| Scoreboard for Fri. May 16, 2008 |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 8.55 | 6.60 | 4.02 | 3.10 | 2.98 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 2.0/7 | 1.7/6 | 1.2/4 | 1.0/4 | 1.2/4 |
CBS season/series finales led the way to another Friday night victory both with total viewers and 18-49 year old viewers. ABC was second in both categories. CW was THIRD for the evening, a rare occurrence on any night, on the strength of Friday Night Smackdown! Of course, the CW let that get away and next year will be running Everybody Hates Chris, The Game and the encore of America’s Next Top Model, which won’t outperform two hours of Smackdown! FOX was in fourth overall and tied with CW in the 18-49 demo. NBC was just…last.
The Ghost Whisperer season finale could barely manage a 2.0 in the demo, and while Moonlight pulled in 7.56m in its swan song, it had but a 1.8/6 in the 18-49 demo. Numbe3rs was the strongest show of the night on any network with 9.73m and a 2.3/7 in the 18-49 demo.
Two hours of American Gladiators encore? Worse than Quarterlife! Yikes. 2.51m viewers and a sub 1.0 in the 18-49 demo. And perhaps this indicates that lead-in still matters at least a little because the 10pm numbers for Dateline were pretty low at 4.27m and a 1.4/4 in the demo.
FOX ran the movie Dodgeball and it didn’t do much better than American Gladiators. A pretty ugly May sweeps Friday. See for yourself…
Friday night’s details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | ABC | America's Funniest Home Videos (8p-10p) | 6.80 | 1.7/6 |
| CBS | Ghost Whisperer | 8.36 | 2.0/8 | |
| NBC | American Gladiators (Repeat) | 2.51 | 0.9/3 | |
| CW | Friday Night Smackdown! (8p-10p) | 4.02 | 1.2/4 | |
| FOX | Dodgeball (8p-10p) (R ) | 2.84 | 1.2/4 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | Moonlight | 7.56 | 1.8/6 |
| 10:00 | ABC | 20/20 | 6.21 | 1.9/6 |
| CBS | Numb3rs | 9.73 | 2.3/7 | |
| NBC | Dateline | 4.27 | 1.4/4 |
Nielsen Ratings Source: Nielsen Media Research. Full night's results available via Marc Berman/Mediaweek.
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These numbers show why CBS made a right decision by canceling Moonlight. But what happened to FOX and NBC last night? I’m amazed how badly Dodgeball did
Rob, do you really think “The Ex-List” is going to do any better? Moonlight won it’s timeslot which is more than can be said for a lot of shows. It has also show more viewer stability than many shows. Comparing pre-strike to post-strike new episodes of Moonlight lost 0.5% of its audience. CSI lost over 6%.
Gwen, it doesn’t matter what I think. What CBS thinks is that it will perform better in the demo. I don’t know whether they’re right or wrong, we’ll find out in the fall. While I feel badly for Moonlight fans, I really don’t blame CBS for trying something else.
It looks like Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs got season lows. So why only hold Moonlight accountable? The current TV season has just fizzled out at the end and young people especially have found something else to do on Friday nights. They should be looking at the number it had throughout the entire season and not just for the one or two shows when ratings all over the place were down.
Robert- really like the new chart. It is a lot easier to read.
GW with a 2.0. I think their audience has fallen by about 800,000 in the last two weeks as well, if I’m not mistaken. Times are tough for the networks.
CBS should have replaced moonlight with a thriller rather than the ex-list, now it’s gonna be like men in trees. They really should be proud of the line-up that they have on fridays, I mean 9 million every FRIDAY night is seriously huge!
I’m really curious what CW comedies would reap on fridays and yeah even FOX’s game shows and also ABC’s reality shows and NBC’s Life and FNL
I believe that Moonlight lost viewers because they were told that the show had been cancelled, so they figured, what’s the point of watching? They’d been told there would be a cliffhanger, and they likely thought they didn’t want to get caught up in something like that if the show wouldn’t return.
That’s a shame, as it was a very strong episode and the fans really enjoyed it a lot.
And by the way, the fans are still working hard at encouraging another network to take on Moonlight. For example, if the CW took it on, it would have a higher rated show than it’s current ratings star “Gossip Girl”. The fans (and their spending money) would be right there to watch the show, too.
If you want to know more about the fan effort, visit http://www.moonlight-united.com
Leeser
MoonlightLine
http://www.moonlightline.com
(562) 256-0910
If I look at the numbers, Moonlight did pretty good for its time slot. Yes, while it drew only a 1.8/6 in the 18-49 group, it was the last among CBS shows that night, but did better than every other non CBS show that evening. I believe it’s important when you cite statistics, that you put things in context, not just point out that they didn’t do great with their share.
The bigger point is that Moonlight also did better than every other non CBS show. That is another significant point. CBS’s rationale that Moonlight didn’t have the ratings I believe is simply bogus. I rather think that the cost of the show combined with the numbers didn’t provide CBS the kind of rate of return they were looking for and they felt that their new show that will take it’s place will do better. I highly doubt that. Only time will tell if I am right.
The problem now for Moonlight is threefold:
1) CBS is not going to let Alex O’Loughlin out of his contract commitments to allow him to continue with Moonlight. If they don’t allow that to happen, then the show is dead.
2) The cost of the show is going to be a much bigger issue for the smaller networks than for CBS and given that the cable networks’ viewership is far less than the big three, the possible return on investment for any network taking on Moonlight is going to be an issue, even if all 7.5m viewers go with the show…which I doubt will happen. I think a high percentage of that number, perhaps 50-60% will go with the show, but I don’t believe that will be enough.
