Don't have much doubt that the season will run the full 22. The question is whether the show is successful enough for the network to keep it around for another year. IMO, the answer is neaux.

Smallville maintained its ratings from last week:

link

Conversely, over at pifeedback:



This is so odd. I wonder why these sites bother with an active debate about Smallville when, to be honest, it's a bit player at the bottom of the overall ratings scale. All I can think of is that perhaps rabid commentary (pro and con) comes there way so they talk about it to get hits. It's sort of like Dollhouse. That also gets an inordinate amount of chatter. Perhaps an industry insider can illuminate why there is such a diverse opinion amongst "experts" and further why it gets ink in the first place.

My take:
1) SV has found it's audience at 2.5M, it passes Dawn's threshold. It'll drop in the spring, simply because it's spring, but that is probably not unexpected by D.O.
2) Renewal will be a function of what Dawn has to replace it, the advertiser's willingness to shell out, the continued overall strategy of the CW, and whatever random factors we haven't considered.
3) The producers will presume a S10 for S9 writing.
4) We'll here rumblings and more of the "could go either way" bit in the winter and if SV ends this season it'll be a rushed wrap up. If it doesn't, AM is NOT coming back IMO for more of this crap and SV limps along for a S10 wrap up.

It dropped by 100k from last week. Going by how much the ratings always drop during the second half of the season, you do have to wonder what ratings SV will be getting come April of 2010. I do believe that we will get the full season no matter what, but PS have to start thinking about ending it after this season.

Nothing new here, Marc always says crappy things about Smallville. Last year he was saying the same shit.

This makes me smile. Because spin or no spin, there's no getting around the fact that this year's Smallville is bringing in only slightly more than HALF of its viewers from last year. And there's no relying on the "Friday-excuse" anymore. By this time, people know what night the show is on. Those not watching have left Smallville for other reasons.

However, based on past experience, I can't believe that the show will ever willingly end. As long as the CW has nothing better with which to replace it, and as long as the producers need the work, they will keep dragging the dead horse. I mean, did anyone ever believe back in S5 that we'd be seriously talking about Season Ten? If Smallville has taught me anything, it's that you can never underestimate the unreal crap this show is willing to pull in order to keep crawling out of the grave and keep its paycheck coming. Zombies, indeed.

Of course, watching them put more and more lipstick on their pig is always good for a laugh, at least. And it reminds me of that comics site article that referenced Jonathan dying and said, "Sure, he's died on Smallville. But come on. It's Smallville. Like that counts." *stifles laughter* Go, Smallville! After nine years on the air, way to earn yourself a "legacy", peeps. But hey, look on the bright side. Maybe you'll be remembered for your super-ability to lose viewers.

Roulette had 2.52 mil. viewers. Last year Smallville had 4.16 mil. viewers, 2.52 is more than half of that.

The "Friday-excuse" isn't a matter of people not knowing that's where Smallville is, but that Friday shows have lower ratings than other days because more people choose to do other things on their Friday nights rather than staying in and watching TV. Smallville was always going to lose viewers by moving to Friday - as would just about every other show if the networks moved to the day. The upside is you can get by with lower ratings on a Friday.

You're right. I should amend:

Spin or no spin, there's no getting around the fact that this year's Smallville is bringing in slightly more than HALF of its viewers from last year.

Poor Smallville. I guess when, as one reviewer put it, the only people watching are Tom Welling's mother and the production crew, they really do need to get credit for every pair of eyeballs.

That's my guess, too. Given that the CW is considered a bit of a joke in the business, and that there's been talk for the past year or two that the network itself might not survive, I can't imagine that the coverage is because SV is just so terribly important.

Agreed. I hear that D.O. has a bunch of shows in the pipes for next season, so we'll see how that goes. But yeah, pretty much the same as every season for the past few years.

I'm think that cheerleader show produced by TW is what they are planning to replace Smallville with.


It will be cheaper and Tom would be involved and possibly guest starring or at least show behind the camera. I'm sure he alone could pull the 2 million DO considers it good enough for the time slot. Not to mention cheer leading might be a lot more appealing for the young female than SV at this point is.


Who knows maybe that is another reason for the move to test the waters about how many people can they have actually watching CW on a Friday night. I think they will end S9 to make sure fans are not too pissed off and maybe get then interested on the show, of course all this is just me madly guessing so, YMMV.

