Monthly Archives: May 2007

May 28, 2007 · 11:46 am

‘Save Jericho’: Why Ratings Are Not Jericho’s Friend

While I’ve been turning very quickly onto the positive side of the ‘Save Jericho’ campaign, this doesn’t mean that I have shied away from being critical or certain aspects of it. My criticism is an attempt to keep this campaign grounded, if you will, without losing sight of CBS’ flawed, yet substantiated, standpoint on this issue. It is for this reason that I must object to a recent list being posted as a way of supporting Jericho that I came across this weekend.

“For the first week of May, Jericho had more viewers than the following shows…

Family Guy
Simpsons
American Dad
Medium
The Entire NBC Thursday Comedy Lineup
How I Met Your Mother
New Adventures of Old Christine
ER
The Unit
Dateline
20/20
America’s Funniest Home Videos
Notes From the Underbelly
All the Law and Order shows

All these shows renewed, Jericho canceled.”

Now, as some have said, this is a very simple message that could be incredibly powerful…if it were not for the fact that parts of it are outright lies, it all ignores scheduling realities, and fails to recognize that CBS is an inherently different network than the others. It is an over-simplified list that only dilutes and weakens the complexity of the campaign. This campaign is trying to fight against traditional ratings barometers; this list accepts them, and puts key goals of the campaign in jeopardy. With tomorrow’s big New York City rally being planned, I would hate to see this campaign run off the rails with something this simple.

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May 27, 2007 · 3:00 pm

‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’ Box Office Watch – Weekend Totals

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Box Office Watch

Tuesday, May 29th – Day “Four”

Okay, so I missed a day: yesterday was a testament to my complete and utter inability to move normally thanks to some incredibly sore limbs. I’m in a great deal of pain, it’s no fun at all.

I’m at work, and thus can’t update the above image to reflect it, but Pirates ended up making $142 Million (Est.) over the 4-day Memorial Day Weekend. This puts it as the highest Memorial Day Opening of all time, and its worldwide totals will be equally impressive.

However, the film will likely suffer from a strong downturn next weekend; not only is the conclusion to the trilogy not quite as likely to see repeat viewings compared to Dead Man’s Chest, but it also faces a strong new competitor in Knocked Up. A stiff drop and a strong debut from Knocked Up will be a tough combo for Pirates if things don’t go its way.

I might update later with final weekend figures, which should be available mid-afternoon.

Sunday, May 27th – Day Three

I apologize for the delay in this update, but I was actually out seeing the film for myself (The Verdict: Better than the 2nd, but doesn’t redeem the two films as much as it could have). It was rough seas for the film’s box office receipts, though, as it failed to live up to lofty expectations (Although it will still come out alright when the Memorial Day totals come in tomorrow).

The film racked up $112 Million over the three-day weekend, which puts it below the recent total of Shrek the Third but just barely ahead of Spider-Man’s old record. This is a solid weekend haul (And great if you combine it with Thursday’s total for $126 Million), but it has yet to be seen just how well the film can hold on Memorial Day. As some anecdotal evidence, the 11:45am screening here in Halifax was mildly full, but as a whole the parking lot seemed empty as we left (Weather’s nice, I reckon). And it’s not even a holiday weekend here.

On top of this, Variety reports that Pirates has crossed the $200 Million mark worldwide, which is a solid total if not one rivaling Spider-Man 3’s epic cume earlier this month. Still, the film is playing well with audiences for now, and will surely avoid box office failure. Let the race between the threequels begin: Shrek just crossed $200 Million, while Spidey creeped over $300 itself. The game is afoot.

Saturday, May 26th – Day Two

From BoxOfficeMojo, Pirates scored a $43 Million opening Friday. This puts its total at $60,000,000, which is $4.2 Million higher than Dead Man’s Chest through this point. It does, however, mean that the film only managed the 5th Highest Opening Day of all time. Still, it puts it on pace for an expectedly strong weekend total, and it should hold well into the holiday weekend.

Friday, May 25th – Day One

After Dead Man’s Chest the box office afire just last year, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End arrives in theatres after two record-breaking blockbusters (Spider-Man 3 and Shrek 3, respectively). It’s the third sequel in four weeks, and moviegoers could be burned out…but it doesn’t seem likely. Here at Cultural Learnings, we’re going to follow the film’s progress as it attempts to break a few records of its own. We’ll be updating it as we go along, so stick around for all the latest info.

Today usually doesn’t bring news, but Pirates officially opened last night (a last minute decision made a month ago by Disney in order to try to squeeze in as many screenings as possible). The result? An extremely solid $17 Million, which ranks as the 7th highest Thursday of all time. Why is this impressive?

