Our Renew/Cancel Index currently lists Heroes as “likely to be renewed”, and some people think that’s nuts. I've read a couple of discussion forums citing our story and saying that conclusion is nut. Is it nuts?
Consider that as bad as Heroes' ratings have been, it's still one of NBC's best performers.
The Index is definitely not nuts, but…
I don’t think it’s nuts, and not because I'm biased, but because I understand how the Index works.
But I don’t know if I buy the conclusion either, even if it isn't nuts. I understand how the index reaches the conclusion though. Based on the simple math the index works on, relative to NBC’s network average adults 18-49, Heroes is still one of NBC’s best performing shows.
When it comes to one hour dramas, recently it’s doing better than anything but Law & Order: SVU. It also trails Sunday Night Football, The Biggest Loser, The Office, and now 30 Rock, if you add in this week. But NBC is now so relatively low-rated, particularly when it comes to one hour dramas, that I worry NBC can bust the index. NBC pretty much broke an entire broadcast network primetime lineup, busting our index seems like child's play in comparison!
All other things being equal, at least for the last two seasons, the index has been a pretty reliable predictor, particularly with one hour scripted dramas. However, “all other things being equal” no longer seems to apply to NBC, and I particularly wonder in the case of Heroes.
Things working against Heroes
- Expensive: I’ve heard even with cost cuts, its current budget was drawn up with adults 18-49 ratings of a 3.0 or better in mind
- Diminishing ratings: premiered under a 3.0 (2.8) and has dropped down to a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating. Even a stunt obviously intended to improve ratings -- Hayden Panettiere kissing Madeline Zima -- didn’t boost the ratings.
Things people point to in Heroes favor:
DVR viewing
Sure, I know people still watch it on DVR, but recently published Nielsen C3 data (commercial viewing, plus 3 days of revenue) showed that the additional DVR program viewing (Live+7) ratings that are reported long after the fact, don’t really have any impact beyond what’s already included in the live plus same day program ratings.
Verdict: I don’t see the Live+7 DVR numbers mattering at all to Heroes viewing prospects
DVD
While no longer the DVD superstar it was in the past, season 3 has still sold over 500,000 units and at least ~$19 million in revenue (does not include Blu Ray) according to estimates, but keep in mind not all that money goes back to the network.
Verdict: if I assume total revenue gets up to $25 million (in the US) and that NBC Universal winds up seeing at least half of the revenue, it’s definitely a positive. But likely not positive enough to offset a 2.4 rating, especially if it continues to go down from there. Still, it’s at least a factor in its favor.
International Licensing
I have heard that NBC Uni’s International licensing revenue for Heroes has been a big deal in the past. Whether it will be a big deal this season, or more importantly potentially next season, I can’t say. Unfortunately we see limited international data. The data I have seen doesn’t lead me to believe Heroes is doing particularly well in the only couple of countries I’ve ever looked at (Canada and UK). However, those are but two locations. Assuming that the ratings trends abroad aren’t very different than the trend at home, coupled with never hearing of a low-rated show that was ever preserved exclusively because of international licensing…
Verdict: International licensing probably won’t offset a bad ratings-to-cost ratio.
Online Viewing
Hulu, iTunes, NBC.com!
Verdict: It doesn't matter exactly what they numbers are, they're not good enough to offset a bad ratings-to-cost ratio.
Syndication/C'mon on how much more expensive can it be than Law & Order: SVU!?
Serial shows don’t do well in syndication, so they don’t make as much in syndication and even at the end of this season, Heroes will only be at about 81 episodes. If it wasn’t a serial show, I could see keeping it around another year to get it to 100 episodes as a big deal. But it is a serial show. Which brings us to “but come on, Law & Order: SVU is expensive! Hargitay and Meloni just stuck it to them for big, big bucks!”
Law & Order: SVU isn’t a serial show. It’s a procedural…
Though moving SVU to 9pm has certainly hurt the ratings, in the most recent week L&O: SVU is still doing a bit better than Heroes (2.6 vs. 2.4). Unfortunately, it’s easier to make ratings comparisons for us than it is cost comparisons. But one other comparison that’s easy to make. Law & Order: SVU reruns aired 25 times last week on USA (also owned by NBC Universal) and that’s just basic cable. It doesn’t count one weekly syndicated airing on a local channel. The weekly Heroes airs again a couple of times on the G4 network. Last week (10/6) a 10pm Tuesday airing averaged 177K and a 2:00am Wednesday airing another 85K. The least-watched SVU rerun averaged 535,000 at 4:00am on a Thursday, the most-watched SVU rerun was 10pm Tuesday – head-to-head with the Heroes airing on G4 that only pulled 177K -- that averaged 2.687 million.
