While I would be the first in line to say that putting shows on a 3 month hiatus isn't good for ratings and that CBS botched that - as NBC did with Heroes last year, as ABC did by holding out LOST until January of this year, etc., the 'Jericho ain't over until Carol Barbee says it's over' line of thinking is almost certainly complete nonsense. At least if CBS is actually airing the "tie it all up, no cliffhanger" series finale.
It's not completely untenable for Barbee and the crew at Jericho, assuming they can find a home. There's a way around it and it has been done once and by a CBS show to boot. Dallas. Dallas ended its 1984-1985 season by running over Bobby Ewing with a car and killing him right on the screen. Patrick Duffy wanted out so he could be a star, and they took him...out.
Dallas is one of the primary reasons I don't buy into the HUT/PUT as much as the average lemming. This is the same old school legacy thinking that causes some to obsess over lead-in. The data is in. Lead-in just ain't that big a deal. It's not that lead in is never important. If the Super Bowl is your lead-in, it's a big deal. If American Idol is your lead-in, it's a bigger deal than if it wasn't, but more than 50% of the AI viewers will tune out anyway. Remote control rules all and once we didn't have to get up off our butts to change the channel the world changed and lead-in became vastly less significant. Many whine about the low HUT/PUT on Fridays, but in the glory days of my youth (I was 22 when the Dallas 1984-85 season ran) Dallas was the #2 show for the whole season with a 24.7 household rating and a 37 share to boot. On a Friday.
But after killing off Bobby, Dallas fell to 6th place for the 1985-86 season with a 21.8/35. Back then a drop of almost 3 ratings points sent the network executives into a panicked frenzy (ah, the good old days!). Fortunately, Patrick Duffy's (who played JR's little brother Bobby) movie career didn't take off like he'd hoped and so they figured out a way to bring him back. When Pamela Jean Barnes Ewing (played by the lovely Victoria Principal) wakes up at the end of the finale of the 1985-1986 season, she sees not her new husband (she remarried kind of quick after Bobby's demise), but none other than Bobby himself coming out of the shower and wishing her a good morning. The show ends and huge, huge props to the Dallas producers for the end credits which listed "Starring Patrick Duffy As: ?"
I LOVED the question mark. I didn't like the handy dandy tidy way they solved all of that at the beginning of the 1986-1987 season though when it turns out Pam had dreamed the entire 1985-1986 season (other than Bobby wishing her a good morning with a towel wrapped around him).
If the series finale aired for Jericho ties things up so much that it makes it hard to continue the show, they can do the dream deus ex machina thing and it will be way easier than it was for Dallas to handle. Dallas suffered all kinds of plotline and continuity issues as a result, not to mention that Bobby's death was also written into the story of spinoff Knots Landing. Still, it was probably a good move for CBS, ratings held on fairly steady for the next 2 years before dropping out of the top 20 and then ending its run a couple of years later. But Dallas was a show with huge ratings. It averaged a 31.2/52 (household rating/share) for the 1980-1981 season. Those were different times. Jericho could conceivably pull it off much easier than Dallas - they'd only have to have one episode as a dream. I don't love the solution, but if that's the best way to continue the storyline, undo the "series" finale and get the show back on the air somewhere picking up where it left off last Tuesday? Fine by me.
I don't see the dream scenario as a likely means for Jericho to land on another network. So unless CBS is fibbing a little bit about which episode its airing, I think this Tuesday marks the last new episode of Jericho we'll ever see anywhere. But I reserve the right to change my mind once I've actually seen the finale. I will definitely be watching.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©1980-2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Nina Tessler over at CBS stated that the series finale will give some closure but leave it open enough that if another network wanted to, there could be another season. I for one will be thrilled to see a season three. I was one of the people who helped bring Jericho back for season two and I am back to help bring Jericho back for season three, come hell or high water! The Jericho Rangers will stop at nothing to get our show back on the air.
The revolution starts NOW!
Nina Tessler over at CBS stated that the series finale will give some closure but leave it open enough that if another network wanted to, there could be another season. I for one will be thrilled to see a season three. I was one of the people who helped bring Jericho back for season two and I am back to help bring Jericho back for season three, come hell or high water! The Jericho Rangers will stop at nothing to get our show back on the air.
The revolution starts NOW!
To be honest, they’ve always said it still leaves avenues and my guess is it ties off the threads of the things they don’t think they could bring back with the show on another Network. Cable shows have limited numbers of leads, so I am guessing it will mostly give closure to certain things. My impression is that if they had gotten to air the cliffhanger, it was apparently a doozie. Dan and Karim said the other night that the alternat ending will *definitely* be on the DVD and they are hoping to get it online for people to view. Me, I want to see it. You know, I can’t think of one series that I’ve ever seen that had a GOOD “final” episode. None of the Star Treks, which were long term planned final eps, ever satisfied me. M*A*S*H ticked me off (I was pretty young, but I still can’t figure out why Henry had to die when everything was OVER). In some ways, there isn’t a point to have final episodes. Even in alternate realities, things just go on. At least I have my imagination. I still think this show would work on a cable network. People act like it was getting 1 million eyes a week on it instead of at least 6 million.
