Lisa de Moraes, the TV writer for the Washington Post has an interesting story up where one of the items referenced was that Heroes producer Tim Kring spent a lot of time deflecting flack about lower ratings at a recent conference:
Writing a serialized drama is "an absolute bear." It is also a "very flawed way of telling stories on network television," because of the advent of DVR and online streaming, for example, Kring said, according to the report.
Serialized dramas work only if people sit in front of their TV sets on the night and at the hour the network broadcasts each episode. But now, you can watch a serialized drama whenever and wherever you want and almost all of those other means of watching episodes "are superior to watching it on the air." Sooooo, the only people watching a show -- "Heroes" perhaps -- at the time it's being broadcast by a network -- say NBC -- are the "saps and [expletives] who can't figure out how to watch it in a superior way."
The key to convincing BS is to have at least a grain of truth to what you're saying. And there's way more than a grain or two of truth in what Kring says. It's so convincing I'm sure he believes it. The problem is, if you took Heroes total viewing from two years ago, and its total viewing from today (and include DVR, Internet streaming etc) the total viewing is still down. A lot.
There's a problem, and not one I'm sure can be fixed. I confess to mostly agreeing with him, though not as harshly about the "saps and [expletives]" who remain chained to the networks scheduling.
I'll concede that there are just many people who enjoy watching TV when they get home, but personally, If I wasn't doing this blog there's no way I'd ever watch any scripted TV on the network's schedule. This blog is the only reason I do, and mostly that's to avoid spoilers. Otherwise, I'd be saving it up for a rainy day!
That's exactly how I watched about the first 20 episodes of Heroes season one. We had a period where it seemed like it rained every freaking day for two weeks. My viewing wouldn't have counted anywhere, even if I was a Nielsen family. I was able to catch up in less than two weeks, but it wasn't live+seven day viewing, it was more like live+90 to 180 days viewing. Nielsen doesn't measure that and never will. Advertisers aren't going to pay for ads viewed six months after the fact, and besides, I didn't view the ads anyway.
Still, for a show like Heroes, if you're of the mind and/or have the technology available, it's often easier to say, "screw it" and buy the DVD, download them or stack them up on the DVR. All of that impairs measurement and ratings, and it is a real issue, but I absolutely dispute the notion that Heroes hasn't lost viewers since season one and two (and three). It has, and those viewers will be difficult to ever recapture. These lost viewers aren't watching on the DVR, aren't streaming video or downloading the shows -- they just no longer watch. Sure, some might ultimately buy the DVDs but comparing season 3 DVD sales to season one's is something we won't be able to do for quite some time.
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The same story linked above also notes that Rosie O'Donnell's Thanksgiving eve variety show is really a backdoor pilot, that may get picked up for six more episodes depending on the ratings.
I agree with you Robert. There is no way that apparently 10 million people stopped watching Heroes live and switched to DVR, internet, and DVDs. Serial dramas will drop in viewers over time. LOST has lost (pardon the pun) viewers from its first and second season, but it certainly hasn’t dumped over half of them like Heroes has. More people DVR it than Heroes anyway. Kring is not ever going take the blame for poor writing/plot decisions and is hoping maybe if he ignores the low numbers or makes excuses for them, they will go away.
Heroes lost ME as a viewer this season, for one. I tried to watch the season premiere but it was so awful, I couldn’t bring myself to tune in again. Haven’t missed the show, either. BTW, I prefer to watch “live” because I like to discuss shows with online friends afterwards. Also, it’s just more fun for me. It feels like more of an event, something to anticipate each week, whereas a stack of DVDs makes me shrug and feel like I can watch the contents any old time. Generally I never get around to it.
Kring’s comments make him sound like a real winner. Now I’m particularly glad that I stopped watching Heroes.
So he hates the style of his own show, and insults anyone still traditionally watching it? That bodes well.