If there's a God there won't be a season 10. Though there is a small part of me that wonders what a season 10 would be like on this show without AM. Terrifying

On Craigs List I constantly see casting calls for a show called cwsecrets mostly looking for polished young women (22-27) who suffer from rage issues. I think that CW might be heading more towards more reality shows. I'm surprised they haven't already. I know they've done a couple before (Beauty and the Geek, Farmer Wants a Wife) but you'd think there'd be more on the network. The shows are cheaper to produce and ANTM gets the most ad revenue of their shows by far. With several of their old shows getting long in the tooth (SV, OTH) and many of their new shows not working, a reality-heavy slate might be a cheap effective "buffer" until they figure out what to do with the network (like that season when NBC had Dateline on like 10 times a week).

Wasn't Reality TV part of the Sunday night line up? I think with giving the weekend back to the affiliates I wouldn't be surprised to see a Friday night lineup of all reality TV, it's cheap to produce so getting low numbers on a Friday night wouldn't really hurt that much.

I kind of hope The CW learned its lesson with The Vampire Diaries and goes for more genre/teen shows. I really like the idea of that Teens in Space show (aside:anyone remember a TV pilot from the 90's with the same basic premise? It's driving me nuts).

I also think the Spy School for Girls could be cool, with the right producers...sort of a like a La Femme Nikita x Alias. The other one that really appeals to me is the modern day telling of Little Women...it scares the crap out of me if they go with a Gossip Girl/MP direction but if they took the right direction (Gilmore Girls or Everwood) it could be sooooo good.

I remember Homeboys in Outer Space.

The CW show that I mentioned having involvement in was Secrets. Nice to know they've upgraded to trolling Craig's List from their former underhanded methods of "casting" this show. The original premise was good, sounds like it's been tweaked though. Here's to hoping it never gets out of development, unless it's going to replace SV.

Yeah, I think reality tv might be where they're headed, at least 2 nights a week. It's ridic how cheap it is to make.

SaveLevi, that show sounds horrifying. I mean, CL for casting? Seriously?


I remember Mission Genesis/Deepwater Black (depending on the country you were in), but that lasted a whole season, I think, not just a pilot.

I think that was it. I kept looking for it as a TV show but I couldn't find it, that's why I thought it was a pilot that never got picked up.
Wow, great memory! Thanks.

What scares me is not the 'season 10 or not season 10' debate (which is terrifying by itself), but the very real possibility that these ratings are so on the fence that The CW may not make their decision to renew or cancel Smallville until after season 9 has finished filming.

We could end up with a situation where we don't really get a resolution to this story at all.

Smallville get's $33,090 for every 30 second commercial this year. It isn't the lowest, Supernatural gets $32,928 per 30 second commercial.

Oh, that's pretty pathetic. A big drop from last year-- how can they afford to keep producing the show, I wonder?

Link, please?

I worried about this in S5, S6, even S7...but at this point, the wheels have flown off and this thing is toddling along Flintstone-style. I can't imagine that they'd wrap things up to my liking, as a fan who was invested in THIS series and its canon and not the iconic stuff that we're seeing now. I mean, we know what happens to the Clark, Lois, etc. and I was never interested in watching L&C (and ratings seem to indicate that this isn't an uncommon opinion) but I was really invested in the other characters and what their endings might be. Lionel and Lana they fucked up massively, Martha just disappeared, and Chloe's barely a shell of her former self.

At this point, I'm all for letting it fall off a cliff.

Everything is lower this year.

While most shows are lower, the difference % wise is very big, here are #s from last year, plus # I saw you post elsewhere.

2008 Top Money Makers for the CW per 30 second ad

$103,714 ANTM
$67,908 One Tree Hill
$62,139 Gossip Girl
$58,347 90210
$54,323 Smallville

2009
Smallville $33,090
ANTM- 93,343
90210- 53,605
OTH- 55,636
GG- 59,316

Now the other shows had slight decreases up to about 10-20%, but Smallville has nearly a 40% decrease in ad price for 30 seconds. Yes being on Friday hurts that, but that is huge decrease. I also wonder how they can afford the show with decrease like that?

Ditto. They could just say on an interview how it was going to end and it will save us a lot of grief.




My answer is that they really can't. Doesn't the CW shares the cost of the show with someone? So I'm guessing they are having little profit while they buy time to find a cheaper show to place in the same time slot.



Maybe, they will air the whole season but they could do as ABC did with Pushing Daisies and after the back to back airs, release it on a different time slot that might benefit for the extra bump. Funny enough, I was mad as hell when ABC waited that long to air PD but if they do the same with SV I might just forget to tune in to catch the rest of the episodes...and no way I'm buying the DVD unless Chlois of course.