I still think you are wrong about lead ins. But also just the time slot. And not as many people as you think DVR things (I even know one person who has had a dvr for two years and still doesn’t know how to use it. My customers in our small cable system can’t get dvrs and TIVO uses all their long distance). But I sure know a BUTTLOAD of people who have downloaded it off iTunes.
Still, I will love to see what ratings what ever they put in its place get. If whatever it is pulls some gigantic number.OK.
Mostly, I sometimes think that people are kind of afraid of the show itself. I know that a lot of people I approached had the impression from the time it aired that it was ‘doomed’ and didn’t want to invest. That sure as h*ll didn’t help anything. And I think that the same reason I love it (because, I live in the midwest, and believe me, they got these characters right) due to the fact that its like seeing a really believable alternative reality with people that I know, in places like I live, is too much for others. They like a nice comfortable, “nothing like my life” setting.
I guess we’ll see. All I know is it is time for a change for niche viewers. Is there no one that wants OUR money? OUR patronage? I guess not.
And I wish Moonlight fans good luck. It’s been a nice second half of the first season, but I don’t expect them to have much more luck than we did because it too, no matter how enthusiastic the fans, is a very niche audience.
To be honest, they've always said it still leaves avenues and my guess is it ties off the threads of the things they don't think they could bring back with the show on another Network. Cable shows have limited numbers of leads, so I am guessing it will mostly give closure to certain things. My impression is that if they had gotten to air the cliffhanger, it was apparently a doozie. Dan and Karim said the other night that the alternat ending will *definitely* be on the DVD and they are hoping to get it online for people to view. Me, I want to see it. You know, I can't think of one series that I've ever seen that had a GOOD “final” episode. None of the Star Treks, which were long term planned final eps, ever satisfied me. M*A*S*H ticked me off (I was pretty young, but I still can't figure out why Henry had to die when everything was OVER). In some ways, there isn't a point to have final episodes. Even in alternate realities, things just go on. At least I have my imagination. I still think this show would work on a cable network. People act like it was getting 1 million eyes a week on it instead of at least 6 million.
I still think you are wrong about lead ins. But also just the time slot. And not as many people as you think DVR things (I even know one person who has had a dvr for two years and still doesn't know how to use it. My customers in our small cable system can't get dvrs and TIVO uses all their long distance). But I sure know a BUTTLOAD of people who have downloaded it off iTunes.
Still, I will love to see what ratings what ever they put in its place get. If whatever it is pulls some gigantic number.OK.
Mostly, I sometimes think that people are kind of afraid of the show itself. I know that a lot of people I approached had the impression from the time it aired that it was 'doomed' and didn't want to invest. That sure as h*ll didn't help anything. And I think that the same reason I love it (because, I live in the midwest, and believe me, they got these characters right) due to the fact that its like seeing a really believable alternative reality with people that I know, in places like I live, is too much for others. They like a nice comfortable, “nothing like my life” setting.
I guess we'll see. All I know is it is time for a change for niche viewers. Is there no one that wants OUR money? OUR patronage? I guess not.
And I wish Moonlight fans good luck. It's been a nice second half of the first season, but I don't expect them to have much more luck than we did because it too, no matter how enthusiastic the fans, is a very niche audience.
To be honest, they've always said it still leaves avenues and my guess is it ties off the threads of the things they don't think they could bring back with the show on another Network. Cable shows have limited numbers of leads, so I am guessing it will mostly give closure to certain things. My impression is that if they had gotten to air the cliffhanger, it was apparently a doozie. Dan and Karim said the other night that the alternat ending will *definitely* be on the DVD and they are hoping to get it online for people to view. Me, I want to see it. You know, I can't think of one series that I've ever seen that had a GOOD “final” episode. None of the Star Treks, which were long term planned final eps, ever satisfied me. M*A*S*H ticked me off (I was pretty young, but I still can't figure out why Henry had to die when everything was OVER). In some ways, there isn't a point to have final episodes. Even in alternate realities, things just go on. At least I have my imagination. I still think this show would work on a cable network. People act like it was getting 1 million eyes a week on it instead of at least 6 million.
I still think you are wrong about lead ins. But also just the time slot. And not as many people as you think DVR things (I even know one person who has had a dvr for two years and still doesn't know how to use it. My customers in our small cable system can't get dvrs and TIVO uses all their long distance). But I sure know a BUTTLOAD of people who have downloaded it off iTunes.
Still, I will love to see what ratings what ever they put in its place get. If whatever it is pulls some gigantic number.OK.