Well maybe Heroes needs to be canned if the creator is that stupid as to insult the fans that watch it through other means. I mean, maybe we shouldn’t even buy the DVDs or buy the show off itunes anymore. And if he stops serializing the show, what’s the point in watching it? The whole show is a serial. It’s not some procedural where all they have to do is focus on the murder of the week and stop getting so involved in character’s lives. On heroes, the characters are the show! I think that maybe Kring needs to be fired and Brian Fuller take the reigns on this baby.
It only takes one bad episode to turn people away from a seralized show. Look at the T:SCC pilot. It had over 18 million viewers, but half the people hated it, and never came back. The show has gotten way better since then, but that one episode has left a bitter taste in everyones mouth.
Seralized shows are like a home run derby. If every at bat(episode)is not a home run, than it’s a failure.
Tim knows he’s close to being axed or his show is. This is his response. There is nothing really surprising here. Last year he took the blame and said he’d fix it. This year he’s saying it’s technology. He has to say something, because he’s so close to being fired. Getting rid of Loeb, etc. is not going to make things better.
DVD sales aren’t that great anyway. In terms of revenue the numbers are great. In terms of total units sold it’s something close to 2.5 million units (too lazy to look it up) for season one and not yet 1 million units for season 2.
If anything DVD sales mirror the loss of viewers. Right now HEROES is at 50% of the viewers it had in Season 1. DVD sales will likely catch up to 50% at some point (need to give Season 2 some time on the market, and holiday sales, etc.)
Corey, I’d say with serialized shows you need a base hit at least every other episode and a home run every 4 or 5 episodes with some doubles and triples mixed in. Some shows turn their misses into walks instead of strikeouts (have I done well with this baseball analogy?).
The problem with HEROES is that since the episode HOME COMING the show quality has spiraled downward. I’d say since that point it has only had one home run, a lot of doubles and singles, but mostly misses. The show has just crashed.
Serialized shows can’t start with a bad episode. That is generally one huge rule, you need an amazing pilot to hook them. I’ve always thought that was the sole reason FOX screwed over FIREFLY. Not only did they not air the pilot which was good with some amazing effects they aired a mediocre episode that aired out of place was a miss (seen in order it’s decent). The TERMINATOR show had a poor pilot in my mind. So it blew it right from the start.
I disagree Nick: but i have to say that it sounds like Tim is in denial about the failure of veiwership. People do watch DVR and others but no the missing 6 million from season 1: its sad really.
fin, I believe there are 9 million missing viewers from the most watched to the least watched. Remember after last season he was saying “this is my fault,” and was promising season 3 would be better. Now he’s talking about DVR and downloads.
DVD isn’t hurting other shows? How is it “superior,” to watching it on the air? The only way I can think of is skipping commercials. I really can’t believe he said that.
Also if it is only TECH then why fire the people he fired?
In fairness to Kring, I didn’t see the full contents of everything he said. it’s unfortunate he got caught insulting the people who actually still watch via television.
Personally, I think the alternate methods (not just DVD) are superior in several ways:
1. time crunching/viewing flexibility
- no commercials
- you can watch whenever you want to watch
- pause for breaks whenever you want
- you can skip over all the “previously on..”
2. you can watch multiple episodes at the same time
I prefer the alternate methods for those reasons.
but as Lisa mentioned above, going that route vs. live viewing (or at least watching on DVR the same night) precludes any “water cooler” talk the next day.
Robert, but lets be honest the thing that makes it so superior is no commercials. I can’t believe he stated it was superior. That has to be something that NBC wishes he hadn’t said.
I am being honest and I honestly disagree with you as far as what makes it superior. I find the alternatives to watching live television superior in many dimensions — no commercials being one of them. Watching whenever I feel like it? That’s a bigger deal to me. Also I really like that I don’t have to “wait until next week” to watch the next episode.
I agree NBC wishes he hadn’t said it, but then again, he is in some ways just parroting the Ben Silverman company line: “Our viewers don’t watch TV…”
“LOST has lost (pardon the pun) viewers from its first and second season, but it certainly hasn’t dumped over half of them like Heroes has.”
