Vicki – CW wants newer series to succeed. Supernatural has already proved itself so as a veteran its likely to stay in its 9pm slot. Yet its a younger veteran than Smallville so unlike Smallville it wont make the giant leap to fridays any time soon. CW will leave The Vampire Diaries on thursdays at 8 for a while.

Why don’t they move Supernatural for more quiet seas and leave their precious Vampire Dhiarrea (man, that show is lame!) to be crushed by GA, CSI and The Office?

SPN is the best show on tv right now.

and to those that think CBS is going to Move the original CSI – you’re wrong —CSI is down from average but up from last year – and now that the hype of Grey’s is over it will be a much closer race…and by the way – THAT WAS THE COOLEST OPENING TO CSI – in any CSI history !!!!! Long Live CSI – the original…

Well, so many have tried new systems and failed. The problem is a better system would too expensive for advertisers. Trying to monitor all viewers would be massively expensive, not to mention alot of people dont want what they watch recorded in some database. If better cost effective system were developed advertisers would be using it – the cost effective part of the equation is the hardest nut to crack.

FRINGE should have remained where it was on Tuesdays. Now it has HEROES-like numbers and HEROES is almost certainly gone after this season. HEROES hasnt been good since the next to the last episode of Season 1.

Hope Flash Forward survives. Alot depends on what the cause of the Flash Forward was and when the next one will occur. Since the flash was only 6 months ahead, there has to be more of them. It was nice having an OCEANIC AIRLINES (LOST) billboard in the background of one scene near the beginning. The one thing that bugged me was quickly things seemed to get cleaned up after all those crashes, deaths and injuries – especially the hospitals – they should have been a mess for weeks with all the injured. I guess the funeral business would be booming after an event like that.

Today, they factor in so little as to be meaningless.

Hopefully, this trend will continue!

I don’t know how ACN factors in DVR numbers for shows when they go head to head which probably suppresses true viewership. I am also not sure how the other mediums factor in to a shows overall profitability. For example what is the impact of season passes on Apple TV or Ipods, and traffic going to Hulu or the networks own websites to view episodes, on driving the revenue models for these shows.

As for the shows, we thought Flash Forward was great and it is getting good word of mouth around here (NEast). CSI’s drop off was expected but hardly a cause for major concern for CBS who should be milking this show in its last few wind down years.

The Mentalist will not draw the viewership it did last year in a 10PM slot. We call it “Monk She Wrote” at home. With a low violence and grizzly factor when compared to most CSI shows it probably drew a fairly good mixed audience in earlier time slots which they will lose in a 10 PM slot on any night – bad move by CBS.

Grey’s pulled in similar numbers to those of Gil Grissom’s last episode on CSI (I think it’s time to put that show to rest). Survivor what? I don’t know why people would keep watching that. It’s been a decade, for heaven’s sake.

“Parks & Recreation” is up there for the same reason that stupid “30 rock” show got all the emmys.. someone is paying the big bucks. None are funny, and it shows in the ratings.

Fringe and Bones will do a lot better in January when American Idol comes back.

The idea that The Jay Leno Show is hurting earlier NBC primetime shows is utter anti-Leno rage nonsense. He airs at the *end* of primetime. And his first week was the best 10pm week NBC has had outside of the Olympics in a very long time, so he didn’t reduce their promotional opportunities.

He could harm the late local news (remains to be seen, and we may never see the data to know), and possibly the Tonight Show (for a variety of reasons, audience talk show fatigue, guest conflicts, etc.), but the idea that he’s responsible for what? Heroes tanking? C’mon.

The only potential argument that’s even somewhat credible is that his show caused Law & Order: SVU to shift timeslots which could cause audience loss. By that token though, who do you blame for the potential loss of The Mentalist audience after it moved timeslots? Jay?

But Ghost Whisperer on CBS premiered last night down 12% from last year. It doesn’t air on the same network as Leno, but do we blame Jay Leno for that, too?

Kidding aside, I’m not sure what kind of quantitative analysis could be done, What did you have in mind?

I don’t have any preconceived animosity or love for the idea of THE JAY LENO SHOW and neither does Bill Gorman. Personally, since I don’t watch these kinds of talk shows whether they’re on at 11:30pm, 12:30am or 4pm in the afternoon, I would’ve much preferred scripted shows, with the hopes I’d be interested in at least one of them. On the other hand, it’s not reasonable of me to expect NBC to lose scads of money producing shows few people watch just to satisfy MY preferences. And so I don’t expect NBC to do that.

While I fully accept that when Zucker says things like “A 1.8 A18-49 rating would be a HOME RUN!” that he is indeed managing expectations, it’s not Seidman’s and Gorman’s or TV by the Numbers’ expectations he’s managing, it’s the advertisers (and to a lesser degree the cranky affiliates). These are the expectations that have been publicly set, for no other purpose than setting expectations! It’s not like NBC told advertisers “Yeah, we said that in public, but we think it’s going to average a 2.8!”

