We read a lot of comments about how Dollhouse is profitable, even with low ratings, and with reports of a low budget of anywhere from $650K per episode to $1.3 million per episode, I don't doubt it is profitable.
I tend to believe the costs are more towards the middle-to-high end of those estimates, but either way I do believe those claims that the show is profitable, even with tiny ratings.
It's also true that if FOX, ran, say House reruns instead of Dollhouse that there wouldn't be any ancillary DVD or International licensing revenue for the Fox/News Corp mothership (Dollhouse is produced by one of Fox's studios).
In a world where Syfy's Warehouse 13 reportedly has a budget of $2 million per episode, I have no doubts at all that Dollhouse can turn a profit, even with tiny ratings. But what I wondered is what is the relative opportunity cost versus even airing reruns that could perform better in the ratings?
What I did here was a very simple you-coulda-done-it-on-a-napkin model that looks at profits on a per episode basis if Dollhouse costs $1 million per episode and also if it only costs $650,000 per episode.
Then it looks both at a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating, and and a .8 rating. I also took a look at the revenue of a House rerun at adults 18-49 ratings of 1.3 and 1.2.
Below is a table followed by my conclusion and detail on the assumptions used:
| Dollhouse if $1 million/episode cost | 1.0 Rating | 0.8 Rating |
| Ad Revenue | $1,066,656 | $853,312 |
| International | $400,000 | $400,000 |
| DVD | $308,000 | $308,000 |
| itunes/Hulu | $250,000 | $250,000 |
| Cost/episode | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 |
| Profit per episode | $1,024,656 | $811,312 |
| Dollhouse if $650,000/episode cost | 1.0 Rating | 0.8 Rating |
| Ad Revenue | $1,066,656 | $853,312 |
| International | $400,000 | $400,000 |
| DVD | $308,000 | $308,000 |
| itunes/Hulu | $250,000 | $250,000 |
| Cost/episode | $650,000 | $650,000 |
| Profit per episode | $1,374,656 | $1,161,312 |
| House Rerun | 1.3 rating | 1.2 Rating |
| Ad Revenue | $1,386,656 | $1,280,000 |
| Profit per episode | $1,386,656 | $1,280,000 |
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Conclusion
The simple conclusion based on the assumptions of this model is House reruns are more profitable, even when baking in the ancillary revenue streams that exist for Dollhouse that do not exist for a House rerun. House reruns are more profitable assuming at least a 1.2 rating, even if Dollhouse has ancillary revenue and even if it only costs $650,000 per episode.
If Dollhouse costs a million per episode, rather than $650,000, the House rerun is a lot more profitable.
And whether the House rerun is merely a little more profitable rather than a lot more profitable, I'd still go with the House rerun, because why lower my networks primetime ratings average for something that makes less money -- even if it's only a little less?
If this model is correct within a range of Dollhouse being slightly less profitable than House to slightly more profitable than House, I still don't think its worth lowering the averages over. Obviously if Dollhouse is more than marginally more profitable, even with tiny ratings, my feelings would be different.
ASSUMPTIONS
Advertising
For advertising I conservatively estimated (this isn't completely pulled out of thin air) that a 1.5 adults 18-49 rating would make $50,000 per commercial spot, and that if a 1.5 rating made $50K than a 1.0 rating would make $33,333 (1.0/1.5*50,000) and that a .8 would make $26,666 (.8/1.5*$50K)
I believe the actual rates are probably a bit higher, but since I used the same method for House and Dollhouse, it's still an apple-to-apples comparisons.
In both cases I assumed 16 minutes of national advertising per hour, for 32 total spots.
International Licensing
The best estimate I have is that the top shows in the US reportedly rake in $1 million per episode for their combined international licensing. Dollhouse isn't anywhere near a top US show, so I used $400,000 per episode. Obviously if it's a million dollars per episode, it changes things significantly. I think its a reasonable estimate based on the best available information I had. If you have better intel on Dollhouse international licensing, please feel free to post it here. If you prefer to stay anonymous, send it along.
DVD revenue
All we ever saw was that relative to other shows, Dollhouse season one didn't sell all that well. In its first week of release it sold over 67,000 units and earned more than an estimated $1.8 million. Then it fell off the list we regularly monitor.
I bumped total revenue up to $5 million, but Fox's studio doesn't get 100% of the gross revenue. My guess is at best the studio sees about 66% of the revenue, but to be conservative in my assessment I bumped that up to 80% and gave the studio $4 million. Over 13 episodes that would be roughly $308,000 per episode. By this model, figure for every million extra you give the studio, it works out to about $77,000 per episode.
iTunes/Hulu
The $250,000 revenue per episode is my best estimate based on what I've been told. If you have better estimates, please feel free to share.
