I know DS9 and either Hercules/Xena often fought for the top spot, but did DS9 fare better against B5 and VGR?
Were DS9's ratings higher than B5 & Voyager?
- Thread starter DS9forever
- Start date
DS9's ratings were a little higher than Voyager's in the same year, but they both trended down at about the same rate. Both were higher than B5's.
DS9 was the highest rated show in first run syndication for much of its run. During seasons 5 and 6 it was a three way race between DS9/Hercules and Xena, with DS9 frequently falling to second or third place. DS9 did return to number one during it's final season.
DS9/Voy ratings were close. Week to week it would fluctuate with DS9 doing better some weeks and Voyager better others, but overall on a season to season basis, DS9 outperformed Voyager by about 1 million viewers:
95-95 season: DS9 average: 6.61 million viewers, Voyager: 5.68 million viewers
96-97 season: DS9 average: 5.76 million viewers, Voyager: 4.73 million viewers
97-98 season: DS9 average: 4.96 million viewers, Voyager: 4.24 million viewers
98-99 season: DS9 average: 4.04 million viewers, Voyager 3.44 million viewers.
DS9 did quite well for itself considering unlike Voyager Paramount didn't promote the series heavily. Voyager due to its role as the flagship show on the struggling UPN got all the advertising money and promotional appearances.
I think this is one problem that both Voyager and Enterprise faced, and it was handled better with Voyager being on a network and in syndication.
I thought VOY wasn't syndicated?
Voyager was indeed a network show airing on UPN rather than in first run syndication like TNG and DS9. I do believe however - and please correct me if I'm wrong - later in Voyager's run UPN began losing affiliated stations and Paramount ended up distributing Voyager to some independent stations in parts of the country that no longer had UPN coverage.
