The other day I got an e-mail asking why I hadn't written about the "news" that American Idol would be flip-flopping with Lie To Me and that spelled bad news for LOST because LOST would be going head-to-head with American Idol. Apparently the story created a frenzy on the Internet, but that was lost on me to a degree because there was a mini-frenzy in our own comments section weeks ago about it, though honestly, until Hibberd's post, I wasn't aware exactly when it would happen other than knowing it was still weeks in the future.
I'm probably more interested than the next guy to see what happens when the switch occurs. Hello, this is a site about ratings! But, I still view all of it as a tempest in a teapot. Through it all, the ongoing discussion seems to be LOST's struggling ratings will soon struggle more. Are LOST's ratings struggling? The question there is relative to what? There are lot of ways to slice and dice the data, and unfortunately there's no easy way to do anything comprehensive. If I look at last year's season-to-date average among 18-49 year olds, it's misleading because it includes any in-slot reruns, and so far this year, there have been no reruns.
But LOST's ratings are definitely struggling if it's being measured against its own past performance. Last year, when LOST aired on a Thursday Valentine's Day night and "only" got a 5.8 rating among 18-49 year olds, people chalked it up to Valentine's Day. Perhaps a reasonable conclusion since the week before it had pulled a 6.5 rating with adults 18-49. But then February 21, 2008 came along and it pulled a 5.7 and...it wasn't Valentine's Day anymore. By the time the season finale rolled around in late May, it had a 4.9 rating with adults 18-49.
The downward trend last year wasn't particularly surprising. By last year, it was already a serial show in its fourth season that had been off the air for quite some time by the time it came back. And due to the writer's strike, mostly the first half of last season it ran against repeats of CSI and reality fare like Celebrity Apprentice.
This season, in the four episodes airing prior to last night (February 18, 2009) LOST had pulled the following 18-49 ratings: 5.0, 4.9, 4.7, and 4.4. Update: but American Idol ran for two hours last Wednesday, and was up against LOST. Did the numbers go down? Yes. Among 18-49 they went down 6%. Thanks for Jon in the comments for reminding me that I forgot to include that.
It's not a particularly pleasing trend, but until last week, compared to last year's season finale it was performing very well, although compared to last season in the same time frame the numbers were down a bit over 20%.
It's nothing to get ecstatic over, but is it anything to get bummed out about? Last week, even with the 4.4 rating while going up against American Idol it was still the #11 show among 18-49 year olds, and the shows ahead of it were two airings of Idol, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Desperate Housewives, CSI, Two and a Half Men, The Office, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and Survivor.
Regardless of the absolute numbers, in terms of relative ranking other than Private Practice (which benefited from the Grey's Anatomy crossover), and The Big Bang Theory (which swelled nicely airing at 9:30pm following Two and a Half Men rather than its usual 8pm spot) there was nothing that would make you think, "Oh man, I didn't see that coming!" OK, maybe being beaten by Survivor was a surprise, but it was the premiere of Tocantins.
I'm very interested to see last night's ratings. If I had more sense, I'd probably wait to see them before writing this, but I predict the time switch for American Idol isn't going to matter much. This isn't to say it won't matter at all, and that it won't take a hit, and that ABC won't make less money on ad sales, but so far it looks like that was going to be the case anyway, given the downward trend. But it seems highly improbable that it will take so much of a hit that it won't get to finish its run. And the ratings won't matter much, because through 5 weeks of release, the season four DVD set for LOST had reportedly sold almost a million units and had generated over $36 million in revenue.
A couple of comparisons, in its first (and only week it was high enough to be included) week of release Moonlight on DVD sold almost 57,000 copies and had almost $1.5 million in sales. In four weeks of release Battlestar Galactica season 4.0 had sold almost 282,000 units and generate over $9 million in revenue. Note, the reason LOST looks so much lower on the chart in the BSG link is because that chart is just for 2009 sales, most of the sales of LOST Season 4 DVD happened in 2008.
