Dollhouse Had Largest Share of Viewing From DVRs, Did That Save The Show?

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1. Joss's Biggest Fan

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 3:55 PM

   Well of COURSE DVR numbers matter!! Everyone knows that what advertisers REALLY care about is how many people watch a show up to a week after it airs!!! And I’m sure that those good, awesome Dollhouse viewers watched all of the commercials!!! I mean, sure, FOX very helpfully informed viewers how long i would be before the show returned, and people watching on DVR COULD have just clicked their remote control and gone forward, but I bet they did NOT!!!

   Dollhouse returns in 92 days! Yippee ki-yay!

2. ABCFanatic

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 3:59 PM

   Dollhouse again!

   wow at Survivor: Tocantins at 63% I really miss that season!.

3. Bill Gorman

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:04 PM

   JBF, as I wrote the post, I wondered which way you’d go with it.

   I’d have put my money on something like “DVR, SchmeeVR, the awesomeness that is Dollhouse lead by the wonder of Joss himself and his legions of devoted fans are what saved the show. We’d have watched it on black and white sets with coat hanger antennas. There’ll be ten times the ratings next season”.

   But, as it seems, I’d have lost that bet

4. Dan

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:08 PM

   I really dont think ratings saved the series. I think a strong fan base, and the joss whedon name ultimately saved the series. Also like Terminator last year, this series got a second chance for the fall and unlike Terminator, I don’t think Dollhouse will get a full season. FOX has a lot of returning dramas (House, Lie to Me, Fringe, Bones, Dollhouse) as well as new dramas (Glee, Past Life, Human Target) so basically if Dollhouse’s ratings dont improve, then dont expect to see it past December. My prediction is that Til Death, Brothers, and Dollhouse will perform similarly to fall 05s friday of Malcolm, Bernie Mac and Killer Instinct, probably worse.

5. Holly

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:23 PM

   I think what saved the series is that someone in the Dollhouse camp had some really, really good blackmail on someone at FOX.

6. big package

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:44 PM

   Thursday at 9 has 3 shows in top 10 dvr usage that says something and with a possible 4th fringe next season

7. Joss's Biggest Fan

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:44 PM

   Oh, Bill, Bill! Poor, deluded, yet strikingly handsome Bill! I have ALWAYS believed in the power of DVRS! If you go back to my very first post, one day after the mindblowing, lifechanging event that was the Dollhouse premiere, the VERY first thing I wrote was, “DVRs will help the ratings grow!” And I . . . was . . . right!!!!!! I look forward to each and every one of my other claims coming true as well!!!

   Of course, though, Joss and his awesome fans are also strongly responsible for the awesome, awesome success of Dollhouse!!! Everything Joss touches turns to gold, or something even better than gold, if such a thing exists! I just feel privileged to get to hang out in his world whenever he blesses TV or movies with his Jossy, Jossy presence!!!

   Dollhouse returns in 92 days! Fan-freakin-tastic!

8. veronica

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:49 PM

   Networks often stretch their standards if they see a show that is helping viewers adopt new technologies that they hope will generate large revenue streams in the future. Certainly that was a factor here.

   But there’s a larger truth. 25 percent of the people who watched the first nine episodes of Dollhouse didn’t bother to watch the season-ending climactic three episodes. That’s a deadly indication. You can’t blame that on promos. People who found the show and watched the show got sick of it.

   And the show got its budget cut. And it’s still in the time slot where it tanked on Friday night. Except now it has the new, ridiculously mismatched lead-in of the Michael Strahan sitcom and Til Death. If you like the show enjoy the second 13, that’s all you’re gonna see.

9. dollhouse sucks

   Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:50 PM

   i think maybe the Obama administration is using dvr’d dollhouse episodes as their new acceptable torture practices for prisoners

10. Bill Gorman

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 4:54 PM

    The Geneva Convention couldn’t have anticipated that!

