Again, if you mean "promos", then yes, everyone should be seeing the same ones during CW's primetime (and apparently their morning programming?) During alternate station programming, all breaks are local so you would be seeing different ones. (But it's still whichever ones that the CW has sent out for local stations to put their brand on. So it could change from market to market, depending on how they run their crazy marketing strategy over there.)

Well, ALL of the CW's programming hours should contain ads they choose. That's not just the primetime hours (Sunday 7pm-10pm and Monday-Friday 8pm-10pm), but their daytime hours, as well (Sunday 5pm-7pm; Monday-Friday 3pm-5pm; and some 5 hours on Saturday mornings). So those are all the hours you want to look at -- all the other hours have ads chosen by the affiliates.

Edit: Final numbers are in. It... did better than we thought.

Crap.

ETA: Apparently, The CW was so proud of their Thursday night that they decided to issue a press release.

Great. So now they'll order more Clexana/Clana. Someone strangle me.

Of course, how many in that demo are interested in March Madness? :)

Eh, I don't know about that. It was sort of an "event" episode with two main characters getting married.

I think what will be the real test is the ratings next week. If they start steadily declining after "Promise", then I'd hope that they'd kinda get the hint.

And what was the Male 18-34? B/c unless I'm remembering wrong, they are actually considered the more desireable demographic in primetime.

I'd also like to point out in regards to the CW pimping of their shows, they ran PCD ads saying that the show - one episode, I believe- garnered 10 million viewers. The ad suggested it rated through the roof, but it was over a couple of eps or something like that - I'm sorry, I suck at this. I was laughing at this over on a SPN LJ. And I'm with brighid, it was an event episode. If it sticks, then it's another story.

Don't wedding episodes generally bring in extra viewers?
Ah.. I see pryalis already posted the second point I was going to make
the real trick would be for them to carry those numbers next week though...

ETA: looks like a bunch of us were all thinking the same thing

If they didn't get the hint after Justice, i'm afraid they never will.

Which is probably why the ep is Exposed: The Grudge Match (or a shout-out to their next guest star, Britany Spears on her comeback trail) along with a Zoner.

The thing is...since the overall numbers didn't rise, this means Men 18 - 34 must have dropped. And that's the audience they actually want.

Good for Supernatural - hope it gets renewed!

Eh, with 4.69 million, the CW issues a press release but with 5.26 million they remain mute? They are trying to force feed their preferences on the viewers, imo.

And how many of those women viewers are going to stick around for Exposed II?

Anyone know the women 18-34 for UB for last week? I would be curious to compare.

Also, I found it funny that, for all the "Hurray for us!" of the press release, Promise was still the 4th lowest rated episode of the season. After a boatload of promotion, the show simply did not lose ground coming back from a break.

Yes, for the adult demos to be 2.0 and the women 18-49 to be high, then the male demos dropped to make it come out even to average ratings. So whatever they got in women, they lost in men. That's probably why they mentioned basketball to help excuse/explain away the drop in male viewers.

And you're right that men are considered the more desirable demos, but somehow I think something else is going on. I have no evidence for this, but I get the impression that they may value W18-34/W18-49 more than M18-34/M18-49 even though men usually mean more money. They have done things that seem counterintuitive. They cut out MM from Labyrinth in favor of Clana even though DC heroes usually bring in better ratings. They didn't pimp "Justice" to the level we were all expecting but they pimped the HELL out of "Promise." The whole advertising thrust has focused on ships and triangles versus superhero stuff. They added a soap opera actor to the show and promoted the heck out of him. The only way that makes sense to me is if there is something unusual going on and for some reason we don't know about, they can make more money off of women. Like maybe they are working on a package deal (e.g. if they can deliver a certain number of young women viewers every week, they can get some contract for certain ads.) OR maybe they already made a such deal to deliver a certain number of young women viewers to an advertiser and when their other shows underperformed and failed to deliver those numbers they decided to use Smallville to try to make it up to the advertisers. I'm leaning towards that one.

There were articles about how the CW was going into a "make good" situation because they had promised to deliver better demos to their advertisers before the season started. And we know from those articles that the CW got a lot of money for women 18-34 advertising especially. We know several shows (like Veronica Mars) are already in a "make good" situation so perhaps the CW cut a deal with the advertisers to let them have ad time on other shows to make up the discrepancy instead of returning the money to them. And maybe Smallville is one of those shows and they have to get a certain amount of women viewers to keep their contract and not return money to the advertisers. That would explain the soap opera angle to the season.



RepairmanBob - UB went down about 3 million viewers which is a LOT last week. Several people went on the UB board to say they were annoyed that they missed a new episode because ABC didn't do a good job advertising that it was going to be a new episode. So, last week's UB numbers were low. Someone said they were the lowest for the season. I don't know if that is true or not. But, UB still came in #1 in W18-34. It always does. The Office usually gets #1 M 18-34 if you're interested.

It's probably cheaper to produce The Perils of Lana than Smallville, backstory of Lex Luthor and Clark Kent.

