They'll put a positive spin on it in any way they can, but the truth is things are spinning out of control over in the land of Gossip Girl and Dawn Ostroff known as the CW.
Do I fault the CW for wanting to target 18-34 year olds, specifically females? Not at all. The evidence is crystal clear that advertisers are actually willing to pay a premium for that demographic and we don't like to ever chide anyone for "following the money". We consider that a sensible ploy.
But check this out, courtesy of Travis Yanan who posted this data on Marc Berman's forums:
| Show | Net | HH Rating/Share | 18-49 | 18-34 | Women 18-34 | Viewers (Millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gossip Girl | CW | 1.7/3 | 1.3/4 | 2.0/6 | 2.9/8 | 2.50 |
| One Tree Hill | CW | 1.9/3 | 1.4/3 | 2.1/6 | 3.3/8 | 2.93 |
| The Hills | MTV | 2.4/4 | 2.4/6 | 4.0/11 | 6.3/16 | 3.75 |
While I do not find the data particularly surprising, I find it interesting nonetheless. On a couple of levels:
- It appears that a show about real life spoiled, skanky girls who do whatever the heck they feel like is a way, way bigger draw than a fictional scripted show about spoiled, skanky girls who do whatever the heck they feel like. Unscripted lands yet another blow against scripted, even in premium target demos
- The beat-down in Gossip Girl's (and the CW's) target demo is massive. The Hills did 100% better among 18-34 year olds.
While we don't have the gender breakdown, (the women's 18-34 data has been added to the table) 100% is a massive beat-down. 100%.
I believe in the Internet parlance popular among the 18-34 crowd, The Hills and MTV PWNS Gossip Girl and the CW. For my middle-aged brethren, I'll translate: The Hills and MTV OWNS Gossip Girl and the CW.
My hat is off to MTV.
Update 4/23 5:10pm PDT: Travis Yanan was kind enough to provide the Women 18-34 demographic ratings/share for the three shows in the comments and I've added to the table above. In the allegedly key demo for Gossip Girl it is out performed by both One Tree Hill and The Hills, in fact The Hills outperformed Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill combined among women 18-34!
"I believe that is truly pwnage," said Yanan.
We agree.
BG: The Hills' performance is even more impressive when you compare MTV's average primetime viewership of 948,000 to CW's average primetime viewership of 2.29 million.
I was thinking of the same thing, I bet if MTV airs reruns of Gossip Girl it’ll get as many viewers as it does on CW, its gotta do with the incapabilities of this network.
I stick to my earlier comment that CW shows should be on cable. I mean Everybody Hates Chris doesn’t cross the 2 million mark on “CW” and House of Payne gets 3 million viewers on “TBS”.
I was thinking of the same thing, I bet if MTV airs reruns of Gossip Girl it'll get as many viewers as it does on CW, its gotta do with the incapabilities of this network.
I stick to my earlier comment that CW shows should be on cable. I mean Everybody Hates Chris doesn't cross the 2 million mark on “CW” and House of Payne gets 3 million viewers on “TBS”.
WTH? NIELSENS LIE!!11 GOSSIP GIRL AND CW FTW!
No, really, after watching a couple of GG episodes I find the show to be quite disturbing. Who would in their right mind watch a show about spoiled, filthy rich, skanky girls and boys who do whatever the hell they wanna do? And they have ‘problems’? F*** GG and f*** The CW.
WTH? NIELSENS LIE!!11 GOSSIP GIRL AND CW FTW!
No, really, after watching a couple of GG episodes I find the show to be quite disturbing. Who would in their right mind watch a show about spoiled, filthy rich, skanky girls and boys who do whatever the hell they wanna do? And they have 'problems'? F*** GG and f*** The CW.
I don’t think the characters are neither skanky and filthy nor rich enough.
And its weird that these girls love 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and they also watch The OC and Gossip Girl.
I don't think the characters are neither skanky and filthy nor rich enough.
And its weird that these girls love 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and they also watch The OC and Gossip Girl.
I don't think the characters are neither skanky and filthy nor rich enough.
And its weird that these girls love 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and they also watch The OC and Gossip Girl.