11. squiggleslash

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 5:00 PM

    Holly – that’s probably true. Apparently top Fox execs have been making people sign agreements (supposedly called “development contracts”) where, in exchange for a large sum of money, those people will become various fantasies. One day someone might be a psychologically disturbed victim of a government project, the next, a killer robot from the future. Another person might one day be an obnoxious overweight idiot, only to become the very same day as an insane baby and a lecherous airline pilot, and the next day an obnoxious CIA agent.

    My guess is Whedon knew all of this, threatened to tell everyone, and that’s why Dollhouse was renewed.

12. romo

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 5:20 PM

    On the chart:
    Greatest % Of DVR Viewing for Broadcast TV Shows

    CBS has 0 shows….figures with their demo image.

13. djm

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 5:34 PM

    props to dollhouse sucks, thats a great line!
    could somebody explain to me what the % of DVR Viewing On Airdate number means? does it mean that 50% of people who watched chuck on the date it aired watched it on DVR?

14. romo

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 6:13 PM

    djm:
    no….i think it means 48% of the people that dvrd it watched it that same nite….just later in the nite.

15. james

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 6:16 PM

    Where are Smallville and Supernatural on this list? I went back and looked at the data supplied by this website and those two shows were always in the top 20 of Greatest % Of DVR Viewing for Broadcast TV Shows. Did I miss something?

16. Bill Gorman

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 6:22 PM

    djm, % of DVR Viewing On Airdate – Of the DVR viewing of that particular episode, what percentage was done prior to 3AM the day following the airdate.

    james, I didn’t go back through all the posts, but the possible explanation is that this list contains *every* show that aired at any point during the season, whereas weekly posts contain only the shows that aired that week. And the differences between shows in DVR viewing % are quite small past #20 on the list.

    Smallville was #27 in the first (18-49) list:
    SMALLVILLE CW 1.17 1.35 1.59 36% 26% 43%

    Smallville was #25 in the third list:
    SMALLVILLE CW 3,005 3,342 3,782 337 777 20.5% 43.4%

    Supernatural was #45 in the first (18-49) list:
    SUPERNATURAL CW 1.05 1.15 1.35 29% 22% 33%

    Supernatural was #36 in the third list:
    SUPERNATURAL CW 2,587 2,792 3,172 205 585 18.4% 35.0%

    Edit: Corrected. The first numbers were from the 18-49 list.

17. Anthony

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 6:29 PM

    I liked Dollhouse..and to be fair even when I watched in on my dvr ( or any show for that matter ) I do fast forward quite a bit through some commercials but when I see something that interests me I stop and rewind a bit and watch. I do this all the time and I hate commercials.

18. james

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 6:57 PM

    Thanx for the response Bill. But I’m still a little confused, and I’m wondering if you could help me out. Did Smallville average 26% % of all viewing by DVR for the year? Wouldn’t that put it in about the Seventh position on that list?

    Sorry for the confusion, any help would be greatly appreciated!

19. Bill Gorman

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 7:04 PM

    james, my mistake, I took the numbers in my comment from the 18-49 chart by mistake. I will correct my original comment.

20. pete5125

    Posted June 18, 2009 at 7:10 PM

    On the DVR/Tivo thing, trying to skip dollhouse adds by fast forwarding is nearly impossible up until the last comercial break, by the time you fast forward, rewind, fast forward to get to the start after the next break you might as well watch the comercal, and by the 3 rd time trying you give up, so the Fox experiment in my mind was a success, of course the Dodge truck comercial that was made part of the plot of most season 2 T:TSCC was even more successful in my mind.

    Dollhouse, had a budget cut and is made by the same studio as network and if it sells anywhere close to all other Whedon shows than it will at least break even or make money, Fox knows that nothing they put on Friday is going to work at this point…so they are going to celebrate the fact that they have the most stable schedule in years and that they have finaly figured out Thur., Fri is a budget night nothing on the night is going to set the world on fire, but everything is as cheap as an episode of COPS, so it is a non Reality TV Night that will break even…I figure Dollhouse ratings have to go up, it is a confusing show, and Sci-Fi, alot of people don’t trust Fox not to cancle it so now viewers might give it another shot