SCI FI Ratings Drop

[ShadowMaat]

What they should do with TV ratings is sample those who actually watch TV!

Oh yes? And how are they going to know? Install Big Brother monitoring devices to make sure that people are actually sitting in front of their TVs watching the shows they say they're watching?

[ussrelativity]

Oh yes? And how are they going to know? Install Big Brother monitoring devices to make sure that people are actually sitting in front of their TVs watching the shows they say they're watching?

Run a survey to determine who watches TV more often and narrow the sampling targets to a more TV-viewing audience.

[smurf]

Run a survey to determine who watches TV more often and narrow the sampling targets to a more TV-viewing audience.

Then it wouldn't be a random sample of the general viewership, and so more likely to be skewed and "unfair".

It might be that the people who watch the most TV like watching continuous reality shows, and rarely, if ever, watch that (in their opinion) "geeky, teenage, sci fi rubbish".
Then where would Stargate be?

[Hubble]

.....

Concerning the argument of a drop in quality, Return and Quest got 1.4 nd 1.5 respectively, and are widely regarded as great episodes(The Quest as one of the best of season 10), so why would 30% tune out for another week of great episodes after seeing those two? I myself can't put this down to quality.

Widely regarded as great episodes by whom? The people who post here, at Sony or on OS? Do you realize how tiny a percentage of total viewers that is? I didn't think "The Quest" was a great episode and I'm sure there are others who think as I do. It *was* one of the best of S10, but that's not saying much.

Maybe many people watched The Quest II to see what was going to happen and when they saw it, they decided they didn't much care what was going to happen, so they didn't tune in the next week. Angst over Daniel being captured by Adria, like something bad was going to happen? Come on....I'm sure there were a certain number of casual viewers who had no clue that Daniel wasn't going to be in the next 2 episodes and apparently they didn't even stick around to see what happened with him. I think it's the writing and the "new direction" of the show, but that's just me.

I think ShadowMaat made a good point about the Nielsen families; it certainly makes sense to me. And about the ratings as well. Nielsen ratings can't be accurate when the show gets high ratings and inaccurate when it gets low ratings; however, some of the reasons given for the low ratings by fans can be quite entertaining.

[Hubble]

Yes. And they take great delight in tuning in to some silly show or other and going out for the night! They rarely watch tv anymore. It really is a stupid way of judging who watches tv, even with the sheet they have to fill in...they just make it up.

So, you hang out with the Nielsen families, do you?

[Jedi_Master_Bra'tac]

Don't neilsen families change every week? So the people who watched it last week might still have watched it but the current neilsen families didn't.

[ShadowMaat]

I think there's a wide variety of reasons to explain the drop in ratings, I just wouldn't point to any one thing and blame it as the entire/main reason for the drop.

Are the ratings down JUST because of downloads? No. Are they down JUST because the stories are "bad"? No, especially since the definition of "bad" varies from person to person.

Downloads could be part of the reason, but I'd only consider it a very small part due mostly to the reasons I (and others) have already discussed.

I think disenfranchised fans also account for part of the drop: people who tune in and go, "Meh, this isn't fun anymore" and change the channel.

There are probably some disillusioned fans, too, who have heard about the upcoming cast changes on Atlantis and have decided to quit while they're ahead. Again, I don't think this accounts for a significant portion of fandom, but I think it's one of the "contributing factors."

Counter-programming is a possibility, too. Either something specific to this past Friday night or something that will continue to eat at the numbers. Guess it depends on the ratings for this coming Friday.

The long hiatus could be a factor, but I think that would hold more weight if it wasn't for the fact that the returning week numbers were higher than the second week numbers: that says that people knew about the return, but that something happened to turn off a significant portion of them from one week to the next. Still, it has to be an allowable reason.

Real life. Maybe a lot of people had dates this past Friday.

It doesn't have to be any one big thing that's to blame, it can be a million tiny reasons that all add up to something big.

If the ratings continue to drop (or at least fail to pick up again) that could filter out some of the smaller reasons and lend weight to others. If the ratings pick up again, maybe it means it was just a hiccup... or a lot of hot dates. Time will tell.

[Pitry]

*worships at the altar of ShadowMaat*

thankyou.