From its release on 12/9/08 through the end of the year the LOST season four DVD had sold 820,000 units and generated over $30 million in revenue, the second highest revenue for TV DVDs in 2008, trailing only The Office season 4 over a million units and over $32 million in revenue, (LOST would rank 3rd if you include Planet Earth, The Complete BBC series). Heroes season two sold over 881,000 units in the last four months of 2008, but generated only just over $22 million (fewer episodes due to the writer's strike, resulting in a lower unit cost).
That was probably more than anyone wanted to know about DVD sales, but the point is this, facing off against the American Idol behemoth might matter in the ratings, but won't matter in terms of LOST finishing its run until its series finale in fifteen months or so from now in 2010. Whatever last night's ratings, I really enjoyed the episode, though not everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.
Very good read. I think when people rave about how Lost once got 18-20 millin viewers they forget that for a long time the show ignores causal viewers, besides every tv show lost viewers over he years… PLUS lost is almost the only truly high concept show on network TV right now.
and last night was epic.
LOSTs end is preplanned and will occur next year, so ratings dont matter much unless they completely implode getting TSCC like ratings.
Shows as complex as LOST almost never pick up viewers and shed viewers as it goes along. People these days have very short attention spans and dont think much beyond the current hour. They like everything wrapped up nice and neat. Its also the reason most serial dramas as a whole are in a similar situation.
Heroes, which is in even worse shape, needs to follow this example and plan for its end now. Either at the end of next season or shortly thereafter. Best thing would be to end it next year at the same time LOST ends its run. Not sure why I still watch Heroes, its more out of habit than anything else. Though on Mondays I alternate between Heroes and 24. 24 is also getting tired and Day 7 is nothing but a collection of loosely connected sub plots. But the stable ratings and strong demo will insure a Day 8.
I disagree (to an extent) that the problem with serials is that people like everything wrapped up during the hour. I don’t doubt that, that’s true for some of the audience but I think the much bigger problem is that very few serials work well over multiple seasons. It just becomes very difficult to string out multiple season long arcs that keep the audience interested and engaged. Either you end up repeating the same structure every year (Desperate Housewives) or things become increasingly ludicrous and difficult to follow (Lost) and the audience just gets bored.
Lost has seen its ratings fall because the audience just gets bored/fed up with having no idea what’s going on and never having any of the questions raised any properly.
Lost is not hard to follow if you actually watch each episode and I mean watch it, not do something else while the TV is on.
as a fan i agree that ratings dont matter at this point
but the NON-Fans will always point to that stats to show the Quality Decline of the show and that really bugs me
it’s not hard to follow , i tell why ratings falls becuase when one person miss just one episode he cant follow the hole season , so he will wait till the season come in DVD or he just download on any torrent site !!
- sorry for my english -
Didn’t Lost already go against American Idol last week when Idol ran 2 hours? (http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/02/12/wednesday-ratings-two-hours-of-american-idol-dominance/12707) And it didn’t even drop that much (4.4 in demo, 9.7m viewers). So it’s already shown that it can hold its own against Idol.
Jon, I meant to include pretty much exactly what you just wrote! Somehow I forgot which is somewhat ironic since it was the major impetus for me rolling my eyes at all the “oh no, LOST fans! Look out for the American Idol steamroller!” to begin with. I’ll edit the post.
I honestly don’t understand how anyone can argue that Lost isn’t difficult to follow, especially given that 95% (at least) of the people who make that argument then go onto admit that if you miss an episode (or even part of an episode) or don’t give the show your full and undivided attention you’ll have absolutely no idea what’s going on. That my friends would be a show that’s difficult to follow.
I’m not however strictly speaking saying that’s a bad thing because whilst I’m not a Lost fan my problem with the show is all about its quality (or lack thereof) rather than how easy or difficult it is to follow. There’s a place for complex serialised television, it just won’t ever be as a sustained monster hit similar to the likes of CSI because by their very nature serialised shows shun casual viewing. For Lost that’s not a problem because the audience it does attract is the right demo, one advertisers like and one who are clearly willing to shell out for DVD’s and other pieces of merchandise so its a profitable show and doesn’t need the sustained numbers of a CSI to survive, it just needs to maintain its impressive demo score.
According to The Futon Critic, lost is already renewed for next season. If the ratings ever came to a low point (which they’re not at, and probably won’t be), ABC *can’t* cancel it. They worst they can do is cut the budget.
