I know, I know. You love John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop. You just want to pinch his cheeks. You wish that Astrid had a bigger role. You liked that you got to learn more about Agent Broyles last night and you even got to see him crack a smile in last night's opener.
You loved the special effect of the dead "dust people" and the "shadow man".
Generally, you think the Fringe has gotten better in season two.
You were worried when FOX moved the show to Thursday. But we told you to relax, that FOX was just looking to improve its overall standing on Thursdays (and the fall in general, for that matter) and could tolerate big decreases over last year's numbers. And all that was probably true at the time, but now is another time, with another truth.
Sure the ratings were a bit worrisome before last night. Now they are quite worrisome.
There are some common misconceptions:
It still did better than last year!
No, it didn't.
Though that has been true for most of the case this season, the year ago Kitchen Nightmares that aired on the same Thursday in 2008 outperformed last night's Fringe by ~25 percent.
Damn Yankees! Nobody knew it was on because of the World Series!
But what about Bones?
There's at least a little truth there because had the series extended to seven games, last night would've been game seven. But the thing is Bones at 8pm would've suffered for that too, and it did suffer. By one-tenth of an 18-49 ratings point versus its last original airing. Fringe suffered by half an 18-49 ratings point. So sure, baseball probably played a role, but it did not likely play a role in a way that would produce 5X as much 18-49 ratings drop as Bones.
Update: My DVR Program Guide Didn't Get Updated!
OK, but if that was the cause of last night's pronounced drop off, it wasn't the reason why Bones didn't drop as much as program guides that didn't pick up Fringe didn't pick up Bones either. October 15th the difference between Fringe’s Live and Live+SD viewing (same night DVR) with adults 18-49 was .38 of an 18-49 ratings point. For Bones it was .46 of an 18-49 ratings points difference (more adults 18-49 watched Bones on their DVRs the same night than watched Fringe). On an absolute basis, any issues with DVR program guides should’ve impacted Bones more than Fringe, not less.
But its so much better this year, how can it be the ratings are worse?
9pm Thursdays!
There's no doubt Fringe is in a much more competitive hour, without the substantial lead-ins it had last year. Whatever perception one might have about its quality don't matter. Even if you could find an objective, rather than subjective measure for quality, we'd still have to conclude what we always conclude: quality doesn't always matter when it comes to the ratings.
The two shows I watched at 9pm are Fringe and Supernatural. Last night, combined they did not add up to what ABC, CBS and NBC did from 9p-10p. What conclusion can I make from that? I conclude that way, way more people like the other shows that are on at 9pm than the shows I like at 9pm! (note, I am a big 30 Rock fan, but I've been getting to that on the weekend via On-Demand since NBC has ended the stupid and is no longer charging $.99 for its shows).
What happens next?
We do what we always do: we wait!
Next week will be a big deal. If it returns to the 2.2ish adults 18-49 ratings range, FOX will likely simply view last night as a blip and stay the course. If it continues in the 1.7 range or worse, drops, FOX will have to make some decisions about what it wants to maximize and how.
Join the campaign to save Fringe!!
Thanks for the added Friday stress.
Haven’t watched Fringe yet but that was an awesome Supernatural. Seriously…
Baseball really hurt Fringe. I wonder with such a long time off, if Glee will be just as affected.
Parenthood, why did it really hurt Fringe and not hurt Bones nearly as much? What’s the basis of your comment?
I vote we hire planes to draw peanuts in the sky over FOX studios.
That’ll show ‘em!
New Bingo Card – “It wasn’t on my DVR’s Program Guide”
To add to the freak out: I received my first Fox Viewer Advisory Panel email in quite a while today and it was asking me my opinion about Fringe. It has only ever done that in the past about shows that are legitimately on the bubble besides the time it asked me how important Paula Abdul was to me as a judge on AI.
I have dish network and they didn’t update their program guide so my dvr didn’t record it, I’m hearing this is the case in alot of places. The dvr numbers for this will be horrible because of the confusion, next week it will be back up, I’m not worried. As for bones, well that damn show Is a rock!