Smallville $33,090
VD-38,966
SN-32,928
ANTM- 93,343 .............. 17,961 on Friday
90210- 53,605
Melrose Place- 49,019............ 31,070 on Wed.
OTH- 55,636
GG- 59,316


And it's worth noting that most TV advertising is typically purchased as part of larger negotiations, not on a one-off basis. Prices often depend on the advertiser's relationship with the network, the volume of inventory being purchased and the presence of nontraditional advertising, such as product placements.

Again, hexzek, could you link us to where these figures were found?

And a steep dropoff like that is really bad considering the show itself still costs more or less the same to make. It's like getting a huge cut in pay when your expenses remain the same. Sooner or later, you start bleeding red ink.

Do I interpret this bit correctly? That Melrose Place makes almost as much for repeats as Smallville does for first run episodes?

That makes me so happy I want to do a little dance.

What are the ad rates for L&O on Fridays? I noticed both shows had the same cottage cheese commercials on. How many commercial spots did they sell for Friday? How many of the commercials were for shows on the CW and what is the payment deal with them?

http://adage.com/article?article_id=139923#fri



$59,953 for every 30 second commercial.

So, based on those figures, wouldn't Melrose Place be more successful for The CW than The Vampire Diaries?

I mean, it must be making them more money... Or am I confused?

I know absolutely nothing about ad rates, but I'm going to speculate that they likely set basic ad rates before the season starts, so they probably set the rates figuring MP would do better than VD. I would imagine the rates would change next season to reflect this year's performance (if MP even makes it another season). Can anyone who actually knows something let me know if I'm in the ballpark?

That is my understanding as well. This would also explain The CW's desire to save Melrose, bringing in HL, making sure the Producers re-tool the show.

Looking at these prices I don't know how people can argue that The CW doesn't want/favor the female demographic. The shows specifically geared towards young women have the highest ad rates, the 2 that have predominantly male viewers (SPN/SV) have the lowest ad rates. My guess is given the context (vampires, darker storytelling - hello, Damon) TPTB weren't sure on how well TVD would do with female audiences which is why it's priced so low. I have no doubt that come next year it will be one of the higher earners.

Now, I do understand that a part of SV's drop in ad rates is due to the Friday move but I have to wonder how people can argue that the show is still profitable.

I don't know whether it's true or not but someone posted on another site that CW only has to pony up $1 million per episode toward production costs. Sixteen minutes of commercials adds up to thirty two 30 second spots. 32x$33k is a tick over $1million.
If those ad rates and the production cost figures are accurate the CW breaks more or less even with first run episodes and repeats are gravy.

.
Yeah, I don't know if that poster was right, we already know he/she was wrong on the ad rates (70K per 30 sec). However, assuming the person was right and it's 1 Million per episode, breaking even on first run eps isn't a good thing, IMO.

ETA: If you really want your mind blown...assuming Melrose costs The CW the same as what they're ponying up for SV (which is logical, SPN is assumed to cost between $1Mil and $1.5Mil per episode). Melrose Place right now is making The CW a profit of $470K (possibly more if it costs less than $1Mil per episode) on Tuesday night. Factoring in the Wednesday reruns as "gravy" Melrose earns The CW another 900K for the week.

Compare that with SV which as of right now isn't showing a profit (won't until reruns later in the year).

My guess is that SPN is the only other show The CW breaks even on with first run episodes, which would explain why the show is always on the bubble (except for last season). I suspect that if SPN gets picked up for S6 it will only do so if WB starts to subsidize some of the prodcution costs. As SPN is up for syndication this year I would imagine that would only happen if the WB lands a fat syndication deal (possibly SyFy?).

Right. VD Advertisers took a calculated risk and are reaping the rewards. TBL and MP advertisers weren't so lucky.

MP might be making tons of money now but I'm of the opinion that concurrent repeats aren't necessarily a good thing wrt its future. Networks get two airings of a show before control is returned to the producers. That means when MP completes it's fall run the CW will actually have to pay to show a third airing or something different will have to air in that time slot. To me it looks like they're burning off their MP repeats to make as much money as possible before the show's ad revenue comes in line with it's actual viewership numbers.

They've already extended the life of MP to 18 episodes, which means if MP shows some improvement once HL gets here in 4 weeks it'll probably get the full 22 ep commitment. Also the repeats will end as of January when Life Unexpected arrives. I'm not sure why they opted to run the repeats of MP on Wednesday as opposed to OTH/GG or 90210 but it's certainly making them money right now.

