The new broadcast TV season hasn't even begun and here's the first TV ratings exclusive long before the folks at Variety (and elsewhere) have it whispered into their ears by the CW PR department and uncritically parrot it back to you!
The CW's weekly average ratings will soar over 20% in 2009-2010 vs. the 2008-9 season!
Do I have some magical insight on the brilliant new shows being launched by the CW? Is the programming genius that is CW chief Dawn Ostroff finally going to hit the jackpot? Is someone in the counting room at Nielsen in my pay? No, no, and no.
By abandoning their previously terribly performing Sunday nights (which will happen after September 20 27), the CW practically guarantees a 20%+ jump in its weekly average ratings. Expect the TV media to report it as a near miracle.
Let's look at the numbers (2008-9 season through 5/20/09, all Live+SD):
CW Sunday viewership average: 1.014 million
CW Monday-Friday viewership average: 2.222 million
CW overall viewership average: 1.850 million
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CW Sunday adults 18-49 average: 0.421 million
CW Monday-Friday adults 18-49 average: 1.331 million
CW overall adults 18-49 average: 1.040 million
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Assuming that the CW can maintain the same numbers as last season from Monday-Friday (which is reasonable, although some erosion is likely), they'll see average viewership increase by 20% (2.222/1.850), and adults 18-49 viewership increase by 28% (1.331/1.040), all by just abandoning Sundays!
The CW will likely focus on its women 18-34 ratings, which is its target demographic, but sadly, we don't get season to date average adults 18-34 numbers for individual shows, making it impossible to calculate any 18-34 numbers on a nightly basis, although it's highly likely they'll follow a similar trend.
Be certain that much of the TV media will report this as a stroke of CW programming genius, but you heard it here first!
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Note: The overall viewership and adults 18-49 numbers above are directly reported to us by Nielsen, while the Sunday and Monday-Friday averages were calculated by me using Nielsen reported individual show averages and telecast times. Because "specials" are not included in season to date averages, my calculated averages are subject to a certain amount of error, but it likely has little or no effect on the overall relationships described.
Is it safe to say we’ll be seeing a slate of press releases touting their ratings success?
WB take back your channel please
Unless the market heats up, this will be the last year for The CW.
I laughed when I saw the lead pic. Oh well, bad ratings for The CW still. Barely 2 million? Ek! I miss The WB.I really though when WB and UPN it will result to bigger ratings but it turned the other way. The last year of UPN and WB averaged around 4 million viewers each right?
hahaha, i thought this was another April Fool’s post when I saw it.
Zedman2, this will not be the last year for The CW.. the network is doing better than it ever has.. and it’s a great way for Warner Bros. Television and CBS Paramount Television to develop shows and make their money back in DVD sales and international airings and syndication. The CW itself makes no money, but the individual shows will make money for their producing companies, which in turn own The CW. It’s not going anywhere for a couple years, yet.
What’s the 3-tuple that yields (2.222x + 1.014y)/z = 1.850 here?
The only shows that are making money for their studios are Supernatural and Smallville via DVD sales and foreign markets. And both of those belong to Warner Bros. All the other shows do poorly in DVD sales and are not being bought in foreign countries because of lack of interest. Gossip Girl was bought by an Australian network and then promptly removed when it tanked. Supernatural and Smallville are also the two highest rated scripted shows for the network. Once these two shows are gone, the CW will not be far behind unless Dawn Ostroff corrects her severe case of cranial-rectal inversion and stop catering solely to a demographic that doesn’t watch a lot of television to begin with.
Boris, if all the averages were apples to apples it would be:
(2.222*10 hours+1.014*3 hours)/13 hours, but that equals 1.94 (not the 1.85 as reported by Nielsen).
I calculated the nightly averages starting with the show averages and their total duration for the entire season. Had I calculated the network CW overall averages using the same method, I’d have gotten the 1.94 above.
The disconnection is likely caused by various quirks in which shows are or are not included in season average calculations.
For example, two shows Am Top Model and Priviledged had Encore shows appear on both Sunday and another Day of the week, but Nielsen didn’t provide separate averages (to us) for each days but combined them, so I included their numbers only in the M-F average. I guess I could have included them in both groups, but I’m not sure that would have been more, and not less accurate.
Thanks. I was forgetting the extra Sunday hour. Pretty embarrassing for a Jericho fan.
I just had a thought! Maybe CW should program their station with shows people actually want to watch.
I don’t know. I’m not a network executive or anything. I’m probably way off base with that.
how lame
You guys are great!
The media will surely do that! And people will believe them!
Well they did get rid of sundays. Now that The CW got rid of EHC and The Game unfortunately, ratings should get better for friday. Every night is about compatibility this season and hopefully The CW will do better with their new series (Melrose and Vampire Diaries will def get full seasons). Who knows maybe The CW will get WB/UPN ratings (when the series on both networks did good)
The CW is a dead network, I think its ratings will go up this season but I don’t think they’ll go up enough for Dawn to keep her job (or network). I mean the channel gets ratings that some cable networks would call bad. I feel sorry for shows like Supernatural and Smallville that they had to air on this channel. I personally think no-one watches the network because they see it as a little girl network. I think Gossip Girl isn’t a bad show (in fact it can be quite good – much better than say ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ – though thats run for years), I just think people perceive it to be because its on the CW.
Is there anyway to air Football more frequently on The CW? That would also impact there numbers.
Smallville and Supernatural are the two shows actually doing good on The CW. I wonder what the premiere of The Vampire Diaries will get; 3.126 I predict (Proably and hopefully better). VD premieres next Thursday right? They should start over promotion now; the only reason why Smallville has dropped in numbers is because of HORRIBLE promotion.
The only show i watch on the CW is syndicated Cosby Show on 5 in cincinatti and Stargate Atlantis on sundays its pathetic
Dawn hates Smallville she wants it to die Chaz
What the WB needs to do is buy back their network and as a show begins to flop on another network but has a devoted following renew it on the WB. They would have so many loyal fans if they do that.
Just out of interest does anyone know if the CW posted a profit or loss last year?
Or are it’s financial numbers embedded into other revenue streams?