Last night Damages third season premiere averaged 1.428 million and a .3 rating with adults 18-49 in its first airing at 10pm. That's down from last year's second season premiere when it averaged 1.715 million January 7, 2009, but it's up from the finale last spring that averaged 1.048 million viewers.
Last year things quickly dropped from the premiere, often below one million viewers per first airing (it had multiple encores during the week). Can Damages reverse the ratings trend and gain some momentum?
In other scripted drama news, after a week off TNT's Men of a Certain Age averaged 2.346 million viewers and a 0.8 rating with adults 18-49, but apparently the 25-54 is the more important demo for the show, and I haven't seen those numbers yet.
Data via @TravisYanan
Wow. Those numbers are bad. This will definitely be the final season.
It will get the same ratings at its 2nd season. Like Mad Men, it’s not a big hit with viewers but it gets some Emmy nods every year.
Uh oh. Hopefully, these numbers can be maintained.
Is this just from the initial airing? I wonder how much more the encore brought in.
The thing is, for some strange reason, FX renewed this for two seasons after the season one finale (which wasn’t a ratings it by any means). I don’t understand why they did that. So, now that they have finished with the third season, I can’t see them possibly going for a fourth.
…even if Glenn Close wins Emmy #3.
So disappointing.
Damages is nothing like Mad Men. Mad Men built audience through its seasons. Damages erodes.
this will be the final season the actress that plays Katie said that alot of people involved in the show want to move on to other projects and end it at season 3
This 1,430,000 viewer number is a good start.
Too bad they couldn’t arrange another instant encore of the preem across the MyNetworkTV Television Network like they did in August of 2007. That broadcast encore really helped build the launch of the series, which is all-important as the third season is a season-long story arc.
The first season was great stuff. I couldn’t watch more than three episodes of the second season. Poorly written, disjointed garbage. Casting Lily Tomlin and Martin Short for S3? No one else available? Pass.
Actually, Martin Short and Lily Tomlin were amazing in the episode. Short is playing so against type- I could see him muster an emmy nomination for the role. And Tomlin was fantastic.
An improvement on the second season finale but still low for FX, I have a feeling this will be the final season and they’ll end with a Bang, despite the critical slobbering it is probably FX’s most expensive series with such a stellar cast.
Glenn Close will no doubt get an Emmy although ti would be nice to someone else win, the same applies to 30 Rock and Mad Men winning year after year.
Ryan, it’s just the initial airing, but so are all the comparisons in the post from last season. Last year, the trend was that when viewing went down, it went down across the board. The viewing went down for the encore episodes, too, rather than seeing some shift of people who stopped watching the first airing but started watching the encores.
This is one of the most exciting shows on TV. I don’t know why more poeple aren’t watching. It pulls you in and doesn’t let go until the finale. The cast is fantastic. Every season it gets some of the best actors around, and this year with Lily Tomlin..that should be enough to spur an interest. I commend F/X and the creators for sticking with such a great drama despite not the best ratings.
Jon, Juliana Marguilles from The Good Wife is a serious competition for Glenn Close for Best Actress in the EMMYS this year.
The ratings are okay, it really lost a lot momentum on its second wise both ratings and in critical buzz. Hiring Glenn Close is expensive I’m sure so this is likely the final season
^ i mean *second year
Is this going to be available on ON DEMAND this season, because so far I don’t see it…which is very disappointing.
Anyway, I doubt it will be canceled when it’s the only F/X show getting Emmy/Globe attention…that means something.
A 0.3 demo? Wow, that’s AWFUL!
Forg, good point about Julianna Marguilles, she is certain to be nominated for the Emmys after her wins at SAG and the Golden Globes.
With the success of Sons of Anarchy and I have high hopes for Justified, FX can’t really justify keeping Damages for another season especially if it doing ratings similar to their comedies which are cheaper to produced and wholly owned by FX whereas Damages is co-produced by Sony and I imagine they pay for most of the budget and get more of the revenue from international sales and repeats.
Being shot on location in NYC and paying Sony a licensing fee in addition to production costs…FX must be taking a huge hit on this and Rescue Me.
I wonder if the DVR numbers boost the numbers up significantly? Last year it was allegedly one of the most DVR’d shows on television.
This is sad, because I love this show the most out of all of FX’s shows. It’s completely different, and the editing helps make it one of the most suspenseful TV shows ever. But this will probably be the end.
Sony, the production company, needs to pay more to FX who relies mostly on the ratings to make money on the show. Sony gets the most out of airing the show (despite ratings) and selling DVDs (which are selling very well). If Sony and FX can work out a deal, there may be some weird economic trick that could give the show one more season. But obviously, that’s a long shot.