SciFi Wire: Official SciFi Channel ratings for Season Ten

[LaCroix]

Sorry, but I have to agree with Skydiver.

Originally Posted by Skydiver
and i'm not even gonna start on teh Big Brother potential for spying on people with said technology. Every little bit of this tech just chips away at an individual's privacy

I know I wouldn't have posted this, let alone join this forum if I had to use my
real name (Sorry Darren ). So I hide behind my avatar. (No not the pic. that I use, but my user name LaCroix)

But on topic. This new rating must be worriesome to TPTB on both shows.

[Jonzey]

and i'm not even gonna start on teh Big Brother potential for spying on people with said technology. Every little bit of this tech just chips away at an individual's privacy

It's hardly spying. I'd imagine it's all digitised- what each household is watching is recorded and then the stats are spat out of a machine- it's not like one guy sitting in an office going through it all saying ''Ah, this guy, who lives at this address, was watching porn on TV at 3 in the morning!''

I doubt they even link the viewers to a name and address when calculating the ratings.

[Kanten]

On a slightly unrelated note, is it just me, or has advertising for Stargate become almost completely nonexistant this year? I admit I don't watch Sci Fi during the week as much as I used to, but I think I have yet to see one commercial for an upcoming episode outside of the usual one during the closing credits. Between this, splitting the winning Friday lineup from the last two years, and that ridiculous hiatus announcement, I really do think SciFi is intentionally trying to kill it.

[God_of_the_Sun]

The ratings definatly seem lack luster but i suspect that a decision will not be made regarding the fates of SG-1 or Atlantis until February - once Battlestar Galactica has returned and the shows have resettled for the second half of their respective seasons. If BsG has also shown a ratings dip, or indeed SG1 and Atlantis show ratings growth alongside Battlestar, they might renew them.

If Battlstar is as strong as ever AND Stargates ratings are still down than they might well be sunk.
It all depends too on how much stock MGM places on the (potential) movie franchise revival and DVD sales. If the shows are still turning in a profit it shouldn't matter to them that ratings are down.

[MediaSavant]

On a slightly unrelated note, is it just me, or has advertising for Stargate become almost completely nonexistant this year?

I don't watch much of the network, but there were ads in Eureka this week.

I wouldn't be surprised if on-air promotion was a little less, but not because of any intentional snubbing. There's only so much promo time and they've had a lot of new shows to promote with it. The ad time seems more dispersed over different shows.

[MediaSavant]

Another reason why ratings are down that I have not seen discussed here is that Scifi, in many locations, has gone from Basic cable to Premium. Chicago's Comcast provider made the genious decision of putting Scifi with the premium package, as of August 22nd, 2005. This might also account for why ratings of part 2 of that season were lower.

Nope. The ratings we see are called "coverage area ratings". They represent a percentage of the households that receive Sci-Fi not a percentage of the entire country. The numerator is the number of households watching the show. The denominator is the number who receive the network. If households no longer receive the network they get taken out of both the numerator and the denominator.

[LaCroix]

I believe that there was ads. running on 6/17/06 during the Dr. Who marathon
with AT, CJ, and JF "playing" their roles during a 60 second spots this day.

So there was some advanced ads. almost a month before season 10 began.

[MediaSavant]

The ratings also don't and can ever take into account folks like me, I dont' have digital cable. My dvr records off air (and it's really a dvd recorder anyway)

and i'm in the midwest, and a vast majority of our people do not live in large metropolis'. nor do they have cable (some do fit in because they have teh mini dishes)

my point is that there's huge chunks of the population that are ignored because the measuring technology isn't available

This is a misconception. The Nielsen sample is designed to represent all parts of the country and be geographically and demographically balanced. Rural or Urban. Young or old. No cable or digital cable. Midwest or East Coast.

As I said in a previous post, the ratings we get are not the "Total U.S." ratings, but a measure of the ratings within the universe of households that has cable or satellite and can receive SciFi. If they were shown as a percentage of all households--and they could be--they'd be even lower than they seem.

[Albion]

Upper SciFi management changed however and they were into more "realistic" shows. So in a choice between Stargate SG-1 and Farscape they chose Stargate.

How ironic that they then went on to reduce SG1 to the same kind of parody/ cartoon/comedy episodes that Farscape produced. And by that I don't mean to disparage Farscape - I enjoyed watching that show, too. But that kind of theme/tone suited Farscape and was what made it enjoyable. It just looks incongruous on SG1 - a show which, until S9, prided itself on its 'realistic' miltary basis for plots and characterisations.

Albion

[Descent]

Okay, Farscape WAS renewed for a 5th season but the company who was going to fund that season backed out at the last second so the renewal fell through. So all this talk about how Farscape was #2 and still didn't get renewed is wrong.

[Erik Pasternak]

The ratings definatly seem lack luster but i suspect that a decision will not be made regarding the fates of SG-1 or Atlantis until February - once Battlestar Galactica has returned and the shows have resettled for the second half of their respective seasons.

That'd be hard--the shows usually begin filming for the next season in February, with script work beginning even before then. Usually, the decision is made sometime in November/December, IIRC.

[ShardsofGlass]

How ironic that they then went on to reduce SG1 to the same kind of parody/ cartoon/comedy episodes that Farscape produced. And by that I don't mean to disparage Farscape - I enjoyed watching that show, too. But that kind of theme/tone suited Farscape and was what made it enjoyable. It just looks incongruous on SG1 - a show which, until S9, prided itself on its 'realistic' miltary basis for plots and characterisations.

Albion

I have yet to see something on SG that is remotely close to an episode of FS. A comedy on SG is completely different in tone and everything else than a comedy on Farscape.

[Descent]

That'd be hard--the shows usually begin filming for the next season in February, with script work beginning even before then. Usually, the decision is made sometime in November/December, IIRC.

They film from February to October, meaning the finales are written in late September.

[oragans]

any true farscape fan should know stargate it not in anyway like stargate.
And if they do get picked up i imagine they will start shooting at a different due to the second half of the season may or may not be showing in march.

[The Ori]

Dissapointing that the ratings are so low!!