For the only year I have ratings for TOS, BOTH the rating AND households are well below STNG.
RAMA
Fans, why did the ratings slide?
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
For the only year I have ratings for TOS, BOTH the rating AND households are well below STNG.
RAMA
TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
I don't see why people get so worked up over TOS vs. TNG. Both were excellent in their own way and both fell short in certain areas. I own them both and depending on my mood I throw in one or the other. I do have my favorite but that doesn't mean I throw the other one out the window.
Hell, as one of the hardcore TOSsers (heh), TNG never had a ratings slide that I'm aware of. Most of us were pretty peeved when they decided to put a cap on the series - at the time, it was assumed - or perhaps even stated - that they did it because the salary demands were getting hefty, so they ended the show at the end of contracts period.
The end of TNG was not a ratings issue - it was a Paramount decision. A bad one.
The end of TNG was not a ratings issue - it was a Paramount decision. A bad one.
The average rating for TOS final season was 13.2 which is higher than any season of TNG. The ratings for the first 2 TOS seasons (with better time slots) were higher than that,
Obviously I'm aware of that. I meant to suggest that maybe the person who started the thread is confusing TNG's decline in popularity with the idea of low ratings. Its ratings never waned, but its popularity did. There has been a lot of talk on this forum about how TNG started getting really bad towards the end of its run...someone could easily misinterpret that as a reference to declining ratings rather than declining movie quality.
Actually I looked at it again, and you are right, however because each ratings point equals more households, STNG's viewership was almost 5 million more households.
I tend to agree, but the ratings success of STNG is significant in comparison to TOS's cancellation.
RAMA
Yeah, but as I mentioned, there were almost twice as many households in the TNG time due to population growth, so that would not be a fair way to compare. That's the reason the rating numbers are percentages, to discount population growth in comparing ratings across the years. But the fragmentation of TV market with additional networks made rating comparisons useless too.
And TNG also gets the benefit of its ratings being based on 2 airings of each episode vs a single airing for TOS episodes.
There is no way to directly compare TOS to TNG ratings. You can try to spin it one way or another, but it doesn't mean much.
Actually, I believe the cast was originally signed for six years. I think it was during the fifth season, when we thought the sixth would probably be the last, that the Trek PTB started talking about a seventh and final season before beginning TNG movies. I remember Michael Dorn appearing on QVC before the premiere of Star Trek VI answering a question about TNG movies saying, "At this point it looks like it's going to happen."
I'm glad they ended the show on a high note rather than suffer the embarrassment of dwindling audiences the way three subsequent series did. The writing quality had already taken a nosedive by season seven anyway. At least now we can look back and call TNG an unqualified success.
The ratings didnt slide but the quaility of the show was hit due to DS9 being created while TNG was still on the air. Moving writers and epsiode budgets being cut(i heard some episode budget were shifted to DS9. Not confirmed imo) which lead to some scripts to be re-edit or dropped.
TNG's budget was between 1.2 and 1.5 million dollars an episode. DS9's budget was between 1.5 and 1.9 million dollars an episode, after a reported $12 million pilot episode. I remember the TNG cast at the time complaining about all the money being spent on DS9.
Piller spent most of his time on DS9 for the first two seasons (TNG's last two seasons) while Jeri Taylor stepped in to head the TNG writing staff.
If Season 8 would have had more Episodes like Genesis, Parallels, The Pegasus and All Good Things and less of the other eps I would have been all for it.
Personally, I'd take season 8 of TNG over season 1 of DS9 any day of the week.
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Agree with the last two posters; Trek fans sometimes have an odd tendency to overstate the "decline" in TNG Season 7's quality.
Was it inferior to Season 6? Sure...but TNG Season 6 was probably the most consistently good season in all of Trek, so there's not really too much shame in coming up short compared with that. Compare Season 7 to, say, Season 5 and it is much less clear cut. And anyone who thinks Season 7 is in the same league of cringe as TNG Seasons 1 and 2 isn't paying attention.
(Of course, we have the hindsight that the TNG movie franchise turned out to be not all that...)
Was it inferior to Season 6? Sure...but TNG Season 6 was probably the most consistently good season in all of Trek, so there's not really too much shame in coming up short compared with that. Compare Season 7 to, say, Season 5 and it is much less clear cut. And anyone who thinks Season 7 is in the same league of cringe as TNG Seasons 1 and 2 isn't paying attention.
(Of course, we have the hindsight that the TNG movie franchise turned out to be not all that...)
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Dont you just love how people comment on your threads, and find it hard to stay on topic...
TNG's ratings slid for many reasons. But one real reason, IMO, is that they were on autopilot for the last three seasons, prepping for their move to the big screen.
I also think they kind of jumped the Shark with BOBW part two. Though many good episodes come after it, I think part two was such a letdown. And then the other season-cliffhangers tried to out-wow BOBW, but got worse each time...
And the competition had better looking babes; BAYWATCH. Baywatch killed TNG and DS9 in the ratings; big breasts = big ratings. RO LAREN came up too short in that area; should have signed Pamela Anderson!
Rob
TNG's ratings slid for many reasons. But one real reason, IMO, is that they were on autopilot for the last three seasons, prepping for their move to the big screen.
I also think they kind of jumped the Shark with BOBW part two. Though many good episodes come after it, I think part two was such a letdown. And then the other season-cliffhangers tried to out-wow BOBW, but got worse each time...
And the competition had better looking babes; BAYWATCH. Baywatch killed TNG and DS9 in the ratings; big breasts = big ratings. RO LAREN came up too short in that area; should have signed Pamela Anderson!
Rob
No one has presented any reference source showing a ratings slide for TNG's initial run. Quite the contrary, all references provided in this thread have indicated strong, steady ratings throughout the entire run of TNG. The OP based this thread on an opinion unsubstantiated by any references and was asking for the cause of an outcome that he never showed occurred in the first place.
Warmest Wishes,
Whoa Nellie
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Fall 1987 - Spring 1988: 8.55 Million
Fall 1988 - Spring 1989: 9.14 Million
Fall 1989 - Spring 1990: 9.77 Million
Fall 1990 - Spring 1991: 10.58 Million
Fall 1991 - Spring 1992: 11.50 Million
Fall 1992 - Spring 1993: 10.83 Million
Fall 1993 - Spring 1994: 9.78 Million
Fall 1994 - Spring 1995: 7.05 Million
These numbers come from this site I think.
Rob
Fall 1988 - Spring 1989: 9.14 Million
Fall 1989 - Spring 1990: 9.77 Million
Fall 1990 - Spring 1991: 10.58 Million
Fall 1991 - Spring 1992: 11.50 Million
Fall 1992 - Spring 1993: 10.83 Million
Fall 1993 - Spring 1994: 9.78 Million
Fall 1994 - Spring 1995: 7.05 Million
These numbers come from this site I think.
Rob
These numbers look pretty steady; beginning with 8.55 Million in the 87-88 season and ending with 9.78 Million in the final 93-94 season. There is a slight peak in the middle to the later half of the series (seasons 5&6).
Since "All Good Things" aired May 21st 1994 this last number does not correspond with the initial run of TNG. The substantial decline of ratings for Trek happened after TNG.
Warmest Wishes,
Whoa Nellie
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