Fringe has a full season order for 22 episodes. If your “bean counters controlling the networks” argument is correct, those 22 episodes are going to be made and broadcast, come hell or highwater.
It’s just a question of WHEN the shows are broadcast. Here’s the scenarios as I see them:
1) Not moving Fringe from this timeslot indicates that FOX is at least satisfied with its performance and will probably renew the show. It’s debatable whether they will leave it at this timeslot though, and this is also the least likeliest occurence if the ratings slide is permanent.
2) Moving the show to an easier night, behind American Idol or 24, would indicate FOX wants to save the show, so much so that they’re willing to put a newer show on at a tougher night like Thursday or Friday. I have no idea how FOX’s Spring Schedule is going to fit so I’m just ballparking this one, feel free to yell at me and say there’s no room anywhere else except for…
3) The show is moved to Friday in the Spring. This indicates that FOX is definitely going to drop the axe on the show, no ifs or buts.
The_GodfatherSJP – I agree with your scenarios. All other things being equal, I could see FOX wanting to try Fringe after House since Lie to Me hasn’t been doing gangbusters in that slot.
But all other things are not equal. Fringe is a Warner Bros production and Lie to Me is 20th Century Fox.
i think FOX should move it to fridays and move Human Target to thursday to give it a chance in a non friday slot
with friday = Double Til Death and fringe after dollhouse ends its run
Moving Fringe to Friday in January replacing the two “comedies” makes sense to me too, assuming next week’s ratings aren’t higher. There has to be some audience overlap with DH. It can’t be worse than Prison Break.
Well only reason it got good numbers last yr was American Idol. It was obvious it was going to fail on its own.
I don’t watch much live tv as I’m busy putting my little ones down for bed and cleaning up. I’m pissed because I didn’t know that Comcast here in ct didn’t update the baseball game so Fringe didn’t record on my DVR.
Godfather’s review is accurate, with one detail:
Since Past Life had its order cut, that prime post-AI Tuesday 9pm slot is at least partially unfilled.
Whether Fox orders more Lie to Mes, moves Fringe there, or moves Human Target there (and airs a lot of Glee repeats on Wednesdays) pretty much determines how the rest of the schedule shakes out.
Lie to Me wasn’t doing much better on Thursdays last year if I recall, so what Fox should do is put Kitchen Whatever there, and either air Fringe on Tuesday (thus giving it another season in 10/11) or order more Lie to Mes (remember, Fox is waiting on the additional script order to decide what happens) and abandon Fringe to burnoff death on Fridays.
Personally, I think Fringe has more upside than Lie to Me, but it is a WB show.
I’m all for Frothy Fringe Fridays with the Derided Dollhouse.
I think Fox will stick with the for another full season. Atleast I hope so. Boot Lie to Me.
Robert, I think as your charts have shown for a while now, Bones is a fairly established show. It doesn’t matter where FOX moves it, or when, its fans know where it is, and it turns in consistent ratings. Fringe as a sophomore show has been bleeding viewers, and would have definitely benefited from a little more shepherding by the network. I’d say the scale of the viewer drop off for both shows last night is reflective of that.
Actually that’s a very, very important detail in Lie To Me vs. Fringe.
Remember guys, Bean Counters. That means whichever show makes more money for the corporation gets favored. FOX isn’t going to replace Fringe with Lie To Me, or do anything to hurt Lie To Me for Fringe’s benefit. Just remember the post with Dollhouse, all the DVD and syndication revenue? Well, FOX gets that money too, it doesn’t get any of that for Fringe.
Thing is, Lie To Me didn’t sell any DVDs at ALL if you check The-numbers.com charts (it was released on August 25th, 2009 in the USA) nor did it even appear on the charts. Fringe sold over 100,000 DVDs in its first week of release. That indicates there really isn’t a fanbase for Lie To Me, there IS for Fringe. So FOX really isn’t seeing much money from peripheral sales after broadcast with Lie To Me, nor should it expect any at this point.
So what do you do if you’re a network? Favor your own show, which doesn’t seem to have much of a fanbase, or favor the studio show that has a bigger fanbase but worse ratings?