I was watching the Spurs vs. Lakers game on ABC when I heard one of the announcers give LOST a promo:
LOST is back Wednesdays at 9, 8 central on ABC. Last Wednesday 20 million people returned to the island, making this season's premiere of LOST bigger than ever.
ABC also used similar wording in an on-screen promo. WTF!?
Better than ever? Perhaps. I caught a preview of the episode that airs this Wednesday at 9pm and loved it! But better is subjective, bigger isn't.
I don't really have a problem with the 20 million number. There are a number of ways ABC could've come up with it that are legitimate. There's the total audience measurement -- those who watched at least six minutes. They might have lumped in some numbers from the clip show that preceded it, the reruns from Saturday night, and for all I know, they lumped in some web viewing as well. But however they came up with the more than 20 million number doesn't really matter. I buy that there's a way to come up with that number. It's totally misleading, but that's OK, that's commonplace and I don't have a big problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is using that 20 million to say that this season's premiere of LOST is bigger than ever. Any way that you could possibly calculate today's viewing versus past viewing there is simply absolutely, positively no way that it could be true that LOST is bigger than ever.
LOST averaged 11.4 million viewers in the overnight numbers for the premiere -- a series low for season premieres. And almost 5 million lower than the season four premiere, which up until now was the lowest-rated season premiere for LOST. In fact, the season four recap episode that aired before the season four premiere averaged more viewers than the season five premiere.
So is LOST bigger than ever? The implication was LOST was bigger than ever because of the number of people who watched the premiere. Again, there is absolutely no way that is true. But it's very probably true that LOST costs more to produce than it ever has, so at least in that sense it is bigger.
If a gazillion people were watching the show (which I personally think would be really cool) and if more people than ever were watching I wouldn't have a problem with "Hey, a gazillion people are watching. More people than ever!!!" with the implication that you should watch too. But since it's actually not true, it rubs me the wrong way.
TV networls do this all the time. They show 2-3 episodes in a night/week, and say “Look we have 30 million people watch our show!” When it is really just 10 million people watched all three episodes.
again, I don’t mind the number inflation. but comparing the number inflation this year to the number inflation last year, the result would be smaller than ever, not bigger than ever.
I hear ya. I heard ABC make the same claim during the game and came online for the sole purpose of trying to verify it, especially since I had read the actual overnight ratings on Friday. I agree that it’s probably misleading or wrong for ABC to promote this arbitrary number, but conversely, I think it is probably more in line with actual numbers. In fact, it’s still probably on the lower end given this age of new media — it’s the number one selling tv show on itunes, plus you can watch it On Demand for free, or online. ABC isn’t the real problem here, it’s the obsolete Neilson rating system. I can’t believe we don’t have a more accurate tracking system in place given today’s technology.
Maybe because The Season Premiere was UP from the last Season Finale
Cool, while that’s true among 18-49 year olds, that is then a 10th of a point tick up from the lowest-rated season finale of the series. Hardly “bigger than ever”. But sure, “Bigger than our lowest-rated finale ever”
Adam, I’ve seen enough online, itunes and VOD data to conclude that for now, all of that will amount to significantly less viewing than just the week’s worth of DVR viewing that we won’t see for a couple of weeks. All the noise about new media, for now, is mostly noise. Live viewing via TV is still, and by a large margin, the biggest chunk of viewing. This may not be true for everything — short clips, especially, or perhaps even Obama’s inaugural address. But it’s certainly true for LOST.
This isn’t the most egregious distortion by ABC’s parent company, Disney, in its marketing efforts the past few weeks. After its film Bedtime Stories finished second in the box office its opening weeks, Disney ran promos calling it the “#1 Comedy in America.” Except the top box office film that week was Fox’s Marley & Me, which by most accounts is a comedy.
So what gives, Disney?
Well lets face it, they certainly can’t air a promo saying “the lowest watched season premiere ever” but they probably should have gone with something other than a total lie….
America, I think this is more egregious, but it’s probably merely a matter of taste. In the case of Bedtime Stories, they at least have some wriggle room with “comedy” vs. “romantic comedy”. Declaring a smaller number to be bigger seems more heinous to me. But hey, “smaller, it’s the new bigger.”
What’s funny is that they feel the need to tout the numbers at all in a promo. I can understand a press release, but with a show like LOST are people suddenly going to tune in because 20 million people did? I’m sure they figured out over the past four years whether or not they need to watch it to be able to contribute around the water cooler.
Maybe because this is the first Season Premiere that is TWO hours, instead of 1 episode? The Pilot doesnt counts.. haha I really dont know.
Btw, Disney is not the only one who makes thinkgs like ‘#1 comedy on America’, NBC and MSNBC were saying they were first in the election coverage (when CNN or ABC were fist.. I really dont remember)
Lost was good the first season, now its stupid.
Problem with doing this is that Disney is a publicly traded company and potentially this can be interpreted as misrepresenting the state of business. Frankly I think the SEC should investigate publicly traded media companies that lie about the strenght of their business like this for potential civil or criminal violatons.
Maybe they added both hours together? Anyways, who cares about ratings with Lost? It already has a guaranteed end date. The lower numbers are probably better for the show, since the suits at the network might not be tempted to mess with it last minute.
RJ, if you stopped watching Lost in the second season.. you should watch it know. The third (after the sixth episode) and fourth season were mindblowing.
now, not know.
Yeah. Ratings dont really matter for Lost. It’s going to end next May despite what the ratings are..
Ratings aren’t that bad anyway for a heavy serialized show that’s in its fifth year….
How on earth is this newsworthy? Read some of the press releases you issue, where they try to use statistics to spin horrible, horrible ratings. Where are the headlines saying “The CW misleads” or “NBC spins?”
Basically, ABC’s promo could be summed up by saying “LOST gets good ratings, you should watch it.” So you’re ok with them throwing out the “misleading” 20 million number, but not with them saying it’s bigger than ever? Gotcha.
Considering the flocking of viewers over to cable, LOST is still about as big as it ever has been. I don’t see many fifth season or longer serial shows still on broadcast TV, do you? Take a chill pill…
Vader, this is now the second time you’ve demonstrated being extra-sensitive with regard to the coverage of the LOST ratings. I’m sorry that you can’t see that I am not bashing the show (or in this case, even its ratings) but ABC. Is it newsworthy? C’mon. Almost *none* of the ratings information is that newsworthy, but this is a blog about ratings, and the ABC promo was new, making it was worthy enough for me. You don’t like it? Fine, don’t let the door hit ya on the way out.
Seriously, if you’re going to be a sensitive wuss every time the words “series low” are typed in conjunction with LOST, just to be safe, you might want to avoid this blog until June…
[edit] Wanted to chime in about the press releases also. 95+% of the releases we post, we post simply because they include a lot of data that isn’t available in the overnight or weekly reporting. At this point we’re posting dozens of them a week and there’s just not time to debunk them. Plus, after you have debunked the first few, it gets old, so we merely precede the press releases with “Via XYZ network press release” and leave it up to the readers to realize that as it’s a press release. Believe me, if the ABC press release for Wednesday night would have insinuated that LOST’s premiere was bigger than ever, Bill and I probably would’ve done separate posts debunking it!
P.S. this Wednesday’s LOST is awesome…
Gee Robert, it’s always nice to get told to leave after pointing out someone’s hypocracy. Nevermind that two other people said similar things, but because I had the gall to come out and ask why we should care about this when it goes on everywhere, I should leave? Yeah, makes total sense to me… Oh wait, I forgot I’m a “sensitive wuss.” My bad.