I think so too; if they were really interested in SV doing well we'd of gotten comments about Fallout and Justice as a bare minimum. In fact I can't help but thinking of the surprizing inital numbers for Freak vs. this anyway. Frankly, I think they were in a position after promoting the episode SO heavilly that they had to say something. And it will be really interesting to watch ratings after this - they tuned in but after the character assassinations and what is actually coming up will they stay tuned in?

More importantly is *any* of their prized male demo even interested?



That's what I remember; and I don't think Smallville can hemmorage male viewers; that's a LARGE amount of the revnue. The women have been here all along (and typically are on WB shows).



Totally; and compaired to the other 'event' episode in Justice (And maybe Zod and Fallout) it's the worst of the lot of them.



Exactly. It screams of "No no no guys! IT was really good! No seriously! No, don't pay attention to the fact that we lost our key demo, our fans are pissed off, and it's one of the loosing episodes of the entire year. We rule! For serious!"

No one is buying it.



Well that would explain the discrepancy between what was talked about to be an actiony-season that turned out to be more about romance; wasn't Tuesday supposed to be their "girly" night with GG and VM? It's my understanding that it didn't do so well so that might be what happened. But can SV afford to loose it's male audience, and to invetibaly anger the woman (fandom pretty clearly show unless one is Lana/Clana fan, a lot of people are [claiming] tunning out after Nemesis until s7.)

Was this possibly a response to the "Death to Lana Lang" article from last week? That would be funny. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. "Justice" brought in a half a million extra viewers and didn't get a press release.


In the CW upfront video from last year, Dawn Ostroff says of SV: "On one of the most valuable advertising nights of the year, SV ranks second in the time slot with men 18 - 34." She goes on to say that the SV/Supernatural combo has the "action" to appeal to young men.

They already have a big share of the 18-34 chick market. But it's episodes like "Justice" and "Zod" that will bring in the coveted boys, not "Promise". So what that press release basically says is : "Most of the people who generally watched Smallville.... also watched it this week." Huzzah! That was so worth doubling our advertising!

I'm a few years north of the 18-34 female demographic, but I certainly don't tune in for the romance on SV. That's just a wee bit insulting. If I want romance, I'll rent "The Notebook".

That would explain so much. Even before Promise, I began wondering why this season was so much more like soap opera than any other season. And if they are anxious for women because they're in a make good situation and using Smallville to make up the deficiency, then it makes sense. Even if great male demos would be great long term, female demos might be more valuable to the network right *now* because of existing contractual obligations.

I'm IN that demo and will be for a long time and it's insulting. Reminds me of Al's quote in s2 about men being here for the action, women being here for the soap.

No, I'm not watching for soap. If I wanted soap, I'd watch craptastic soap operas. I do not. Yes, every show needs that human element but it doesn't ever nor should it be 'a soap.'



Hiring soap actors can do that to a show...



Which might explain while s5 and all the s6 stuff was leaning towards a big, plotty, actiony arc, why they drug right back to the agnst that sent s5 into a slow spiral in the later half of the season; and as SV is consistent about bringing in people (more so than other shows I believe) that could be what they are doing.



Well given what the episode was about maybe that needed a Huzzah. *G*

Good grief, this guy really is a moron! I'd rather watch Terminator, Rambo or Fast and the Furious movies on an infinite loop than their interpretation of romance.

That's very insulting, especially since I hate soap operas with the fire of a thousand suns. Yeah, I like romance, but I like it well-written and I happen to appreciate the cool superhero moments when done appropriately.

I'm a woman and when I tune into a show about Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, I want Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. Not some sappy, poorly thought out show about a girl who goes from guy to guy, constantly needs saving, treats the hero like crap, uses her best friend, and reduces the evil mastermind to a whimpering idiot.

We should submit this for consideration as an official definition.

This sucks. When the hell are people going to realize that there are plenty of girls who like superheroes too?

Time for the CW ratings roundup...

Damn. And I thought America's Next Top Model would keep falling. Instead, it shoots back up to number one. For some insane reason, the repeat of Pussycat Dolls Presents that airs on Wednesday keeps beating it's first broadcast! Since when do repeats do better than new episodes?

PDP is also still running the ad that says they're getting over 10 million viewers, even though they're just adding together the ratings from the three weekly repeats. Assholes.

ETA: Hooray for Supernatural! :D

Wait, WHAT? Is that even legal to do in advertizing?

Fox does the same thing with AI -- when the two premiere nights averaged 40 million each, they plastered ads all over saying 80 million people tuned in to "the" premiere (read: the premieres). Which, hello, a good number of those people where the same people, since they were two unique airings. With the PCD it's a little more believable, because it was three repeats of the same airing -- not too many people watch the same thing twice in one week. But still ridiculous.

And a little note to any Chicago Smallville watchers, in case you guys haven't heard: Smallville+Supernatural are being preempted this Thursday for a Bulls game (will be aired on Saturday starting at 7pm), and when both shows return on April 19th for a Cubs game.

