate as GS AS would charge around $25,000 per ad. Companies like Wal-Mart have huge advertising budgets so as long as it can reach eyeballs for 1 cent a pair they will advertise on both GS (again 120M/12MM) and AS (25M/2.5MM). Also smaller companies with smaller ad budgets might chose shows like AS because they can much better afford a few $25,000 ads than a couple $120,000 ads.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b149812_sh...ith_fringe.html

Should NBC have opted for Lipstick Jungle over Jay Leno? Should the CW have uprooted steady Smallville for The Vampire Diaries? And should Fox have fiddled with Fringe's time slot?

With the first month of the 2009-10 TV season in the books, it's time to look at how the new shows—and the old shows in new time slots—are faring compared to last fall's lineup.

Beware of some surprising answers in the latest ratings quiz.



3. …Smallville or The Vampire Diaries? The CW. The vampire show's slightly bigger on Thursdays than Smallville was, and while Smallville's a lot smaller on Fridays than it used to be on Thursdays, it's way bigger on Fridays than Everybody Hates Chris and The Game were.


Geaux Smallville!

Vampire Diaries got the offical full season pick up (no surprise there) and that The CW ordered 5 more episodes of Melrose (brining it to 18 episodes). Which actually makes sense, it'll give them time to judge Heather Locklear's ability to "save" the show.

First of all thanks to all who are giving me a crash course in TV advertising. It really is very interesting.

So what I am taking from this is that the CW is akin to a tomato stand (lets make it the small grape tomatoes) and the big general shows could be a big juicy burger place that serves a nice slice of tomato with every meal too but why pay for the burger, the bun, the mayo, the lettuce and the cheese - all stuff you don't want- when you can get just pure tomato (albeit in small bites) from the CW stand.

So following that logic, Smallville is like a tomato vendor finding a case of weiners on his hands and only tomato customers to sell to. (Old smelly weiners that are constantly being reheated until they are harldy recognizable. When they were fresh they were very enticing but now only tiny bits of the meat is worth savoring and you realize that most of it is made of filler, bitter herbs, imitation meats and loaded to the gills with preservatives )

It's a hard sell IMO. Best to toss them dogs out.

Thanks all. I still don't get the whole "those who own TVs were watching that show vs those who own TVs and have their TVs turned on during that hour were watching that show" difference. Apparently I just cant see it, just when I think I have it, it goes away. Its so funny, I was just asked yesterday by a client to "speak english" when explaining some legal concepts to her. Now I know how she felt. Oh well, I really appreciate the breakdown, especially to you Apostate, that does make sense.

Dash--

I think I have it.

Ratings would be the percentage of people watching out of anyone who COULD be watching (owns a TV) and Share would be the percentag of people watching out of anyone who was ACTUALLY watching (owns a TV and had it on).

My next question is which is more important and why?

So their answer's a definite yes-- Dawn made the right choice in exiling SV to crap night. Imagine that-- Dawn did something right! But of course the CW has emphasized how much better VD is doing than SV used to in every press release, so that's no surprise. Sounds like she did another sensible thing in ordering a full season of VD, too. I'm getting a little worried... if Dawn keeps doing things right, will Hell freeze over?

I don't know about hell freezing over but I actually think she made the right move (for "her" network..i.e. the one she wants). I don't know if a network built around 18-34W can be successful in the long run but if that's what your engineering towards than her moves make sense.

Thursday night was an issue for DO in that it didn't flow with her "network brand image" she wants an all girl line up, SV/SPN are male friendly shows. Now she's got a girl friendly show on Thursday night...1 foot in the door.

Personally, I think DO is looking for any reason to renew MP, they dumped too much money into marketing it to just give up on it. So if Heather does her thing I can see MP getting a 2nd season.

From TVBytheNumbers: Smallville (and Supernatural) are already picked up for full season. I take this to mean that all 22 episodes are guaranteed to air, so no chance of a mid-season cancellation.

I don't think that's what they're saying. This seems to be more of a "they're already picked up for a full season but MP wasn't, so quit bugging us about it." There's nothing new here; they're just pointing out the full season orders (which we already knew about) and are asking the obsessed fans to quit emailing them about SV and SPN all the time.

That seems to rule out the possibility of a cancellation before the end of the season to me.

In their opinion. We already knew the opinion of this site; they keep an index. There's no new information here. This is merely a plea for fans to quit pestering them.

I think it's highly unlikely for a show picked up for a full 22 episodes to get canceled mid-season, it's happened in the past where a network would cut back on an order (let's say from 22 to 18) but very rare to go from 22 to 13...unless the ratings just tank.

That being said, I understand what EllyF is saying, it's not an official network endorsement ala TVD, OTH or an life extension ala Melrose. It's just nothing new, it was picked up for 22 eps in the spring and will most likely air all 22 eps.

Their tweet about it seems to bear this out:

TVbytheNumbers: Exclusive (for crazy fans): Smallville and Supernatural ALREADY HAVE full season pick ups (http://cli.gs/PdsaZ)

I'm in an internet argument somewhere else on the net.

Because I thought the DVR numbers didn't increase and the ratings wer tanking. The poster said that they did and Itunes and Amazon downloads had also gone up. Then I looked a couple of pages back on this thread and a link said that they did. I'm still confused. Could anyone help me make sense of this mess?

There were some fans from Italy and Brazil pestering them.

Going from memory, the ratings and DVR numbers are down year to year, less people are watching live and less people are DVRing the show as well. Last week the ratings went up, but the DVR numbers for week 2 went down (IIRC - DVR 9.1 demo went from 1.0 to 1.5 and for 9.2 demo went from 1.0 to 1.4).