Syndication prospects for SVU are so relatively rosy compared to Heroes’ prospects, its expense structure (whatever it is) isn’t as bothersome to me as Heroes’ expense structure (whatever it is).
Verdict: syndication will not play a role in Heroes’ renewal prospects.
It’s NBC’s one of NBC’s best* performing hour long drama!
It really is. This really might matter, too. Hollywood is all about perceptions and egos. If Heroes ratings don’t keep going down, even if a 2.4 isn’t anything to get excited about, it could possibly be enough. Just to give the appearance that NBC has some stability, there’s a case to be made to keep it if they really care about appearances.
Especially if the show isn’t bleeding a ton of money. Ah, if we could only see the financial details! But in a world where Heroes was ranging from making a little bit of money to losing a little bit of money, I could see NBC keeping it around for another season just for appearances.
Verdict: it really is one of NBC’s best performing hour long dramas!
*In our most-recent renew/cancel Index Heroes is actually ahead of Law & Order: SVU, but the trend in the most recent week is SVU outperformed it, if that trend continues SVU will soon overtake it in the Index, perhaps as soon as Tuesday.
Conclusion
If the ratings stabilized at a 2.4, even though it’s one of NBC best-performing hour long dramas, I still think it’s probably “on the bubble”, with some things in its favor that could get it another season. I can’t believe Heroes can afford much more ratings attrition, even if NBC’s overall average continues to go south and Heroes remains one of the best performing dramas. Sad as it is, Heroes could drop down to a 2.0 and still be one of NBC’s best-performing dramas right now.
We’ll see what happens. My guess is the ratings don’t drop off much more and that between DVD revenue, International revenue and saving face, Heroes will be back next year, with an even smaller cast and less cost.
But the season is still very young.
It’s still early, but right now I’m definitely rooting for an overhaul at NBC. Very risky, but at least it has a chance of showing results. If they keep SVU and either leave L&O on Fridays (which I think is a possibility, both for syndication and for the historic 21st season) or stick repeats there, and keep The Office and 30 Rock, they will need 3 new dramas and two new comedies to premiere in the fall. (I’m allowing them to keep Leno for a second year.
) That is very doable, and the new team at NBC should see this as a chance to prove that they know how to develop like nobody’s business. Find the best of the best scripts, make more buzz-worthy pilots than you could ever fit on the schedule, and then promote the hell out of everything.
They’ll probably want to have the same number of mid-season shows on deck as fall, but I still think that six dramas and four comedies picked up is not a ridiculous amount. ABC had more than that this year. (Yes, I know, they still program 10 pm, but still.)
Wait, I forgot about Sunday in the spring. They have Apprentice, and should probably fill in the other two hours with game show type reality.
I’m a fan of the show and I really would like it to not be renewed if they keep messing up on the writing (which is very unlikely to be fixed). Watching it die like that isn’t cool…
Well I know that the main cast is definitely going to get smaller as there is definitely one major death planned coming up. That might save some money. Also, rolling recurring characters through after getting rid of regulars might help the budget as well.
As a fan, I’ll watch until the end, be that this season or the next. I just hope that whenever the final season is, the writers are told and they give a sense of conclusion to the show (I suppose every fan of every show says that).
It’s still early, but I think the only thing that gets Heroes canceled at the end of the season with its current relative ratings are a general “clean house” at NBC that takes out almost everything.
After the first *spectacular* season, I was deeply hooked. A conclusion was made, it was great.
Second season: What do we do? Swap our heros and anti-heros.
Lame.
It’s been *the* reason I didn’t watch the successive seasons.
Well, the episodes do rerun on G4, but I don’t know how much NBC Universal is getting from it.
thats right Jard i will watch evrything i watch intill the end
NBC could sell as many souls as possible to make 3 shows in a single season ratings and Emmy phenoms with enormous water-cooler buzz, a la ABC which before they did that had nothing people watched but Bachelor & football.
If NBCU gets any financial incentives from NYC for the L&O’s, that is an additional factor in favour of L&O, to also include:
a – The original L&O is already on TNT (not syndication? what do they call such a deal?) through 2012, copping 3 million audiences regularly (I haven’t found confirmed demo ratings yet) – but even if they copped a 1.0 for L&O repeats, that’s not bad for TNT – and with more episodes available for TNT, it could financially benefit both TNT and NBCU to extend that deal
b – if they don’t renew the L&O deal for TNT, it would be available for a rumoured new NBCU owned cable channel, along with all of the other L&O’s, as well as other great Universal shows that I am already drooling over the prospect of seeing on TV again (both ’50′s and ’60′s Dragnet, Alfred Hitchcock, Colombo, and Quincy, just to name a few)
(slurppp!)
c – in the case of b, above, coming to pass, new episodes of all three L&O’s could be exclusive to the new channel, improving ratings and interest in the new property…
d – also, they could revive L&O: Trial by Jury, thus adding programming to the new channel, as well as gaining the potential of adding more financial incentives from NYC for the fourth flavour of L&O, plus the extra production cost efficiencies from having a fourth L&O show (crossovers, combined script and production crew staffing, and so forth).