That's gotta suck if you really want to watch SV instead. They pre-empted reruns (Rerunville is what I call it) for the Big 12 tourney that was held here in Oklahoma City, but SV aired the following Saturday at 7 p.m. If it hadn't been reruns, I would've been pissed that my regularly scheduled Thursday night date was postponed.

A preemption in the Chicago market has got to hit the ratings. Based on that alone, I think "Combat" numbers might be mediocre.

Now will they take into account the numbers from the Chicago market's saturday airing? Those should go into the final numbers I would think..

So, it looks like Combat is the worst promoted episode this season. 12 trailers over the course of a week. (most of them were 10 second trailers, a few were 5 second trailers). That's really, really sad. I thought that since The CW is fully aware that Smallville is being preempted in Chicago this week, they would promote the episode more heavily.

On the contrary, they're not going to waste promotion dollars when they know they have a major preemption. It's more worth it to spend the money during a week they AREN'T having any major preemptions.

We'll probably see the April 19th return promoted more heavily than this, though.

Or maybe they've seen the episode and decided it wouldn't be a bad thing if no one saw it? Freak had preemptions that cost it a lot of viewers, but it got decent trailers/publicity. I remember people commenting that Subterranean didn't get very many trailers either. Maybe they determine how many trailers on how happy they are with the content? If they like the content and they're excited for the episode they give it more promotion? If they're not excited about the content, they blow it off?

Although, for once, I'm going to give the publicity dept. credit because I think based on what spoilers indicate for Combat, they've made it look pretty cool anyway. The Clark/Kane fight looks cool and they played up Lex being involved thereby hinting at bit at 33.1 involvement. I think that's a good way to play it. If I didn't read spoilers, I would think it was going to be a fun episode.

What's interesting is "Combat" is being heavily promoted within the WWE community. Was there any promotion during Smackdown?

BTW, anyone know the finals for Promise?



info from www.pifeedback.com

Numbers for last night from pifeedback.com

I think the A18-49 is supposed to be 1.7.

Abcmedianet.com has Promises at 4.69 million

Massena, final numbers for Promise are 4.69 million.

How much do you think the preemption in Chicago took away? Folks over at the Supernatural forums say about 200,000. Hopefully, the finals go up a bit (at least to beat Subterranean).

ETA: Massena, for some reason, our final numbers for the season differ in a few places (Hydro, Justice, Crimson, Trespass). I'm probably the one that has it wrong, but where do you get your final numbers from?

Wow, 500000 people watched Promise and didn't come back for Combat. Can't say that makes me sad.

You know . . . that SasukeUchiha guys and mallory laughed at me when I mentioned backlash. I feel a bit vindicated.

Yep. And if the numbers hold, a season low too. :)

Ooooh! Wrestling Lois didn't even tempt people back. Shocking! ;)

I don't believe it for a second but the Clanarchists will just say it's because Lana is now married to Lex (ie. no Clana) and the episode featured Nois.

Heh, but they're also saying "oh, but episode 17 always falls really bad! It wasn't because of Clana! It wasn't!"

You know, except for the fact that you can't compare season to season by episodic number because the circumstances under which it airs are different. Half hour breakdowns:

Are these numbers taking into account the preemptions? The "Freak" numbers went down when the preemptions were factored in.

You're right, nzs. I forgot about that. Which means... that ratings for Combat could dip into the 3 millions. :(

Dawn Ostroff: They love love-triangle drama, but hate action! Got it. ;)

Not that it really matters, given that it's going to change anyway, but based on that half-hour breakdown the average should be 4.12, rather than 4.2.

Before coming here, I had also guessed Chicago's preemption cost the show approx. 200,000 viewers. But that is totally just a guess based on Chicago populace (9.4 million), that tv audiences are usually about one third of the whole population (US populace 300 million/ US TV viewing audience generally 100 million) and SV's typical audience share (5%). So if Chicago's tv viewing audience 3-4 million (a third of populace) x 5% (SV's typical audience share) = 150,000-200,000? That could be totally off, but that was where I got my guesstimate.

As for the current chart, it was formatted by Scrappy, The Owl. I thought it was a really good format so whenever I've updated, I've kept it. As for the figures, when Scrappy posted it, I confirmed some of the figures at that time with DTS and abcmedianet and they seemed to be the same. After that, if I was the one to update the chart, I just took whatever final figures were provided by other posters here. I think other people have updated it as well, and as far as I can tell, they likewise just took the last figures and added on the new ones. I would guess most final figures are taken either from abcmedianet.com or the forum at pifeedback.com. Both of which seem to be pretty reliable and I personally have never seen any discrepancy between their figures if given.

I'm sure people will blame basketball or wrestling or whatever but I do think it's telling the trend is downwards for the most part. Making it all about who rings Lana's front doorbell and what pops or doesn't pop out of her oven = ZZZZZZZZZZ. Add character assassination of everyone else and you actually get a soupcon or rage with that. When you hurt people's identification with CLARK even with hardcore Clark fans, you're just begging to be hurt.