Sunday Cable Ratings: NBA Playoffs, + 'Game of Thrones', 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians', 'Ax Men', 'The Client List', 'Sister Wives', + More

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(115) Comments - Add Yours!

1. Mary

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:35 AM

   Poor Showtime. They pull abysmal numbers.

2. Sun Drop Forever!

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:35 AM

   @Liz: AMC caved to Weiner’s $10M demands and tried to crunch Breaking Bad’s finale season as a result (and fired the showrunner of Walking Dead.)

3. Jared

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:36 AM

   Sunday nights pretty solid for Lifetime..glad to see The Client List up..

4. KS

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:46 AM

   I happened to watch Game of Thrones live this time via TVPC.com. To my surprise, there is not a single advertisement during the show. Then why are these ratings even necessary to them, when there are no ads?

5. SarahL

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:48 AM

   It does seem like Jeniffer Love Hewitt has struck a winner with The Client List.

6. Barbarossa

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:49 AM

   @KS
   They aren’t. It’s total viewers and barely that, its more plain old subscription that matter to HBo and like channels because as you say they don’t have commercials.

   I think they’ve just become a sort of general measuring stick for all shows, thats by TVBTN and other places use them

7. L.L. I Love the Farm

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM

   Ladies LOVE I Love the Farm. By ladies, I mean Sara Bibel and SarahL. Unfortunately, Amanda Kondolojy does not love me because unlike Sara, she chose to humiliate Veep instead of the POS Mad Man with the “find on page” reference this week. I don’t know why you would choose to pick on HBO when it does just fine, thank you very much.

   Yes, the POS Mad Man did its 9th straight week of SUCK, declining each week from the previous episode. The only thing in which Mad Man does not fail is FAILING. If you love Mad Man, good for you, but the rest of us do enough of our own philandering and drinking to not also need those things vicariously.

   After AMC stock bounced a bit above 42 when I contributed my commentary last week, due primarily to The Walking Dead’s earnings success in 1Q, AMCX is now again below 40. The market knows AMC has nothing compelling “by the numbers” beyond TWD: just trains, a murder mystery that never ends, a meth cook, an ad agency. Zzzzz. Yep, story matters at AMC…stories that matter to no one. AMC better get back to its core competency of pumping out cheap movie reruns and start being nice again to cable and satellite operators or it will choke on its own hubris.

   These TVBTN threads regarding Sunday night cable are dying, with fewer and lamer comments from week to week. Even I cannot get a rise out of people anymore. Am I the only one who thinks it is odd that a paid premium network is allowed to dominate Sunday nights? Shame on AMC for lacking the competency to offer something more compelling than the POS Mad Man on Sunday nights. Extended cable TV viewers deserve better choices.

   Long live The Walking Dead!

8. KS

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:54 AM

   @Barbarossa

   Last week or before, I heard an administrator of this website saying that, every income other than the income from ads is very minute.

   How are HBO able to produce, one of the most costliest shows, without earning anything from ads, which are supposed to be the highest money earners?

9. Jay

   Posted May 22, 2012 at 8:56 AM

   I love Julia Louise Dreyfus but every episode of Veep seems to be more of the same.

   Still undecided on Girls. It’s like a quirky indie moving without the heartwarming ending…obviously its a TV series but I don’t feel like it’s really going anywhere…

   Game of Thrones = Awesome. Wish HBO would expand it to 12 eps a season.

10. Barbarossa

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:03 AM

    @KS.

    Magic. I honestly don’t know hoew. I know Game of Throne in particularly earned a lot by HBO selling it’s right to overseas channels. But I’ve seen here and else where that HBO doesn’t care if you only watch on HBOGo, Dvr, live or what as long as you keep paying your monthly fee and actually do watch.

    But it does have it’s drawbacks. Like with Game of Thrones which is very costly as you say, even with having to cut several battle scenes, and use the Direwolves and Dragons sparingly to keep CGI costs down

11. L.L. I Love the Farm

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:05 AM

    @ Liz

    Um. Investment allocation decisions by AMC, whether it be to allocate production budget to TWD/BB or increase licensing fees to Lion’s Gate for the POS Mad Man, are from the same pool of capital. AMC robbed the brilliant Peter to pay the shitty Paul.

    TV works just like any business. Don’t even try to go there.

12. KS

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:11 AM

    I guess, to aim the question at Bill and Robert,

    @Bill and Robert

    Can you answer my question,

    I am re-posting my earlier post

    I happened to watch Game of Thrones live this time via TVPC.com. To my surprise, there is not a single advertisement during the show. Then why are these ratings even necessary to them, when there are no ads?

    Last week or before, I heard you saying that, every income other than the income from ads is very minute.

    How are HBO able to produce, one of the most costliest shows, without earning anything from ads, which are supposed to be the highest money earners?

13. Holly

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:20 AM

    @KS,

    Not Robert or Bill…

    HBO is a subscription based network (Showtime is as well). They do not come as part of a cable package but cost around $15 per month each (it varies a bit). While all cable nets get part of the cable/satellite/telco subscription fees, it’s generally less than a dollar and they make up the rest with ad revenue. HBO and Showtime get much more per subscriber and so don’t rely on advertising.

14. SF

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:25 AM

    The Client List!! YES!!

15. BrieK

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:26 AM

    I think the Killing should end after this season, regardless. Just wrap up the story.

    Mad Men was not good this week. But, I bet it will rebound.

16. chrisss

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:27 AM

    @ KS

    Because around 10 million people per week watch Game of Thrones (multiple airings, HBO Go etc) they each pay a monthly subscription fee ($15?)

17. KS

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:28 AM

    @Holly

    Do you really think, that’s enough to produce episodes, which costs at least a hundred million dollars each?

18. Holly

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:31 AM

    @KS,

    The chances of each episode costing a hundred million is basically zero. The average broadcast show costs around $3 million.

19. Robert Seidman

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:31 AM

    @KS, the episodes don’t cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. But look at it this way (I’m making these numbers up for illustrative purposes) if there are 30 million homes subscribing to HBO who pay on average $15 a month each, and if HBO gets to keep $10 of that (with the other $5 going to the cable and satellite companies) HBO hauls in nearly $4 billion dollars of revenue a year just in subscriptions i.e. it doesn’t include any DVD, or other licensing revenues.

    @Nick: thank you as always!

20. KS

    Posted May 22, 2012 at 9:31 AM

    @Chrisss and Holly

    I heard from a producer of the show that, next episode “Blackwater” costed about $200 million to produce.

    Now I believe, CBS gets more income than HBO, looking at the scenario.