Comments on: Glee Rules the iTunes charts with astounding 1.1 million downloads

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:08:44 +0000

I love Glee only family show household can agree on. Ratings only do households which can be more than or 5 like in my household. I know sveral families that watch this show together. If it is getting lousy ratings the DVR factor raises the ratings and more than one person in a household watching should count toward that too. I don’t believe in the naysayers and people who post negatively about show either don’t watch it or bring it down because its not in their target demo. I am a Gleek and proud of it.

By: Holly P

Holly P — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:40:08 +0000

While the writing and characterizations might not be stellar, Glee is without a doubt the most fun hour of Television hand down.

By: jerichoguy

jerichoguy — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:47:34 +0000

Simply put GLEE is the freshest new comedy/drama in a long time. A nice change from all the cop and hospital shows. It’s getting great numbers in the demos….I think it will be here for awhile.

By: Billy Boy

Billy Boy — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:57:20 +0000

Someone should tell Emily….

By: shelly

shelly — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:53:34 +0000

Rob brings up a very interesting point I was going to make myself: I know of fans who only watch this show for the music and don’t think the show itself is good at all (cliched or cartoonish characters, inconsistent characterization and storytelling, etc.). Fox did a smart thing by doing the iTunes thing – even if the money from downloads won’t save the show, it’ll help to keep people tuned in just to see the music on the show.

By: P. Johnson

P. Johnson — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:31:47 +0000

ooooohhhh……here she comes…….don’t you smell her?
emily24? where are you????
can’t wait to see what spite/rage/rant will spill from your lips on this news!!!

hello? emily24???

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:27:47 +0000

The musical parts on Glee are truly outstanding so far, but the rest is pretty stupid

By: craiguk

craiguk — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:27:00 +0000

@Robert

Download revenue will be about 40c-50c per d/l to Fox. However they’ll have to pay royalties of about 5c per d/l.

I don’t know whether the actors will get ‘extra’ revenue from the sales, likely it’s included in the show appearance contract.

As I stated earlier in another thread though I suspect that certain music publishers will do ‘sweetheart’ deals with Fox as any song on Glee will also boost downloads of the original artist version.

I think you could say with a reasonable degree of certainty that Fox are getting 40c per download and perhaps a few pennies more.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:54:18 +0000

Jack, “FOX makes more money on Hulu viewings than on iTunes music downloads.”

I’d love to see backup for that. Got some internal Hulu documents you want to share?

By: yoshue

yoshue — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:49:34 +0000

gleeks unite

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:47:35 +0000

I think this will play an important part in renewal descisions – it shows franchise potential, spin-offs, dvds, CDs, downloads, dolls, movies. Fox could make a lot of money out of this, if they play it right.

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:47:18 +0000

FOX makes more money on Hulu viewings than on iTunes music downloads.

By: J.R. Herbaugh

J.R. Herbaugh — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:47:01 +0000

I expect a CD release for the Xmas season.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:46:08 +0000

The upcoming album should also sell decently. I don’t thing these sales alone would save Glee if the show’s ratings were lousy, but the extra stream of revenue certainly doesn’t hurt.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:42:08 +0000

Oh, yeah, not saying it’s unimpressive. I’m sure Columbia Records enjoys it a lot, as well. But if the show were getting low 2′s in the demo, the fans would be wailing about how iTunes is enough to save it. Seems like it wouldn’t be.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:37:29 +0000

Julia, I don’t read these numbers as making much of a difference for anything other than a press release. But not nothing either. ~250,000 downloads per episode, but they don’t get $1/download, but rather a fraction of a dollar (what fraction, I’m not sure). It’s probably somewhere in the neighborhood of the revenue value of having one extra thirty second spot. That would be roughly a 3% increase to revenue on a per episode basis.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:27:29 +0000

Ok, so now we have a better idea of how much money iTunes brings in. That’s over $1 mil (which is the cost of about a half? a third? of an episode) after four episodes. (Five if you count last season.) We don’t know how much of that goes to Fox, but I think we can safely conclude that if Glee weren’t doing well on its own (which it is) the iTunes sales wouldn’t save it. Correct me if I’m wrong in assuming that. If it were doing $1 mil in sales per episode, that would be another story.