Amazingly, I think NBC actually set expectations fairly closely within the range of what was reasonably likely to occur. If a 1.8 is a home run then a 1.5 is still a hit, (albeit only a single), and setting aside what the broader ramifications may or may not be, given the cost of the show, it’s certainly possible for them to make a lot of money on it with a 1.5 average 18-49 rating. That doesn’t make it good, holy, just and right…just very profitable only looking at the one particular show (and not considering impacts on Tonight Show or other NBC shows).

But the notion that the advertisers (and affiliates) expectations are greater than what NBC led them to expect isn’t a concept I can wrap my brain around. Sure, they could HOPE for better, but expect it? Why would they?

So much for TV Guide, USA Today & all these know it all critics saying The Mentalist will definitely become the highest rated show on television this season in its new time slot. It couldn’t even win its timeslot in the demos or total viewers. Ha! The Mentalist’s audience is way too old. It probably draw about the same as it did last year on Tuesday against AI – definitely not too shabby but far from hitting #1 every week! Most of the younger viewers out there will never get into it. It’s like a modern-day Murder She Wrote – nothing more. ZZZZZZ!

Advertisers aren’t fleeing Leno yet only because they all signed on before the horendous debut with the terrible ratings. Beleive me, advertisers care about the brand their company is associated with.

Look for an NBC affiliate revolt soon. Either that or Zucker gets fired and the new guy gets rid of Leno. It’ll be one of these 2 scenarios.

4.9 million viewers is awful lead in for local news. It’s one thing for a darma to get that kind of rating, because then the affiliates figure “Well the network is trying. tHey’ll cancel this with another drama till they maybe find the next E.R.” But with Leno the affiliates know “This is it. The long term plan. The network left us out to dry.”

Somethung’s gotta give. And what Gorman and others of you are missing is that the Leno show is flat out awful. At least a million of those 4.9 million viewers on Thursday will probably never watch again.

I actually though Community is a great series, I guess CSI and Grey’s really killed it.

chuck

NBC, if you’re still planning to move “Community” up to the 8:00pm hour… yeah, my advice is don’t. The show’s got serious issues — beyond just the fact that “The Office” audience wants nothing to do with it. Then again, I don’t really know what NBC could possibly do to save this night. Putting “30 Rock” at the top of the night and flipping “Parks” and “Community” would give the comedies better flow… although it’s likely in the same way that rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic would give the deck better floor space.

And either move Leno to 8pm, cancel the show, or if the show is guaranteed for the season make it a web series. That was one of the worst decisions in television history. Awful. Most execs would have been fired for such a move. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation, so to speak.

I don’t think Fox is too worried about Fringe yet, same with NBC and Community. They stuck by The Office, 30 Rock and My Name Is Earl because they were getting a lot of critical praise despite low ratings. Same thing so far for Community.

As for how you extend it past April 2010, think about what the FBI leader said about halfway through the episode:
“Priority two is figuring out whether or not it will happen again.”

Prison Break had a 2 year plan initially, but after it’s 1st season, it wasn’t very good, even though ratings went up in season 2.

I watched Flashforward, Fringe and Mentalist yesterday.
Recorded CSI and Grey’s.

Leno could’ve had a $150 million marketing budget and still make money with a 1.5 rating. That by itself doesn’t make it a good move, mind you, but they don’t need to do above a 2.0 to make money. Also, NBC never said anything about being ecstatic about a 1.5. Zucker did say that a 1.8 would be a home run, and I agree in part that he was managing expectations. Though the ad rates indicate they’d make good money on the show at that level. That’s based on costs and doesn’t consider any of the downside issues outside cost/revenue for the show. So far, advertisers definitely aren’t shying away from Leno like it was a halfway house. Saying any of that hardly makes the show a success, but nor does anyone saying it’s an epic failure make it so.

As far as NBC’s pronouncement that it’s be ecstatic with a 1.5 from Leno. Folks, surely you know that’s just B.S. to lessen their embarrassment if the show tanks? This is like pro wrestling. You can’t believe what they say. It’s called HYPE. Whatever number NBC needs to see from Leno, rest assured it is not a 1.5. THeir advertising budget for this show is huge! I’d guess they need to see something north of 2.0 for the show, which is probably not going to happen.

I like to believe that they have faith in both Fringe AND Dollhouse.

Man, Thursday nights suck for shows. It’s like the Boardwalk of the Primetime landscape.

There’s a HUGE divide in the fandom over the show’s quality, both this season and last, and I think it’s finally taking its toll on the ratings.

We’ll see what happens, but I don’t see it sticking with VD next year (if it even gets renewed), and I suspect CW is already working on another Twilight-like show.

OTOH, I’m quite optimistic about Fringe and I think it’ll be able to settle in with higher viewers in the coming weeks.