Mostly, I sometimes think that people are kind of afraid of the show itself. I know that a lot of people I approached had the impression from the time it aired that it was 'doomed' and didn't want to invest. That sure as h*ll didn't help anything. And I think that the same reason I love it (because, I live in the midwest, and believe me, they got these characters right) due to the fact that its like seeing a really believable alternative reality with people that I know, in places like I live, is too much for others. They like a nice comfortable, “nothing like my life” setting.
I guess we'll see. All I know is it is time for a change for niche viewers. Is there no one that wants OUR money? OUR patronage? I guess not.
And I wish Moonlight fans good luck. It's been a nice second half of the first season, but I don't expect them to have much more luck than we did because it too, no matter how enthusiastic the fans, is a very niche audience.
Folks, ask Nina T and Carol B. this question: does CBS airing the “series finale” make it a lot more difficult for them to shop the show to other networks? I think it must, regardless of what anyone might say, but I’m wrong an awful lot and I hope this is one of those times!
It will be interesting to find out in the aftermath at what point they started thinking about other networks and shopping the idea. Jericho’s producers had to know from the season 2 premiere ratings that the outcome with CBS was inevitable. Were the producers in a frenzy to shop the show elsewhere already or did they wait until CBS’ annoucement? I hope we find out.
Folks, ask Nina T and Carol B. this question: does CBS airing the “series finale” make it a lot more difficult for them to shop the show to other networks? I think it must, regardless of what anyone might say, but I'm wrong an awful lot and I hope this is one of those times!
It will be interesting to find out in the aftermath at what point they started thinking about other networks and shopping the idea. Jericho's producers had to know from the season 2 premiere ratings that the outcome with CBS was inevitable. Were the producers in a frenzy to shop the show elsewhere already or did they wait until CBS' annoucement? I hope we find out.
Folks, ask Nina T and Carol B. this question: does CBS airing the “series finale” make it a lot more difficult for them to shop the show to other networks? I think it must, regardless of what anyone might say, but I'm wrong an awful lot and I hope this is one of those times!
It will be interesting to find out in the aftermath at what point they started thinking about other networks and shopping the idea. Jericho's producers had to know from the season 2 premiere ratings that the outcome with CBS was inevitable. Were the producers in a frenzy to shop the show elsewhere already or did they wait until CBS' annoucement? I hope we find out.
Karen: we know what the DVR numbers are and that Nielsen says only 2.1 out of 10 homes has them. So I’m aware that 7.9 out of 10 homes don’t. So why would I think everyone is DVRing things? I don’t!
I agree timeslot matters, but if a repeat of L&O at 10pm can do way better than Jericho, then it is not all timeslot related. I don’t think that lead-in doesn’t matter, only that it doesn’t matter very much. The data seems to back me up. If you have a case to make that is based on data, that disagrees please post it! Thanks.
Karen: we know what the DVR numbers are and that Nielsen says only 2.1 out of 10 homes has them. So I'm aware that 7.9 out of 10 homes don't. So why would I think everyone is DVRing things? I don't!
I agree timeslot matters, but if a repeat of L&O; at 10pm can do way better than Jericho, then it is not all timeslot related. I don't think that lead-in doesn't matter, only that it doesn't matter very much. The data seems to back me up. If you have a case to make that is based on data, that disagrees please post it! Thanks.
Karen: we know what the DVR numbers are and that Nielsen says only 2.1 out of 10 homes has them. So I'm aware that 7.9 out of 10 homes don't. So why would I think everyone is DVRing things? I don't!
I agree timeslot matters, but if a repeat of L&O; at 10pm can do way better than Jericho, then it is not all timeslot related. I don't think that lead-in doesn't matter, only that it doesn't matter very much. The data seems to back me up. If you have a case to make that is based on data, that disagrees please post it! Thanks.
P.S. I will for certain by the unaired cliffhanger ending off of iTunes as soon as it’s available!
P.S. I will for certain by the unaired cliffhanger ending off of iTunes as soon as it's available!
P.S. I will for certain by the unaired cliffhanger ending off of iTunes as soon as it's available!
P.P.S. WAY more people watched Jericho on DVR than downloaded it off of iTunes — WAY more. Online viewing via CBS.com, etc however was probably about as much as the DVR viewing based on CBS’ press releases
P.P.S. WAY more people watched Jericho on DVR than downloaded it off of iTunes — WAY more. Online viewing via CBS.com, etc however was probably about as much as the DVR viewing based on CBS' press releases
P.P.S. WAY more people watched Jericho on DVR than downloaded it off of iTunes — WAY more. Online viewing via CBS.com, etc however was probably about as much as the DVR viewing based on CBS' press releases
Lets send NUTS to all the other networks!
Lets send NUTS to all the other networks!
Lets send NUTS to all the other networks!