Heroes has none of that – but they do have some international revenues. But how does the L&O omniplex do in international revenues? My guess – at least as well as Heroes, but I don’t know…
…this is more productive than talking about a certain FOX Friday night show
It should be nuts that Heroes is looking likely for a renewal but unfortunately it isn’t.
The one thing that’s always important to remember with the index is that its relative. Sure Heroes on CBS, Fox and even ABC would be dead in the water but its on NBC which right now has bigger problems. Heroes also has the added advantage of still turning a profit for NBC Universal, which just happens to be NBC’s parent company.
Having said that do I think Heroes should be back next season? No but then I’d say the same thing about almost everything on NBC’s schedule right now. I agree with Julia, I’d like to see a big overhaul of NBC next year but I don’t know how realistic that is and whether or not it happens will depend on how things pan out post-Olympics. If by some miracle Chuck, Parenthood and even Day One manage to buck the current NBC trend of failure then things won’t look quite so bad. I’m not holding my breath though.
Of course I still think Heroes will survive in one form or another beyond this season. I don’t buy into the talk of a move to cable just yet though so I guess that means on NBC for now. I think what happens when it inevitably moves back to 9PM (after Trauma is axed) will be the real test. If it somehow magically rebounds to a 3+ at 9PM then it’ll absolutely be back but that is quite obviously a long shot.
Having said that in the spirit of taking risks I’d like to see NBC and NBC Universal gamble and attempt to save/rebuild Heroes as the flagship it should have been. I think a series of special TV movies for next season that aren’t tied into the mythology of the show would be the best place to start. New characters with self contained stories mean people can returning to enjoying the concept and not have to deal with the horrible character writing that’s plagued the show from season 2 onwards. I’m thinking something along the lines of the Heroes Origins spin-off that was talked about after season one.
That then frees them up to relaunch Heroes as a new show 2011-2012 with new characters and hopefully a new creative team.
Theoacme, any show can be filmed in one of the many states that offers tax incentives for film and TV productions. They don’t have to revive a long dead show to get that.
I agree Jared, I don’t really care when they end it, just as long as it has a good ending.
Julia: True enough about almost everyone doing Monte Hall with the incentives…
…except it would almost certainly be much easier to do it in NYC, where the other L&O’s already are, and where the production cost efficiencies and crossovers could be maximised – and as far as I know, Bebe Neuwirth wouldn’t mind a current paycheck…
…and, if Til Death can be renewed, and Dollhouse can be renewed, well, hell probably has already frozen solid, so it’s a very short step from those very improbable events to the improbable, but rational, thought of reviving Trial by Jury.
Remember, the idea of reviving Trial by Jury is to add interest (via having relatively inexpensive, familiar, and new programming) to the rumoured NBCU “crime” cable property – the costs would be favourable for NBCU to do that, if they proceeded.
@ Heroes international numbers
It’s running on a small cable channel in Germany (RTL2) and the ratings dropped like a stone after a big start. Season 3 started a few weeks ago and the last episodes were lower rated than the channels average viewership. Even Torchwood gets bigger numbers.
I could see NBC completely changing there primetime schedule, they already have that J.J Abrams spy drama for a pilot which carries a huge penalty if it doesn’t go to series. They also have that ‘Midnighters’ pilot and a ‘Rockford Files’ and ‘Prime Suspect’ remake. As well as that comedy pilot from the creators of ‘Reno 911′. Could work…..?
Kyle – any word on how big the penalty is?
If the penalty is less than the amount NBC would have to pay to produce 13 episodes, it’s still in NBC’s best interest to pay the penalty (as long as it doesn’t involve Daffy Duck dropping, consecutively, the Rock of Gibraltar, and Niagara Falls, on 30 Rockefeller Plaza
)
…whoops – I forgot to include:
“…unless the show tests well enough to draw at least a 3.5 demo…”
Theoacme, the problem I have with the idea is that NBC’s new team needs to prove they can develop, and that this season was just the fault of all the leftovers hanging about from the previous administrations. Dragging up shows that have been dead for years is not going to do that. And considering how soft the numbers are for the whole L&O franchise right now, I’m not sure how TBJ would help at all.
I say Heroes has had its time, it will never be as good as it was, so it would be best to go out on a high, rather than drag it on, as I am getting so sick of Sylar now, there’s only so much you can take on him, kill him already