Though I know it was posed as a rhetorical question, I couldn’t resist answering it anyway. Of course Dollhouse ratings matter!
What happened
Is one week’s worth of data predictive of what will happen? Nope, it’s not. But we have the other 12 airings of Dollhouse from last season, too. Last Friday night’s ratings weren’t sharply lower than the season one finale – in fact, they were basically flat, down slightly in viewers. The problem is that the season one finale was down sharply from the season one premiere (a 1.0 live+SD adults 18-49 rating vs. a 2.0 for the premiere).
That’s not something FOX isn’t going to notice. FOX will also notice that the Dollhouse season two premiere underperformed Brothers, an encore of FlashForward by 40% and Smallville on the CW (though Smallville only had 46,000 more 18-49 viewers), and that a Cops rerun on Saturday night bettered Dollhouse by 50% (1.5 rating – though as is often the case, the rerun of Cops at 8:30 beat out the new episode of Cops at 8p; it had a 1.4 rating).
What FOX hoped would happen
Say what you will about FOX’s lower expectations for Dollhouse, they expect more than a 1.0 rating. I don’t think FOX is looking for much; my guess would be a 1.3 average Live+SD adults 18-49 rating. Heck, at this point, even a 1.2 rating would be a glimmer of hope. But in order to achieve those averages Dollhouse would have to do something we’ve never seen it do before: consistently improve its 18-49 rating, and by more than 1 tick from last week.
I’m not sure how easy that will be; especially with ‘Til Death as its lead-in this week and goes up against the premiere of Stargate Universe on Syfy. Though none of the reviews for SGU I’ve read have been particularly good, I am interested to see the ratings for SGU vs. Dollhouse. Though I think in general slightly more people will be watching the broadcast networks this Friday than last, the circumstances don’t seem ideal for Dollhouse ratings improvements.
What will happen tonight?
I could see Dollhouse ratings improving a tick this week to get to a 1.1, but I could also see them going down a tick or two. So my guess would be in the range of a .8-1.1. I don’t see that being a happy range for getting a back 9. I hope I’m wrong, but either way, we’ll always have Virtual Echo.
Special note: ‘Til Death’s ratings really don’t matter. From what we hear Sony practically gave the show to FOX for free to get the show in syndication. Whatever Dollhouse’s reduced costs this season, it’s not in the realm of “practically free”.
I already called 0.8. But I would guess that next week it bounces back to 0.9 and stays around there. And that is not enough for a back-9. And not necessarily even all 13 to air.
I think it’s a fair bet that there’s significant overlap between Dollhouse and SG fans, it’s that whole sci-fi action shtick. Given that I’d expect Dollhouse’s live numbers to drop and it’s DVR numbers to pick up, but not signifcantly. I’d be interested to see numbers for online viewing over the weekend come Monday though.
It was a premiere last week. Every show goes down from it’s premiere. To be honest, only the die hards are watching it at this point. 0.9 or 1.0.
As for the surprise with the ratings? Why the surprise? As you said, it’s how the show finished for its last 3 episodes, were it went 1.1, 1.0, 1.0. Seemed silly for FOX to ignore this, but they did anyway.
Now they get to pay the price.
I still believe in the show. I am confident it will hit a 1.1 or 1.2 tonight!
How does Fox’s Dollhous do against USA’s Monk at 9PM?
I’m not disagreeing with the answer or the fact that ratings do matter.
But I’d be curious if, given the subject that this site is devoted to, would there be any circumstances in which you’d argue that ratings don’t matter for a show?
Monk won in viewers (4.74 mil vs. 2.498) but Monk did not get 1.1 in the demo (as it wasn’t on the top 100 programs for the week, the lowest of which was rated 1.1.) Not sure what it did get, so it either tied with Dollhouse or lost to it.
AO, read the last “special note” about Til Death.
I’m gonna second Julia’s predictions. Dollhouse will be pulled after the 3rd or 4th episode.
Robert, you say you hope you’re wrong? That’s more than you ever said for TSCC.
Julia, FYI because of the way Nielsen rounds up (for public purposes) the ratings to a 10th, it’s possible more shows had a 1.1 rating but weren’t in the top 100. Sadly, we don’t see 18-49 numbers for all cable shows like we do w/broadcast.
Max, no, it isn’t. But it doesn’t matter
Sadly for Dollhouse, I have heard a few people who have mentioned that they will be tuning into Stargate instead this week.
(Hopefully they are all non-Nielsen viewers who will instead DVR Dollhouse or watch it at Fox.com within 24 hours and then this will be a win-win situation
).
But I have also heard from a few people who said that they had no idea that Dollhouse came back last week and so they missed it. Perhaps each group will balance each other out?
I don’t think that there will be significant declines in the viewership tonight, I’m hoping that it can remain stable, but either way I have to concede that the situation is very concerning for those of us who want to see it continue. There may be a bit of increased interest in the weeks to come as Summer Glau, Ray Wise and others appear, but I don’t see a major increase under any circumstances.
I have to say, I had expected the show to get at most a 1.2 and didn’t think that it would even achieve that, so it’s been strange to see that so many others did have higher expectations.
A lot will be made clearer in the next 2-3 weeks. The ratings just may not be enough to offset the intangibles about the show that make it different from many others, like the lower cost, Fox’s desire to continue a relationship with Joss and their desire to find stability on Fridays after constantly canceling all their Friday shows every year. I have done some research and so far the most recent Fox Friday show that I have found to have been renewed before DH was Millenium in 1998. That’s pretty ridiculous that every year they have had to cancel whatever’s aired on Fridays and start again fresh. So in that light, stability makes a lot of sense, but DH may not be the best way for them to find it.
I’m remaining slightly hopeful. Very few people thought that it had a chance to be renewed last year and many were proven wrong, so history could repeat.
Oh, okay Julia. I must have missed that part.
I thought the show improved towards the end of last season but I pulled the first season 2 episode off iTunes and thought it was awful. With that experience in mind, I’m going to play the longshot and say .7 (though truthfully I would have said .8 had Julia not already taken that one)
Another Dollhouse page? you guys are absessed with this show.
Maybe FOX just wants to keep Whedon and Dushku on their roster. Friday is slowly becoming a “ghost town” anyway.
How many items can you run about Dollhouse in one week? It’s starting to look like a cynical hits grab.
J.R., if you’re shooting for ghosts, there are far cheaper ways to do it.
i’d disagree and say Dollhouse is another Til Death to FOX and will get a back 9 while other shows that are much higher rated (possibly Lie to Me maybe Fringe) will get cancelled by midseason
Tonight’s episode is the first written by the Reaper duo of Fazekas/Butters. Too bad the bread and butter of network television are the people who don’t care about such trivialities.