On the American Idol vs. Lost point, is part of the issue being raised not that when they go up against each other week on week and Idol starts picking up momentum heading toward its finale it’s going to hit Lost and that Lost isn’t the kind of show that’s going to get that audience back? I suspect it might be very easy for people to opt for Lost over Idol auditions but when you get into the live elimination shows and it gets closesr to the final it may very well be a different story.
Of course I don’t think that’s the issue a lot of people might be making it out to be, whilsst I think the hit Lost takes will get bigger as the season rolls on I don’t think its going to be substantial nor do I think its going to put the show in any real danger of not finishing its run as planned.
YAYA I hope everyshow on ABC gets canceled and I hope ABCs Network goes bankrupt!!! YAYA YA that would be amazing. Those idiots should have never canceled October Road, I miss it soooo much!!!
Hmmm, I haven’t really been following Lost, but I don’t think it can go much lower. The hardcore fans will stick around, as they did with Heroes. I think having a planned ending for Lost was a good idea, and I hope they do the same with Heroes. I’m among the few who still like Heroes, that aren’t going anywhere, but I hope they don’t stretch it out forever.
I think the thing is that people are getting tired of Serials. Heroes huge decline from a 5 to a 3.6, Lost from a 5 to a 4.4 and 24 from a 4 something to as low as a 3.4. Obviously the most noticeable is Heroes, but they’ve all lost a significant chunk of their audience.
You can’t really judge Lost’s popularity by its ratings anymore. So many people download the show from Bittorrent sites its amazing. You get the whole show and no commercials. It makes it so much easier to watch that way. I’m sure a ton of people are doing this now.
Just go to Mininova or Demonoid and look at the numbers next to Lost’s episode every week. Its a feeding frenzy!! And these people are not included in any ratings survey. Lost consistently lands in the Top 3 every week for most downloaded shows. I live in Thailand and would be “lost” without my Bittorrent download of Lost every week.
unfortunately bittorent doesnt make money
johnthemon: well, lost got 5 demo in s3-s4, but before that…7-8 i believe
Yeah we should all take into account illegal downloads when working out the popularity of a show…
Since Lost WILL finish its run next year, and will not be cancelled before that, I don’t give a flying fig how many viewers it loses. If the Lost fanbase becomes a smaller, more exclusive club, so be it. Those who stray away will miss out.
But really, how many fans can American Idol take away from Lost? Lost is a more cerebral show, and attracts cerebral types. American Idol has never been accused of being too intellectual. If any fans stop watching Lost because they’ve just gotta catch every week of American Idol, I’ll be baffled as to why they were hanging in with Lost for 4+ years in the first place.
And I don’t say that to insult American Idol fans — I used to watch it myself, for the first two or three years. But by this point in Lost’s history I think it’s got a solid, core fanbase and that solid, core fanbase is not the sort of viewer that watches American Idol.
I expect a modest ratings drop at worst.
I think serials are GREAT TV. The only thing is…you’re not going to get NEW viewers at this point and you’re naturally going to lose some over the years. My roommate wants me desparately to start watching Lost with her, but I’ve told her I feel like I’ve missed too much to jump in now. I have added the previous seasons to my Blockbuster Total Access queue and I will watch it that way from start to finish. It’s a show I’ve always wanted to watch. I just need to start from season 1, episode 1.
I’m actually very interested in TV DVD sales. Can you recommend a good website to tract these sales?
Seriously, this article is dead on. Anything above a 4.0 demo today is a hit, and LOST is still hovering around a 5.0. About anything with a 3.0 demo will get renewed, so any talk of it being cancelled is nothing short of ludicrous. LOST fans will take a new episode over any episode of American Idol any day of the week? Why? Because their audiences are nowhere near the same. I’m not saying nobody who watches LOST watches American Idol (I’m guilty here), but I’d be willing to bet under 25% of those tuning in watch American Idol. All this panic and cancellation discussion shouldn’t take place until LOST hits under a 3.0 this season, which quite frankly, it doesn’t stand a snowballs chance of happening. I don’t get why I’m one of the few people apparently who can see this.