I don't know what they'll air on Wednesday's over the winter break, maybe that's when they plan on launching their reality TV shows?


I'm a little confused by this, I'm reading the article you linked to and it's pretty much talking about syndication rights. I'm guessing this is the part you're refering to but I'm not sure how that equates to The CW having to pay to air a 3rd rerun.


I guess that means they'd have to pay...I'm not really sure is there another section that goes into more detail? Am I reading it wrong?

I also wonder if this is something that The CW has negotiated as they generally do more than a 22/22 airing of their shows b/c they generally air reruns over over the winter break plus over the summer. I know last season they aired the full S4 of SPN over the summer plus they aired S4 eps over the winter break. So, that would mean that they would have had to pay extra for at least 8 episodes.

CW replaces repeats of Melrose Place

LOL, I just saw that at pifeedback and was going to post it here. I guess they were worried about that 3rd rerun penalty? Or maybe they're going to get more $ airing Vampire Diaries in reruns? Not sure how considering TVD ad reates for the first run eps were so low.

Canceling TBL so early really hurt The CW as they don't have a back up in place until Jan.

The other thing to bear in mind when considering ad rates is that they also get tied to certain performance guarantees in ratings categories. If a show fails to make those minimums the network has to air free ads to make up for it. I'd think the fall in ad price for SV this season has been so dramatic because it's gone from being on the most desirable ad night of the week to one of the least desirable.

Assuming the VD repeats will occur during sweeps as I understand it the answer is yes, albeit eventually. Higher ratings in the Nov sweeps = more $ down the line. Seems kinda crazy to me because the advertisers will obviously know the show setting the baseline rates isn't going to be the one the ads actually air against but AFAIK that's how it works. In this case it's almost excusable since the CW is swapping one re-run for another. Fox apparently is going to run House re-runs rather than new episodes of Brothers/Till Death/Dollhouse during sweeps.

I'm thinking that's the case as well. It looks like ABC is pre-mpting one of its failing shows (one night only) during sweeps for a CMA special event. So, a couple of the networks are making some changes to the low nights on their schedule in order to prop up the night during sweeps.

Finals from pifeedback (posted by Travis), found by Massena:

Smallville
- 2.466 million viewers
- 1.6/3 HH
- 1.1/3 A18-49
- 1.0/4 A18-34
- 0.7/3 W18-34

Down a tick in the W18-34 demo.

Live+7 numbers for Rabid



Rabid had the Largest 18-49 Demo Increase From DVR Viewing for Broadcast TV Shows (October 5-11) increasing from 0.9 A18-49 up to a 1.3 A18-49.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/10/26/small...in-week-3/31568

Highest increase % wise, but still the overall viewership for the episode was 3.02, which the lowest viewership in the history of the show w/DVR. It's easy to pimp % increases when # are so low to begin with. Also, its right alongside Dollhouse, another show that is struggling & more likely for cancellation. Also, the 1.3 18-49 is .1 lower than Metallo.

Thanks for the link, hexzek. I found this part of the article very useful information:



So basically, these numbers seem to be more or less irrelevant? Or am I misunderstanding something?

I wonder how many of those are Chloe fans that ff through Nois scenes?

Nope, basically these numbers don't amount to anything other than bragging rights. Actually "pisher" over at pifeedback has a great comment on this (made in response to a discussion about Desperate Housewives) paraphrasing here.

In essence, the 10% that might benefit from the DVR numbers (mentioned in the disclaimer) are most likely very young shows that have a hope of finding an audience. However older shows that are on the decline (of their life cycle - like SV) it probably hurts in that it indicates that people are choosing not to watch live (for whatever reason) which costs the network revenue

And then wind up with carpal tunnel syndrome from holding the button down so long?



Thanks, morrigan. That's what I figured, that it reflected viewers on their way away from the show, who are just recording it to view a few scenes here and there. I certainly can't imagine many people record it and sit through the commercials, at any rate, so it's no wonder advertisers aren't terribly interested in these numbers.

Yeah, you kind of are. Advertisers pay Nielsen to track C3 numbers, which is basically the amount of people who watch the ads from DVR's within 3 days of the original broadcast date.

Smallville does really well in that area, so no, DVR numbers aren't irrelevant in Smallville's case.
When the C3 numbers are added the demo actually goes up, unlike other shows where they go down.

Savior had a 1.1 C3 rating which increased the A18-49 demo by 23% over live demo. That put Smallville 3rd overall in C3 ratings.