Supernatural's Ratings PLUMMET - AICN

[mswood]

Beautiful Life Tanked. And my god, look how far Top Model has fallen (what for years has been their largest generator of profit) just huge, huge loses.

I would expect Beautiful Life to get cancelled soon. Even without replacement programming they can't afford that. It makes Runaway look like a hit. Also I can't believe that Smallville won't be quickly moving off of Friday's. Its the lowest viewed night that the CW programs for, with the failure of both new shows, and the declines in everything returning, they have to write off Friday.

The real question is how do the change the schedule. This week is going to be absolutely brutal for the CW, as this will be the first week that all the shows will face at least a majority of new programming. Hell I honestly expect SN might drop between 2.3 to 2.5 million in viewers.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Didn't Kripke pretty much state there wasn't going to be a 6th Season? I mean, how do you top Lucifer?

That's too easy. You could have Zombie Lucifer or Super Lucifer or Lucifer 2.0 or Mandroid Lucifer.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

No, it won't drop that low. The core audience has been too fanatically loyal to this point. The biggest crossover audience is with Fringe. Some viewers will return. It'll all even out.

That's too easy. You could have Zombie Lucifer or Super Lucifer or Lucifer 2.0 or Mandroid Lucifer.

AAAAAAAAACCCKKK!!! Don't give the new show runner any ideas.

 

[mswood]

No, it won't drop that low. The core audience has been too fanatically loyal to this point. The biggest crossover audience is with Fringe. Some viewers will return. It'll all even out.

That's too easy. You could have Zombie Lucifer or Super Lucifer or Lucifer 2.0 or Mandroid Lucifer.

AAAAAAAAACCCKKK!!! Don't give the new show runner any ideas.

Please they have already done Mandroids, don't you remember.

Oh and you know how positive I am about ratings, so I am preparing for the worse.

 

[mswood]

So Dorian are you going to watch Heroes this season?

 

[broberfett]

I would have missed it, but I had my DVR set to record the series. I love CSI, but I liked it much more with Grissom. I've always liked Lawrence Fishburne in movies, but I'm not sure I like his CSI character as much Grissom. I think I'll stick with the two shows I can record being Supernatural and CSI. Have the ratings dropped with Fishburne on CSI or gone up?

I also wonder if the Angel/Demon thing taking up the entire season might also be a drag on ratings for Supernatural.

 

[Aragorn]

Didn't Kripke pretty much state there wasn't going to be a 6th Season? I mean, how do you top Lucifer?

There's an asteroid the size of Texas headed straight at earth. And there are dinosaurs living at the center of it. Led by zombie John Winchester! And it's from Krypton! And whenever you're near it, you'll hear music from hip young new artists. And Dawn Ostroff has total creative control of the show!

 

[mswood]

I would have missed it, but I had my DVR set to record the series. I love CSI, but I liked it much more with Grissom. I've always liked Lawrence Fishburne in movies, but I'm not sure I like his CSI character as much Grissom. I think I'll stick with the two shows I can record being Supernatural and CSI. Have the ratings dropped with Fishburne on CSI or gone up?

I also wonder if the Angel/Demon thing taking up the entire season might also be a drag on ratings for Supernatural.

CSI experienced large then normal (as for shows typically loose viewers year after year). Its troubled the producers who have made it known that they are working to make the character more enjoyable.

As for the idea that the Angel/Demo storyline is depressing the ratings, I don't think the evidence supports that.

Now if Supernatural was the only show on the CW down then perhaps, but it isn't its in fact the one show down the least. If it's fatigue with that aspect of the story then one would assume that the season 4 (the only scripted show on network tv that actually had gains in viewers/demos in every original episode last season) would have fallen more in the spring. And DVD sales of season 4 wouldn't have more then doubled any other season of Supernatural.

 

[Skywalker]

Didn't Kripke pretty much state there wasn't going to be a 6th Season? I mean, how do you top Lucifer?

Two words: Captain Robau.

 

[StarTrek1701]

Ah its good to be back!

What I don't understand is why would some networks punish their long-running shows by giving them suicide timeslots whereas they will cater to some shows that have no hope of getting out of the ratings hole they've dug?

 

[Dream]

Didn't Kripke pretty much state there wasn't going to be a 6th Season? I mean, how do you top Lucifer?

The Winchester brothers will be taking on God himself in season 6.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

No, word has it that God will be making an appearance this season. Seriously. Everyone's been trying to figure it out if Kripke's being sly or not, but it's what he said. "God has left the building" according the grand master angel dick Zachariah, but something put the brothers on the plane. As for the angels/demons depressing the ratings, I don't think so. Season 4 doubled the sales of season 3, like mswood said. That's when the angels who are all dicks came to town.

Poor Kripke. He was probably hoping for controversy and publicity by labelling angels of the Lord as dicks, but the show's in such a bad time slot it didn't happen.

StarTrek1701, the CW is committed to it's girly shows like Gossip Girl and Melrose Place. They promise advertisers the female 18-34 demo and the female teen demo. That's why they push the teen soaps and put them on Mondays to protect them. They'd never throw them to the wolves on Thursdays.

