Sooner or later (probably sooner) we'll get up the latest top twenties for DVR viewing for the week ending February 22, but I know there is big fan interest in Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles DVR numbers.
As with the initial Friday airings on 2/13, both shows saw boosts due to DVR. What you'll see reported in some outlets is the increase to 18-49 ratings versus live plus SD. We don't generally report those numbers, but here they are for Dollhouse and TSCC for the 2/20 episodes:
| Show | 18-49 Rating Live+SD | 18-49 Rating Live+7 | % Gain |
| Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 1.35 | 1.83 | 35.6% |
| Dollhouse | 1.67 | 2.21 | 32.3% |
Keep in mind those numbers above are 18-49 ratings points, and not millions of viewers.
Though we doubt these numbers will have much impact on renewal decisions (certainly not for TSCC) and though the overall numbers look to trend down the following two weeks, we know the fans find the numbers interesting so here you go!
Overall Dollhouse had 1.458 million DVR viewers and TSCC had 1.475 million DVR viewers for the 2/20 airings.
Do you, by any chance have Dollhouse and Terminator the wrong way around in that table?
*damn lack of edit
Or did TSCC really go to a 2.21 on Live+7?
oooops. will fix. you’re of course correct.
I can see Dollhouse getting renewed but Terminator is out…..
Ok, so DVR viewing softened the week 1 to 2 decline slightly for Dollhouse.
Live+SD: 2 to 1.67 (-16.5%)
Live+7: 2.58 to 2.21 (-14.3%)
i still cant see either show going anywhere… snl reruns bet both of them, almost combined in demos..
Thanks, I now had my daily TSCC is being canceled post on this website.
haha Chad. C’mon, we took Sunday off. Tomorrow the Renew/Cancel index will probably be published but otherwise I think we’ll be free and clear Wednesday, Thursday and Friday unless FOX announces it’s yanking the show off the air before then, which seems very unlikely (but it is another Friday the 13th!), and you won’t be able to get a fix until Saturday.
They took Friday off too
It would be helpful if you guys would post a detailed analysis of just WHY the DVR numbers won’t be helping TSCC.
People still don’t get it, and I’m tired of saying, “They just don’t help” over at the Fox wiki. People still think that just because another X million people saw it on DVR that Fox might take that enough into account to renew the show.
Explain it to everybody once again, please, in detail. Or link to such an explanation.
Richard, if you need more detailed analysis than “even WITH Live+7 DVR viewing baked in, it does *worse* than a rerun of Cops on Saturday night (even without the extra DVR above LIVE+SD viewing baked in), nothing is probably going to convince the people who think it DOES matter until FOX either announces it’s canceled — which may never happen, or when the 2009-2010 schedule is announced in late May, it’s not on it.
Also, if you extrapolate against the more recent data Friday’s 1.0 rating in adults 18-49, the 18-49 rating even on a LIVE+7 basis will be down to around 1.5. Scripted hour long dramas with 1.5 ratings in adults 18-49 aren’t getting renewed even if it pulls that on a live+SD. Even if it had a 1.5 rating that bumped up to a 2.0 with Live+7 viewing, I’d predict it would be canceled.
Richard, I don’t know about you, but when I (and almost everyone else I know) watch something I’ve recorded earlier, I absolutely do not watch the commercials. Why would the advertisers be willing to pay the networks money for me watching a program if I’m not seeing their commercial?
Richard a very simple way to explain why DVR numbers don’t matter is to ask this question – When watching a show via your DVR how many of you watch the commercials?
The majority of people skip through the commercials when they watch a show via their DVR and either if they don’t networks and advertisers all think they do so Fox (nor any other network) can’t take these DVR numbers to advertisers and get better ad rates next season or stop them from demanding reduced rates elsewhere in the schedule. Arguing that an extra 1.5 million people watched the show but most of them probably skipped through your ads doesn’t get you very far.
In short DVR viewing doesn’t make a show more profitable so networks don’t care about it.
DVR numbers can matter to a bubble show.
Really.
They won’t matter to TSCC which isn’t a bubble show. It’s done.
Richard, Here’s the history of shows from last season. The renewal or cancelation of those scripted shows were very closely tied to their relative 18-49 Live+SD ratings. Of course some of the shows had more Live+7 DVR viewing than others did, but here’s the important point. It didn’t matter for their renewal or cancelation. I have no reason to believe the same will not hold true this season, but I’ll do a similar look back at this season as well when it’s done.
“Though we doubt these numbers will have much impact on renewal decisions (certainly not for TSCC) and though the overall numbers look to trend down the following two weeks, we know the fans find the numbers interesting so here you go”
Just had to make sure you ended on a negative note about the show didn’t you? Now you know why many of us feel you have a personal grudge against the shows; you could have simply posted the positive news about the DVR numbers, but you had to throw your jab in there too.
We’re not a site that is set up to make fans happy or sad, we just want to provide information and analysis. We don’t try to spin things just to make the fans happy, we prefer to be thorough, informative and honest. I know some fans don’t like that, but providing the information without analysis is not the site we wanted to do. There are already plenty of sites like that.
But really, doesn’t these higher than other shows DVR numbers imply that if either TSCC or Dollhouse were at a better slot instead of the Friday night graveyard, they could perform better too?
Dan, you should try to understand the difference between negative and realistic when it comes to situations like this.
Olea, I’d be willing to bet they might perform better compared to their Friday numbers BUT they would no doubt fair much worse compared to other shows airing on whatever night they were broadcast due to the increased competition. TSCC, for example, was pulling higher numbers on Monday but they were still cancelation worthy.
Here’s where I don’t understand why DVR number matter all that much:
Networks generally want tons of people to watch a show so advertisers will pay bazillions to run a commercial during said show, right? And half the fun of a DVR is skipping those annoying commercials, right? So, if nobody that is using a DVR is seeing the ads that are generating the money that causes the networks to put the show on, then DVR numbers should, logically, be thrown directly out the window, right?
Someone clear up why these numbers matter, even a little, for me. Please.