Well, because there was only 2/3 as many theatres last night as there will be today, and yesterday didn’t include any mid-day showings. This bodes well for the potency of the film’s box office, as long as the early release doesn’t spread too much negative buzz. For now, though, people are flocking to the cineplexes this evening as the Memorial Day Weekend kicks off in the States.

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May 27, 2007 · 8:45 am

The Results are In: Nielsen Ratings Data for 2006/2007 Season

This list is long. This list is extensive. And I really want to know what this list means. Nielsen (Via The Hollywood Reporter) has released their data for every single TV show that aired in America this past season. It tells us where our favourite shows ranked, where much maligned shows ranked, and how scripted drama did against reality programming.And, it raises a lot of questions about this data that I think Nielsen might not want to answer.

For instance, does this list include repeats in its viewers averages? Because that’s the only way CSI (#4) should be beating Grey’s Anatomy (#6) in total viewers by my calculations. If so, this gives a distinct advantage to shows without repeats (Reality Shows, Lost, Heroes, etc.) or those shows which repeat extremely well (House, CSIs, etc.)

The major thing to watch for in the list is the difference between 18-49 numbers and viewership rankings. It rises many shows into positions of being picked up, even with lacklustre performances in viewers. Some show, like 30 Rock, are in the doldrums in terms of total viewers but shoot up into the Top 75 with adults 18-49, which got it renewed for a second season.

After a few formatting errors, I’ve realized that getting it to highlight canceled shows would drive me crazy, so just refer to your memory. And, either way, some will seem a bit strange. However, remember that these are averages, and don’t reflect ratings dropoff in their later episodes.

This is the case for Jericho, which clearly performed better than many canceled shows. However, CBS did cancel the better rated Close to Home airing on Fridays, so it’s not as if Jericho was the only victim of CBS’ extremely highly place high bar. It might as well be a pole vault at this point.

With the 2006/2007 season over, the industry trades are going right for ratings as their barometer of success. Outside of this post, I’m unlikely to do so as I go into my own year in review season. For now, check out the ratings for all of the dirt, and stay tuned for less quantitative analysis at Cultural Learnings.

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Filed under 30 Rock, ABC, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, Heroes, House, Lost, NBC, Ratings, Reality TV, Scrubs, Television, The Amazing Race, The CW, The Office, Veronica Mars

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May 26, 2007 · 5:35 pm

‘Save Jericho’: Considering a ‘Jericho’ Miniseries

The ‘Save Jericho’ campaign has been going for a week and a half. The network is promising to consider fans’ cries for closure, which could mean a multitude of things. In my view, the fan response has been good enough that CBS will not suggest a simple interview with producers to let fans know how it would have ended. Instead, I believe that what CBS will suggest is a 2-hour movie which will complete the series quickly but in a more resolute fashion. Fans, clearly, are adamant that a second season is the only option: that there is no other way they will be satisfied. And this has been their focus: the message to fans is that, much like Jake facing the threat from New Bern, surrender isn’t an option.

What I want to consider here is whether or not a 4-hour miniseries would be surrendering. It has benefits for fans over a two-hour movie, and it has benefits for executives in a shorter shooting schedule. It provides CBS with an opportunity to test this fan support in gauging possible further extension of the franchise without risking it on a season order, while also providing producers more room to work with. I think that asking CBS to cough up a second season of the show is a lot, which is why I think that Jericho fans need to be prepared to compromise, not surrender. And I believe that a two-part miniseries is that compromise, and one that could continue the campaign’s momentum into the fall months.

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May 26, 2007 · 8:20 am

The Future of FOX’s ‘On The Lot’

So, at some point in the Fall of last year Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett announced a reality show. This pairing is pretty powerful, or was at the time anyways. Since that point, Burnett has actually lost some of his lustre with an atrocious season of The Apprentice and the further decline of Survivor. And, while Spielberg remains Spielberg, one wonders how he’d have time for the series between movies and his new venture into video fames. So, as we moved closer to the series’ late Spring launch, I guess you could say that expectations had cooled.

And for good reason: the show ‘On The Lot’ became, in its first weeks, was an American Idol-style boot camp with group activities, eliminations, and a misplaced focus on the drama of it all instead of the product of that drama. In other words, these first few weeks have been a bit of a mess in terms of reality television production…but it is my belief that we should stick with this show. Because the product of that drama is actually kind of cool.

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May 25, 2007 · 1:12 pm

‘For Your Consideration’ – The Emmy Awards Hype Begins

It will be some yet before I settle into extensive Emmy Awards coverage, considering that we are still over three months away from the show itself. However, the studios are not leaving it to chance, and the Emmy Awards season is officially beginning with a series of For Your Consideration [Wikipedia] ads popping up in Variety/The Hollywood Reporter…well, since I don’t quite have access to the papers themselves, more specifically on their websites.