No, no Heroes for me this season mswood. What they did to Nathan was the last straw.

 

[FreezeC77]

If being in a harder time slot(with Fringe drawing away genre viewers) means lower ratings and decreases the chance of a season 6 then color me happy. The show was always planned around a 5 year storyline, as long as it gets thru S5 and that storyline is delivered I could care less about continuing on the show with something new to be honest.

and yea I think Fringe draws on the same genre audience, it was in a different time-slot last year so it wasn't up against Supernatural at 9pm, now you have it on at 9pm Thursday. Plus it was the premiere, after the way the Fringe finale ended things there was a lot of interest in seeing what happened.

As for me I plan to keep watching Supernatural because Fox puts up their shows on their website to watch and it gives me something to do the next day during lunch at work

 

[StarTrek1701]

StarTrek1701, the CW is committed to it's girly shows like Gossip Girl and Melrose Place. They promise advertisers the female 18-34 demo and the female teen demo. That's why they push the teen soaps and put them on Mondays to protect them. They'd never throw them to the wolves on Thursdays.

But isn't that shortsighted? Wouldn't the shareholders want more demos to watch their shows rather than just a certain group? Shows like Burn Notice, CSI, Law/Order, Lost and other successful shows always have a wide demo not just young men / young women or whatever niche demo. The minds of network executives sometimes baffles me.

 

[mswood]

^

Well its not like the CW wouldn't kill to have a show that got great across the board results, but truthfully (and this kills me because I am not any part of any demo the CW cares about) is that when they merged they did program broader but the area that they had any real traction was the 18-34 demo,and specifically the female gender of that age group. But at least in their first two years they did try for broader appeal. Runaway and Life is Wild at the family demo, Aliens in America and Reaper at the male demo. They all failed. And fair or not advertisers care a lot about 18-49 and 18-34 groups. CBS has easily the largest viewing audience but since they hit primarily the 25-54 demo and in many cases older, they have to have a huge audience to generate the same revenue that a show with half the audience makes.

Oh and to answer about Thursdays specifically, well its the most sought after day for Ad buyers. As Thursdays ads fuel everything from weekend shipping, to going out to eat, going to the movies, ect.

The CW and all other networks want strong programming across the board on Thursdays to maximize ad dollars. I was always curious why they kept Smallville and Supernatural on Thursdays, then I realised those two shows had the largest (by far male audience on the CW) and thus can market movies on that night, and movies are primarily considered male driven (though clearly that is not always true).

So I was really surprised that they moved Smallville. But the CW needs to build replacement hits, and out of all the new shows VD seemed most likely to succeed. And out of Smallville or Supernatural, Supernatural on paper looks to be a better match then with VD. So why not move SN to anchor the night? Two words Grey's Anatomy, one of the largest female driven audiences on tv. VD would get killed.

 

[mswood]

No, no Heroes for me this season mswood. What they did to Nathan was the last straw.

Oh come on, I can't waitto argue that Peter would feel nothing but murderous rage at Sylar. I mean seriously. It's like having Sam possessed after he dies (which they can do) and the demon uses his memories (which they can do), can't you just see how much Dean would still love his brother. Yeah over and over with Ruby's Knife. Or how he would feel if he found out John knew ,or Castiel did it.

 

[23skidoo]

Is it my imagination or are the returning shows being abysmal at promoting themselves this year? I only found out about the Fringe season premiere the day after it aired when I saw discussion of it here.

Not saying this is the main reason, but could Supernatural's low showing also be a consequence of people simply not knowing it's back yet?

Alex

 

[Orintho]

Why do a lot of you want this show to end anyways? I've only recently started watching it - seems to me they could milk the Lucifer story line. Do some of you think the story is becoming to irrevocable or something?

 

[mswood]

Why do a lot of you want this show to end anyways? I've only recently started watching it - seems to me they could milk the Lucifer story line. Do some of you think the story is becoming to irrevocable or something?

The fear is that almost every single tv program ends up staying on the air after they have started to lose quality. Some to just small degrees some so much that they are just shell of themselves.

Now for myself, I don't see any drop in quality, but I also am aware that it is possible that the show runner will not return (though he might),and that often changes the quality of a show dramatically(sometimes for the best, but more often for the worst). And both actors really, really don't want the show to drag out, so at most I see a sixth season (and with the numbers from the CW might no be possible, they might be out of business).

 

[mswood]

Is it my imagination or are the returning shows being abysmal at promoting themselves this year? I only found out about the Fringe season premiere the day after it aired when I saw discussion of it here.

Not saying this is the main reason, but could Supernatural's low showing also be a consequence of people simply not knowing it's back yet?

Alex

Well I can't speak for Fox, but this is the first time the CW had not programmed any original programming for its summer (not that they were that successful) and as such it is possible that had a small amount of effect.

But in general, the drops aren't that significant (for SN at least) and match the typical year to year drop most almost all shows have. Without seeing the DVR results yet we have no idea if that as increased to take away much from the live/same day results.