No incremental cost for House
This comparison assumes more or less a standard licensing for House, where FOX can air each episode up to 3 times (original plus 2 repeats) without incurring additional fees. For the purpose of this comparison I assumed there would be $0 incremental cost for airing a House repeat.
Not much/any revenue benefit for DVR viewers
A new episode of Dollhouse will certainly be more viewed on DVR than a repeat of House. By quite a bit. Unfortunately, despite FOX PR over last year's DVR numbers, all the information we've ever seen leads us to believe there isn't really any/much advertising revenue benefit for these viewers. Last year, when Dollhouse was part of the "remote free" limited commercial experiment, there was at least a little benefit because fewer people were fast-forwarding through the shorter commercial breaks. But that's gone this year.
Product placement deals would benefit potentially from DVR viewing, but quick, off the top of your head, what's the product placement in Dollhouse?
(I couldn't think of any).
At any rate, I didn't add any extra benefit for the DVR viewers in. But figure this. If Dollhouse got another .5 in 18-49 rating, and on average the commercials were viewed by 20% of the DVR viewers, it would theoretically add about another $110,000 per episode in revenue (if adds were sold that way, or they watched within 3 days).
The extra $110,000 per episode isn't enough to change my overall view here, but I admit that it's "not nothing" either.
I didn't include it because that is improvement over the Live+SD viewing, which includes a chunk of the DVR viewing and for our purposes here, treated them as if they were live viewers (when they might have and in many cases did merely time shift by 20 minutes and skipped every commercial).
Since I didn't subtract anything to account for the DVR viewers who watched the same night, I didn't add any benefit back in for the ones who watched later on DVR.
I vaguely remember when a house repeat on a Friday night would pull in a 3.0 rating…or was I just imagining that?
Bet FOX made a pretty penny off of em apples
How many “free” re-runs does a network get? Given Friday is a graveyard it seems, they maybe putting on episodes already repeated, should they not have some cost?
read the notes under “No Incremental Cost for House” but these days it seems networks almost never (which isn’t the same as never) use up their allotment, not even with normal repeating/summer.
So Dollhouse is still profitable?
Yay!
“why lower my networks primetime ratings average for something that makes less money — even if it’s only a little less?”
Based on my readings of Reilly’s comments over the Summer it sounded like two of his goals were to make sure that Fox retained original scripted programming on Fridays and also bring year-to-year stability to Friday nights. Based on my research (and I could be missing something) but prior to Dollhouse’s renewal then the last Friday program that Fox had renewed was Millenium in 1998. Obviously that’s not very stable (R.I.P. Dark Angel, Firefly, T:SCC, etc).
So if those goals really are/were important to Reilly then I can see why he would accept less money in order to reach them. We can argue that’s he’s making a mistake in his thinking, but it’s his mistake(s) to make. And imo his thinking is not as misguided as some (see Dawn Ostroff).
AO, I think those were (at least in Reilly’s mind) reasonable reasons for saying “ah, we’ll give it a try and see what happens” as far as renewing it.
But now that it’s gotten a 1.0 and a .8, I doubt that’s what Reilly had in mind. Programming stability for 33%-50% lower ratings is not a good trade.
But indeed, if the costs are really only $650K per episode, the leash is definitely longer. But if it’s a $1 million an episode it’s not just a little less profit, it’s a lot less. At least by my simple math
Yeah, that could well be past tense now (though I do very much like to dream of the better future that Nick C has portrayed in his recent posts
).
But I have no idea what he’ll do. I’m hoping that he’s behind those goals enough to be willing to tolerate the weaker revenues that he gets with DH vs the better revenues that he would have with repeats of House. But we won’t know where his cut-off point for DH is until/unless it’s reached and the show sees the unforgiving axe of cancelation.
I will concede that DH may not have (ok, probably wasn’t) the best show with which to try this strategy, but it was willing to cut it’s budget and how many other shows would have volunteered to be moved to Fridays to have served as test subjects in place of DH?
And I am acutely aware that the end could well be nigh, but hope springs eternal and so shall I believe until the final bell has tolled.
As ackward as this seems, everytime I watch an episode of Dollhouse (via DVD, live or Hulu) I email askfox@fox.com to let them know that I am watching an episode, and to thank them for making Dollhouse.
Got nothing better to do, and Dollhouse is the one show I watch regularly. Don’t want it to end.
I’m betting the only thing that’s keeping Reilly from axing Dollhouse is the thought of them destroying that beautiful goddam set. I love the show, but thinking about them having to destroy the set is what makes me hope that they keep the show on. It’s just too pretty to have it torn down. But hey, they did it to Angel’s season 5 set so they’ll do it Dollhouse too.