I believe that Gossip Girl aired a marathon on MTV and did rather poorly. The fact is, people don’t watch the show live, and a show without live viewers cannot reasonably continue to exist.
It pisses me off that they keep pushing it down viewers’ throats–as if they think they can make us believe what their false advertising claims. And I can’t believe that they cut Supernatural’s budget for season 4, but raised Gossip Girl’s. Based on WHAT?!
I believe that Gossip Girl aired a marathon on MTV and did rather poorly. The fact is, people don't watch the show live, and a show without live viewers cannot reasonably continue to exist.
It pisses me off that they keep pushing it down viewers' throats–as if they think they can make us believe what their false advertising claims. And I can't believe that they cut Supernatural's budget for season 4, but raised Gossip Girl's. Based on WHAT?!
I believe that Gossip Girl aired a marathon on MTV and did rather poorly. The fact is, people don't watch the show live, and a show without live viewers cannot reasonably continue to exist.
It pisses me off that they keep pushing it down viewers' throats–as if they think they can make us believe what their false advertising claims. And I can't believe that they cut Supernatural's budget for season 4, but raised Gossip Girl's. Based on WHAT?!
How wrong is it that I actually like this show. It sucks me in. Dawn loves it though and as long as she has control of the CW, she will air it. How long the CW stays afloat though, who knows. I worry for my Supernatural boys though. I could live without GG very easily. I will be heartbroken though if Supernatural gets taken off the air because the CW ran themselves into the ground.
How wrong is it that I actually like this show. It sucks me in. Dawn loves it though and as long as she has control of the CW, she will air it. How long the CW stays afloat though, who knows. I worry for my Supernatural boys though. I could live without GG very easily. I will be heartbroken though if Supernatural gets taken off the air because the CW ran themselves into the ground.
How wrong is it that I actually like this show. It sucks me in. Dawn loves it though and as long as she has control of the CW, she will air it. How long the CW stays afloat though, who knows. I worry for my Supernatural boys though. I could live without GG very easily. I will be heartbroken though if Supernatural gets taken off the air because the CW ran themselves into the ground.
Fact is, The Hills is actually a good show made in a novel way. The focus is not on the dialog but on the style and the blurring of reality. TV needs more good looking rich kids and less Ugly Betty’s and obviously The Hills got it right more so than Gossip Girl.
Fact is, The Hills is actually a good show made in a novel way. The focus is not on the dialog but on the style and the blurring of reality. TV needs more good looking rich kids and less Ugly Betty's and obviously The Hills got it right more so than Gossip Girl.
Fact is, The Hills is actually a good show made in a novel way. The focus is not on the dialog but on the style and the blurring of reality. TV needs more good looking rich kids and less Ugly Betty's and obviously The Hills got it right more so than Gossip Girl.
Well to each his own because I accidently put on The Hills today (home sick) and it was awful. But I’m not a fan of that type of show so that could be part of the reason. Gossip Girl is a kind of guilty pleasure for me. I could live without it, and if it went away, there’d be no letter writing or tears, but if its on and I remember, I’ll turn it on. If the Hills is on, I’ll turn it off. LOL.
I dont always have mainstream taste though since half the shows I love have been canceled.
Well to each his own because I accidently put on The Hills today (home sick) and it was awful. But I'm not a fan of that type of show so that could be part of the reason. Gossip Girl is a kind of guilty pleasure for me. I could live without it, and if it went away, there'd be no letter writing or tears, but if its on and I remember, I'll turn it on. If the Hills is on, I'll turn it off. LOL.
I dont always have mainstream taste though since half the shows I love have been canceled.
Well to each his own because I accidently put on The Hills today (home sick) and it was awful. But I'm not a fan of that type of show so that could be part of the reason. Gossip Girl is a kind of guilty pleasure for me. I could live without it, and if it went away, there'd be no letter writing or tears, but if its on and I remember, I'll turn it on. If the Hills is on, I'll turn it off. LOL.
I dont always have mainstream taste though since half the shows I love have been canceled.
Here’s the W18-34 breakdown:
Gossip Girl: 2.9/8
One Tree Hill: 3.3/8
The Hills: 6.3/16
I believe that truly is pwnage.