Serenity got a 3.5 rating for both hours. No drop off.

POSTED BY: outlander
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 05:14
VIEWED: 9557
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OUTLANDER

Sunday, December 22, 2002 2:37 AM

The over night rating for Serenity acording to http://tv.zap2it.com/news/dailynielsenrankings.html?29392 was 2.7

YEAHITSME

Sunday, December 22, 2002 2:42 AM

"FOX ended "Firefly's" run with an airing of the original two-hour pilot, averaging a 2.7/5 from "

did you read that thing?

OUTLANDER

Sunday, December 22, 2002 3:20 AM

All fixed now it says 2.7

PTROPE

Monday, December 23, 2002 2:25 AM

Still, even corrected to 2.7/5, there should be a huge message here for FOX: Firefly retains most of the viewers it gets. The trick is helping them find the show, something FOX was apparently unwilling to do. For example, composed before the show was canceled, the TV Guide for last week had no special promotion of the 2-hour special airing of the pilot; all it noted was the length of the show with the standard synopsis listing. The show has been amazingly level in the ratings, unlike Enterprise, which has lost 60% of its audience since its premiere; to advertisers, that should say, "You can count on at least this much audience," which surely has to make advertising on Firefly a better prospect than saying, "Well, next week, you may have 500,000 fewer potential customers watching your ads, but we won't know until it happens."

The level ratings from hour to hour also seem to indicate that Firefly and John Doe simply have different audiences, rather than any sort of qualitative analysis that viewers are, for some reason, avoiding Firefly only to come to FOX to watch Doe. I agree with Joss's comments that FOX was trying to promote the show, when they did, as if it were a typical sci-fi show, only with horses and six-shooters, when they should have been promoting the show as an adult drama that just happened to have a unique setting. I know from my expereince on a couple other boards that Firefly has lost a lot of sci-fi viewers who simply can't find a way to integrate "Western" with "Sci-Fi"; those are fairly typical responses from people who really weren't the target audience to begin with. "The Anti-Trek" is a simplistic and good-natured soundbite to describe the show, but it should also give an indication that maybe the Trek audience wasn't whom it was intended for in the first place.

Does anyone understand the functioning of the 'Hollywood' mind, or even have proof of its existence?

MOJOECA

Monday, December 23, 2002 6:53 AM

2.7/5 is the average for the entire 2-hour block. To analzye drop-off, one must look at each half-hour block. From the futoncritic.com:

friday's fast national ratings
fox: [2.8/5] [2.6/5] [2.6/5] [2.7/5]
AVG = 2.7/5

18-49 demo
fox: [2.0] [1.9] [1.8] [1.7]
AVG = 1.8

The 2.7 is 55% down from FIREFLY's premeire (4.9). The ratings for each successive week were lower than the last. It never beat DARK ANGEL's friday 8pm numbers from last year, IIRC. Networks don't like that.

Looking at the numbers above, the pilot's drop-off is rather minor (target demo is most important, so it's steady drop-off is perhaps significant). However, it could be argued that at this point, only the core aud is left. We'll never know if showing the pilot first would have curtailed the mainstream tune-out that occurred after "The Train Job." But it's undeniable that people wouldn't be as confused. Less confusion, less tune-out. FOX fucked up.

--- Joe
Waiting patiently for the FIREFLY dvd.

LAGIMAS

Monday, December 23, 2002 7:34 AM

To be honest I hope that FOX doesn't cancle Firefly. It is one of the best series they have. I think it is one of the best shows ever made and most definately one of best Sci-Fi shows ever made. FOX has dropped many interesting and facinating shows. I would call them great but they never had a chance to prove them selves. Shows like "Strange Luck" only recieved a few episodes. Even heavy hitters lik,e Chris Carter has had brilliant shows dropped. The one that comes to mind is "Milenium" staring Lance Hyndricson. I hope FOX learns from its mistakes and sees its self as it was thirteen years ago. A struggling network that took a chance with a poorly drawn cartoon from a skit comedy show.

With Respect
Joe Bob

PTROPE

Monday, December 23, 2002 2:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by MOJOECA:
The 2.7 is 55% down from FIREFLY's premeire (4.9).

Just to know we're on the same page, where are you getting your figures from, and are they both overnights? From thefutoncritic.com, the premiere's overnights were 4.3/7, which translates to only a 38% drop to 2.7/5. Not beautiful, but certainly not 55% (BTW, the numbers you quoted show that 2.7 is 55% of 4.9, not down from it.

)

OUTLANDER

Monday, December 23, 2002 4:17 PM

According to the neilson rating The Train Job got 4.0 which is the highest and War Stories got 2.4 which is the lowest. http://home.insightbb.com/~wahoskem/firefly1.html

THEFUTONCRITIC

Monday, December 23, 2002 5:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ptrope:
Quote:
Originally posted by MOJOECA:
The 2.7 is 55% down from FIREFLY's premeire (4.9).

Just to know we're on the same page, where are you getting your figures from, and are they both overnights? From thefutoncritic.com, the premiere's overnights were 4.3/7, which translates to only a 38% drop to 2.7/5. Not beautiful, but certainly not 55% (BTW, the numbers you quoted show that 2.7 is 55% of 4.9, not down from it. )

"Firefly's" premiere got a 4.0 rating and 8 share (4.9/8 in the overnights). Remember that the official 2002-2003 season didn't start until Monday, September 23. (Nielsen specifies when the season officially starts and ends.) Its first episode on September 20 fell before that date and is hence counted toward the 2001-2002 season. You can see the split here:

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/gofuton.cgi?action=tracker&id=firefl
y&season=20012002

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/gofuton.cgi?action=tracker&id=firefl
y&season=20022003

Hope that helps.

Brian Ford Sullivan
Editor-In-Chief
The Futon Critic
http://www.thefutoncritic.com

PTROPE

Monday, December 23, 2002 5:56 PM

Thanks, Brian! Welcome to the board; it's always nice when the folks who have the skinny show up and clarify it ;). I didn't realize that the Firefly listing for 2002-2003 didn't include the premiere (it's hard to tell when FOX left out the real pilot, so it's 'just another' one hour episode).

Based upon that overnight of 4.9, the drop has been 45%, less encouraging, but still not the 54% drop experienced by ENT, which has better promotion, an arguably better time slot, and wasn't pre-empted in between for Happy Gilmore and The Brady Bunch in the White House (yeah, they saw some real ratings from that one: 2.5 overnight, lower than any episode of Firefly.

Sure, it's grasping at straws, a tad, but sometimes that's what you have to do :D.

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