3) I am as much a fan of Moonlight (even though I’m a guy) as everyone else (can you say Sophia Myles??). However, the fans are thinking emotionally, which is a powerful motivating factor, but the harsh reality of business in the entertainment industry is that return on investment is everything. This drives every business decision that these people make…not what makes good television. This is the reason that some of the best television shows get cancelled…and Moonlight was not stellar, but it was solid and it had long term potential. The writers strike effectively killed it, since it couldn’t recover from the dip in overall TV viewership, which did not return immediately when new shows returned. By that time, CBS I think had already made up its mind about the show, but held off until the last possible moment so that they’d retain viewership that they know they would have lost had they made the announcement sooner.
Taking all these into consideration, as much as I want Moonlight to come back and while I will continue to stand with the fans trying to bring the show back, I am enough of a realist (and a businessman) to understand that the chances of bringing Moonlight back from the dead are slimmer than me being turned into a vampire. A nice thought, but not reality.
It’s very sad indeed.
Dave
Leeser, there were only ~5,000 fewer viewers, not a big drop off.
Sorry to say, but there’s no chance Moonlight airs on the CBS managed CW. Right or wrong CW is targeting younger demos, Moonlight doesn’t draw them in.
It’s crazy to me how crazy some people get about sci-fi shows, u had 16 episodes in less than a year, in UK they have just 6 episodes each year and still people seem satisfied.
Lesser…keep up the good fight. Even though I said what I did, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep on fighting. If there were one show that was worth fighting for, this one is it…and you have my support.
Dave
Then there are other networks out there who may be interested in the viewers and their money.
I’ll be happy to patronize a business that supports my favorite show.
This is true. If you think about Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, those shows have an incredible, and very loyal following. Thankfully, those shows are not horribly expensive to produce (thank you Canada!), so the ROR requirements are much less, and with the viewership those shows have, even though SG-1 is gone, they’ll be around for a long time.
If Moonlight gets a second chance, the writing and acting will have to be exceptionally compelling, since there will be a rather significant amount of skepticism about the show. I think they’ll be up to the challenge, but it will also be a very long shot that they will ever get the chance.
Dave
Stupid NBC. 0.9 in the demo for American Gladiators?? They could have asked Friday Night Lights to finish the 7 episodes that were ordered for this season. Friday Night Lights, while no means a huge hit, would still have consistently drawn a 2.0 in the demo like it did all last year, beating Moonlight and the shows NBC aired last night. And then FNL would have pulled in another 25-30% in DVR plus 7 day viewers. Friday Night Lights would have aired its season finale last night. Yes, I am glad we are getting FNL next year, but NBC’s refusal to film the last 7 episodes of this season was short-sighted.
Robert – Not that I really think you’re wrong about the CW, but I really don’t understand the logic. GG did a 1.2/3 in the demo last time it aired. Considering that the CW is close to shutting its doors according to news reports, I would think that beggars can’t be choosers. You would think they would take what they could get. Heck put Jericho over there. Put on what ever you could find that had higher numbers than what you are getting now. Dawn Ostroff (sp?) must be a genius because her business sense doesn’t really make sense.
We don’t see the 18-34 numbers anymore but I looked at a random couple of weeks like the week of 10/15-10/21 where Gossip Girl had 1.13m 18-34 year olds and Moonlight had 730,000. Moonlight did have 2.753 million 18-49 year olds that week to Gossip Girl’s 1.63m but more than 2 million of them were 35 and up, whereas most of GG’s were 18-34.
The total viewers that week were consistent with the normal numbers (2.41m for Gossip Girl and 7.67m for Moonlight).
Jericho and Moonlight cost more to make and didn’t attract the target youth demo, it’s an equation that adds up to bad news for fans of those shows.
CBS didn’t make the right decision. What did they expect? They wanted it to do badly. There was no advertising for the show. And the little they did do was misleading. Making the last episode look awful with their season finale promo only the fans could see. Also, many people around the country were going to grad nights. There was a lot of graduations going on. And besides, Ghost Whisperer only got in like 800,000 more viewers than Moonlight, and it’s a more established show. So, really, Moonlight wasn’t given much of a shot. But Moonlight has stayed consistent which no other shows can really say. What with the writer’s strike and all. Give Moonlight a summer, the coming of the Twilight movie and Moonlight would continue to grow in numbers. So, CBS wanted Moonlight gone, so they made it happen. Hopefully, another network like CW or Sci fi will pick up the show. It gets 5 million more viewers than CW’s shows. So, it’d give them their highest rated show.
II’ve been watching TV for 20 years and i’ve been sad a lot of times when my shows were canceled. But i never had this “the network did a horrible thing, i’ll never watch it again” attitude. That’s just childish. Anyone who is interested in TV ratings knows CBS didn’t have any solution but to cancel Moonlight. They’ve canceled Close To home and brought this Sci-Fi show to finally have an younger skweing show. And look at that: Close to Home pulled exactly a year ago 2.6 in demos versus 1.8 Moonlight pulls this year. And the numbers for GW and Numb3rs are just slightly down on last year’s data so the “everything is way doen” excuse doesn’t work. There wasn’t a single logical reason for which CBS should’ve kept Moonlight. The fact that it’s winning it’s time slot isn’t enough beacause it’s winning the time slot but it’s pulling down CBS’s demo averages for the season. A CSI repeat would do better there
Robert – Thanks for looking at the 18-34 demo. Maybe my point is that if news articles are writing your obit you might want to look at a different business model. Since the 18-34 female viewer model doesn’t seem to be working out too well, It seems that CBS and the WB (which I think own the CW) would be looking at different options. (Just threw Jericho out there because I guess they are still shopping it. Never watched it though.)
Rob- You said that GW numbers were only slightly off from last year. GW pulled close to a 2.0 in the demo last year? That seems pretty low.