During the first season, did they ever trend upward at all in the middle of the season before they bottomed out at a 1.0? or was it all downhill since the pilot? if this trend continues, i’m betting Dollhouse will probably end up registering a 0.0 for the finale
Robert, i’m betting you didn’t include advertising expense because there is no bloody advertisements for the show? I swear, the only advertisements for Dollhouse prior to the premiere were banners on this very website. Nowhere else. How sad is that. and i visit a lot of tv related websites. oh well, at least we got a second season. can’t complain too much, can we?
@ Jeff, Great idea!
After the initial broadcast (which counts for nothing as Nielsen has never counted me for anything) then I watch again via Fox.com (as I heard that it’s the most effective way to give Fox ratings via the ‘Net). Though I’m not sure whether or not that’s true?
@ grr_argh,
The Set is indeed great! Have you seen the lengthy L.A. Times article about it?
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-dollhouse1-2009feb01,0,1597147.story
First Season ratings:
Friday 13th Millions 18-49 Viewers/Share
9:00 Dollhouse 4.73 2.0/6
9:30 Dollhouse 4.70 2.0/6
Friday 20th
Dollhouse 4.22 1.7/5
Friday 27th
Dollhouse 4.13 1.6/5
March 6th
Dollhouse 3.55 1.5/5
March 13th
Dollhouse 4.30 1.6/5
March 20th
Dollhouse 4.13 1.5/5
March 27th
Dollhouse 3.87 1.3/4
April 3rd
Dollhouse 3.49 1.4/5
April 10th
Dollhouse 3.56 1.4/4
April 24th
Dollhouse 2.99 1.2/4
May 1st
Dollhouse 3.09 1.1/4
May 8th
Dollhouse 2.75 1.0/4
@AO. i’ve seen every episode of Dollhouse live. but without a nielsen’s box, i sometimes wonder if i’m better off just watching online so it actually counts. the world will never know. or maybe we will. anyone over at fox know? nick c?
@AO, thanks for the link and the first season ratings!
@ grr_argh,
Yeah, I only watched it live at the start of last year, but then switched over to a second viewing on Fox.com where I patiently watched the commercials. There’s only one sponsor per episode, so they haven’t been too bad. I think (but am not sure) that the best thing to do is to DVR it and then watch it within 24 hours and not skip any commercials, but I am not positive on that.
And you’re welcome for the link and the ratings.
After much debate I eventually had to compile all of the Spring ratings for both DH & T:SCC to prove to certain people that T:SCC in fact never beat Dollhouse in the ratings in the Spring. It’s nice to put them to a better use.
It may have a low budget but if anything $1.3 million would/should be on the low end for a one hour show.
If you remember, the producers of the Sarah Silverman show (which had 1.5 million viewers an episode) refused to take a 20% cut in the shows budget from $1.1 million down to $850,000. This is also just a 30 minute show. It was recently renewed because MTV is going to bear a portion of the production costs.
Also, single camera comedies usually cost from $1.5 to $2 million an episode.
The way the demo has been trending down for Dollhouse, so far, Zero ratings will be reached in episode 14. Good thing they only ordered 13.
Is a House repeat really going to get a 1.3 when on a Friday following a poorly rated show like Til Death?
There’s no question in my mind that Dollhouse is doing badly, but that doesn’t mean you can schedule anything in its place and expect that to do well. To get the higher figures you’re talking about, Fox needs to revamp Friday, not just one show.
Ironically, one alternative means might be to move the two comedies instead of Dollhouse, and show reruns of Firefly instead (much as I don’t see what the big deal is about the latter.) Fox’s idea for a sci-fi Friday made a lot of sense, the problem was that the original Dollhouse lead-in was written by people who really didn’t seem to be interested in keeping their audience. (I wonder if the same people wrote last Friday’s Dollhouse episode!)
AO says:
“I think (but am not sure) that the best thing to do is to DVR it and then watch it within 24 hours and not skip any commercials, but I am not positive on that.”
Why would not being sampled for DVR viewing be better than not being sampled for live viewing?
Robert, I think your assumptions about international licensing are incorrect. I remember reading that early in Heroes’ run, the BBC was paying £400k (just under $800k at that point) per episode for free to air rights after it had already aired on cable there. And the UK is just one country in Europe, and on top of Europe you’d have the best part of probably all the other continents. I imagine a show successful in multiple countries is able to negate its cost deficit quite quickly. Not that Dollhouse falls into this exact category, but if its production budget is so low, it could be paying off a lot of its costs similarly.
Actually,S, if ratings continue downward at this rate, there will be negative ratings by episode 13. Let’s hope Fox pulls it before then.