Actually it has. Lost peaked with 23 million viewers, the lowest hour got 11 million. In terms of season averages it’s tough to tell since the first 2 seasons aired repeats therefore skewing the ratings. Needless to say it had alot more room for error and room for viewer loss than Heroes did.
In fact Heroes isn’t even the show to lose the most viewers this season. House and Grey’s Anatomy have both lost more, but they had many more to begin with.
Robert, I agree all are big points, but Kring is implying everyone who doesn’t at least DVR is an idiot. That to me is a career train wreck mistake.
‘These lost viewers aren’t watching on the DVR, aren’t streaming video or downloading the shows — they just no longer watch.’
I never watched Heroes. I could tell you what my favorite episode of the Justice League Unlimited series is, I could tell you I favor DC comic characters over marvel, I could tell you the next character I hope will eventually get her own theatrical saga on the big screen, but I know she never will because they only made minis for her in the first place. I could also tell you I hate the fact that Jubilie is missing from this sect of X-men evolution. And what I can tell you is that I don’t watch heroes.
That is what is wrong with heroes, it is not attracting new viewers, and not keeping the ones it has. I don’t look out for it on TV, I don’t dl it off the internet. When true blood came out I had to outsource somebody to get it for me, I don’t care to do that for heroes. Don’t you think that it is weird a person like me who never missed a premier of Justice League Unlimited is simply not caring about the outcome of heroes? Especially when I gave Smallville a chance and never missed and episode of The Flash years back. Or Lois and Clark? I was one of the few people that knew who Iron Man was when people were questioning why in the world would Marvel do a movie about Iron Man. I nearly had a heart attack when Green Arrow’s sidekick showed up for less than a minute in an episode of JLU.
And lets face it, his snide remark about the people who do take the time to view it only shows what little respect he has for his fans in the first place. Just like Nina Tassler, no wonder they are loosing viewers. I think Tim Krig has simply lost touch as to what his viewers want. I love the x-men, I hated x-men evolution. I still watched it.
Tim Krig needs to look at himself in the mirror and ask himself the question “What am I doing wrong?”
Well, I think we just found out exactly why Heroes blows so badly: Kring is either a moron or on heavy medication. Or maybe I’m the only viewer who doesn’t watch Heroes any longer in any form.
The show stinks. That’s why I dumped it. And it wasn’t S2 or S3 that did it to me. The show started stinking during Season 1. The finale was so lame as to be laughable. Partway through 2, I was gone for good. Came back for the premier of S3, and made it through about half of it, then I was gone again. They have fired writers and producers, and they have announced BIG PLANS to do this or that, but the only constant during all the sucking is a man named Kring. Now we find out that he’s spinning his ass off behind the scenes, blaming the viewers of all things. And to top it off, he’s actually insulting the only people that should really matter to him: THOSE THAT WATCH THE SHOW IN A WAY THAT COUNTS IN THE RATINGS!!!!
Talk about a sap and a [expletives]! I give you Tim Kring.
What a fricking dope. Of course, the constant stream of comments to the effect of, “You can’t say our show is bad until you see where we are going with it nine hundred episodes down the road,” had already clued me in to that fact that Kring is a bonehead. Good shows are good every week. Period. I don’t watch Lost to find out where it is going (I don’t care where it is going). I watch it for the great stories that pop up more weeks than not, and for the great, well defined characters that are always there every week. In fact, the only reason I almost quit Lost was because they got too mythology crazy in Season 3.
The problem with serials isn’t inherent in the form. The problem with serials is usually inherent in the producers. They get so caught up in their own bullshit mythology that they forget to tell a story each week. They also forget that characters need to be interesting, well developed, and consistent, rather than simply avatars that shift weekly in order to push plot along.