[ParadoxRealities]

You know who says if a show is still what it used to be? Fans. And it seems alot of people still like the show. You don't think it's what it used to be, fine. Whatever. But if some people still think it IS what it used to be, then it still IS what it used to be, because those people like it. Wether you come here and say it isn't or not.

run that one past me again? if 100 people like something, and then only 51 people like it, it's still what it used to be? then why did 49 people stop liking it? note that i said "like" [as you did], thereby excluding many other reasons (advertising, dl-ing, competition, etc).

Websites like tv.com that are updated regularily are also a huge source, BTW - people who know they want to download episodes but are unsure when seasons start/ how the insane broadcast system in the US actually works (did I mention House/ Lost/ any show that is shown on FOX?)

yet they'd still have to want to. how many of those 1.5 million people really care that much?

And lastly, six months in between episodes? Of course you're going to lose viewers. It's a given.

time will tell. Q2 was the same as 10.0's average (1.5). either it was high because it was the mid-season premiere, or it was low (for those of you how think it was under promoted) because of lack advertising/6 month hiatus. if it's the former, the question is just how far it'll fall. if it's the latter, it doesn't look good at all that the ratings are continuing to fall. that (could) indicates that people didn't bother tuning in even though they knew it was on. downloading, while it might explain some of the drop over the hiatus...heck, even if it explained all of it, wouldn't work on LitS. it had 1/29th the time that the hiatus provided (both to dl itself and to annoy the impatient ones). but again, it's only been two weeks.

[prion]

Multichannel had this to say....

http://www.multichannel.com/blog/130...740008674.html

SciFi Channel Ratings Drop-Off
April 24, 2007

....

Just a couple of years ago, it seemed like SG-1 was bulletproof. Weathering
cast changes and time slot shifts, viewers stood by their show and the series
consistently pulled in ratings hovering around 2.0.

(Then again, last night, SG1 and SGA scored well on iTunes, holding the #18
and #25 spots respectively for television downloads.)

Alas, for Stargate SG-1, I don’t think viewers quite latched onto Ben Browder
in his new role. He looked too much like co-star Michael Shanks' fraternal
twin and the Richard Dean Anderson shoes just couldn't be filled.

Other factors may have contributed to the slow descent. Breaking up the
Friday night line-up and moving Battlestar to Sunday was a real disappointment.
Friday night had identity, it had synergy, it had mojo. It built to a
Battlestar crescendo at 10p.

And I just have this thing, you know, about wrestling on Sci Fi Channel. I
really hate it. Sci Fi is (or was) one of the strongest cable brands. This is
something you don’t muck around with, even if it means giving up some ratings
gain for the short term.

I still have a soft spot in my heart for this network and its potential. For
my own selfish viewing reasons, I hope they get their mojo back

[Killdeer]

(Then again, last night, SG1 and SGA scored well on iTunes, holding the #18 and #25 spots respectively for television downloads.)

I don't have download numbers, but SGA is the #3 download on Amazon Unbox and SG-1 is #4.

Edit: I should clarify - that's for televison downloads. They are #20 for SGA and #21 for SG1 overall.

[prion]

I don't have download numbers, but SGA is the #3 download on Amazon Unbox and SG-1 is #4.

Edit: I should clarify - that's for televison downloads. They are #20 for SGA and #21 for SG1 overall.

Impressive. Was LOST #1 by any chance?

[ShadowMaat]

How do official downloads count towards ratings? I thought there was something in place that took itunes (and I guess unbox) downloads under consideration. Or maybe that was more of a "maybe someday" thing.

[Killdeer]

Impressive. Was LOST #1 by any chance?

No. Unbox has a selection of 746 TV shows, but apparently "Lost" is not one of those for some reason. *shrugs* "24" was #1 for TV, followed by "The Tudors." "Prison Break" was #5.

Does anyone know how Unbox compares to iTunes as far as downloads? I'm assuming iTunes has the major portion of the market, but I've never seen any numbers.

[Killdeer]

How do official downloads count towards ratings? I thought there was something in place that took itunes (and I guess unbox) downloads under consideration. Or maybe that was more of a "maybe someday" thing.

It would be nice. I faithfully download every week. It would be nice to know I'm helping the show. But I can't imagine that SciFi would care about downloads, since they don't get any advertising dollars from them. Unless they're getting licencing fees of some sort, I would imagine that MGM would be the only one who would care about the download numbers. Just a guess though.