PLOT. PLOT. PLOT. These idiots actually think we are tuning in to see them plot. It screams, “Look at me. Look at how smart I am.” But while that is what they are saying, the finished product actually screams, “Don’t watch me. Look at how dumb my producer is.”
Heroes was never ever a great show. That’s the problem. It was good, but that’s it. And when you are only good, you can’t slip a even bit. Lost wasn’t just good when it started. It was amazing. Its worst day was ten feet taller than Heroes best day. Company Man, Heroes’ only truly great episode, was like a run of the mill Lost episode. When they could not only not sustain that quality, but actually went way, way downhill, they lost (no pun intended) everyone but the geeks who will watch anything comic book related just in the hopes that 22 hours of viewing will provide a 15 minutes of actual quality, and the mentally infirm who won’t stop watching anything once they’ve started it, no matter whether it’s good, bad, or upside down. Those crazies aren’t enough to sustain a show with a Pentagon sized production budget.
One day the producers of seralized shows will realize that the serial part is just the icing. Icing makes the cake, but you actually have to have a cake to put it on, because just eating icing makes you really sick really fast. The characters are the cake. The story each week is the cake. Mythology itself just does not make a show. And every idiot who thought it did has always ended up ruining the show he/she was running.
Serialized shows do have a strike against them from the start, but if you make your show all about your mythology and nothing else, then you are an idiot. If you then blame the audience for all your mistakes and ineptitude, then you are a jackass as well.
Heroes is never known to have lost 9-10 million viewers. It lost a MUCH smaller sample size of measured viewers that Nielsen says represents 9-10 million viewers.
I always find it amazing that when there is a mass exodus of “viewers” at the same time, people actually believe it. What are the odds that that many people all decided not to watch a show they previously watched every week AT THE SAME TIME? Anytime I see a gigantic jump like that with all else (like time slot/day) remaining constant, I become extremely skeptical of how Nielsen does things. I’ve suspected something like Nielsen turnover (a change in the people being measured) would be more of an explanation for a sudden loss of viewers than that many people abandoning a show at the same time.
Almost all the shows are down from previous seasons, this is worst for bad shows, where heroes is included.
i love heroes but the stories are bads, they are all recicled for others shows, films, cartoons, etc. and then they are very confused, they go back and go to future all the time. this happens when they don’t have antyhing else to tell.
so change this and i believe the ratings improved almost immeddiatly!
Wow, nice guy. Although seeing that the quotes come via Lisa de Moraes, I’m inclined to take at least some of this with a grain of salt. The “Post” is my hometown paper, so I’ve seen a lot of her columns, and let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past her to twist things for the sake of a good snark. (That’s not to say that this isn’t true — only that I can’t tell for sure unless I’ve seen further reports of the conversation.)
Robert and Nick,
I agree that there are serious advantages to alternate viewing methods. No commercials, watching on your own time, etc., BUT a mass exodus of people to alternate methods does indicate a serious problem: a lack of excitement about the show. Think about it. If you’re excited about a show, you want to watch it as soon as possible. You’re not going to wait two or three weeks for it, you’re going to watch it live or the next day. If people are waiting weeks to watch several episodes at a time or a full year to get the DVDs, they aren’t excited about the show, they aren’t talking about the show, and they aren’t encouraging others to watch the show. It’s no longer event viewing, which, especially for a serialized show, means it’s one step away from the grave. While a procedural like NCIS can wait six years to get any buzz, a highly serialized show can’t. They need more “watercooler” buzz to keep people watching (what is the last successful serialized show no one talked about?).
On Kring’s claim: Heroes Season 2 premiere had nearly 4 million DVR viewers in the first 7 days (giving it over 18 million viewers). Season 3 premiere had just under 3 million (giving it only 11 million viewers). Since the premiere, it has lost an additional 1 million DVR viewers. Given that there is absolutely no evidence that 2 million people started watching online or decided to wait for the DVDs, even the people who aren’t “saps” that watch it live have stopped watching.