In the case of some networks, they’ve actually gone so far as to create video databases hosted on the sites of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, although the latter has a large amount more coverage. I’m guessing that these databases will grow as time goes on.

Variety

Emmy Contenders 2007

The Hollywood Reporter

For Your Consideration: Emmy showcase

Now, Hollywood Reporter has the really interesting shows, plus banner ads from ABC-Television for Lost and Scrubs. Now, the other shows (Most of which come from Sony Television and NBC Universal) all have multiple video clips from various episodes. For today, I’m going to analyze and run down three such shows (All of them NBC-owned Dramas): Heroes, Battlestar Galactica and Friday Night Lights. Will the clips do the shows justice?

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May 25, 2007 · 10:47 am

‘Save Jericho’: The Cowardice of Traditional Media

So, I’ve written extensively about the ‘Save Jericho’ Campaign, as have a large number of internet sites and blogs. This thing is only a week old, and already it has escalated into an internet phenomenon on the levels that were unfathomable when the show was canceled last week. And, it’s had an impact: CBS executives are apparently meeting this week, although the chances of a season two still seem fairly remote. However, there’s something that needs to be made note of: there has been little to no coverage of the ‘Save Jericho’ campaign in the “traditional” media.

This would be your newspapers. Your television stations. Your major media outlets for entertainment news. These sites? Aren’t quite as willing to jump on the bandwagon. Now, there have been some stories about it in more major news outlets, but there is a distinction that needs to be made.

Those outlets (New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune) are not reporting on the actual content of the Save Jericho campaign, but rather on its status as an internet phenomenon from a group of crazed fans [The New York Times walks a fine line]. They are not covering the ‘Save Jericho’ campaign as something real, something genuine, but rather as some sort of novelty. Now, for the sake of the campaign, this coverage is good. Major papers covering the story is getting press out there, and that’s a great start.

But these major papers are refusing to really pick up this story and run with it: they were unwilling to send media to cover the delivery of peanuts to CBS headquarters, they are tentative to actually talk to the people involved, and on the whole they’re reporting about the story instead of actually reporting the story itself. And when they do it’s brief mentions in their pop culture blogs, not actual articles. And I think there’s a reason for this:

Cowardice. I believe that they are unwilling to engage this campaign as an actual entity because it will be legitimizing the internet as a source of power in media. It will be legitimizing blogs, message boards, and everything else. To cover this campaign in the same way blogs have, these major papers would have to admit that they were scooped, that the same stories bloggers are writing about are worthy of their pages.

And that would change the mass media forever.

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May 24, 2007 · 8:14 pm

Network Upfronts Extravaganza 2007: Canadian Edition

So, I spent last week covering the American Network Upfronts, but in reality that was all a warmup for the epic event that is: the Canadian Upfronts. Man, what a week this is going to…oh, you mean they already selected all their shows? And they just announced them in a press conference? Really? That’s, uh…wow, I wasn’t really prepared, I expected to have all sorts of time to write previews and…wow. Okay, so I guess I should run down some of the new that came over the past few days? I’m all out of sorts here.

Who are the Players?

Global (CanWest) and CTV are really the only major players involved now that CTV bought out CityTV and the rest of CHUM. There’s Sun TV out of central Canada, but they’re not a huge player. It’s really down to the big two for the big shows.

What should we know about Canada’s simulcasting system?

Well, first off, do the math: the shows airing on five different American networks don’t easily fit onto two Canadian networks, not all of them anyways. This has left some fairly substantial hits south of the border (America’s Next Top Model, Ugly Betty) off of these main networks and onto networks like CityTV or Sun TV.

Canadian networks struggle most with the fact that many of their shows overlap. For instance, they own the rights to both CSI and Grey’s Anatomy: as a result, the network is forced to air Grey’s an hour earlier than it is in the U.S. It’s all a give and take like this, which makes for some interesting Canadian scheduling. Another example was just last night, when CTV had the rights to both the Lost and American Idol finales, and actually split Lost into two parts in Central Canada to make it work.

Which network is better at simulcasting?

Definitely CTV. Global is a complete and total mess: its HD is extremely limited, its commercials are far worse, and all in all the production values just aren’t the same. I really wish they’d revamp everything to be less ugly, too. They really need to work on that. CityTV and the others aren’t terrible, but they don’t have the same level of nationwide coverage, which is a problem for families without digital cable or the joys of timeshifting that some of us enjoy.

So what’s happened so far?

Well, CTV has not officially announced any of its pickups thus far, but there have been some leaks ahead of their early June Upfront Presentation in Toronto. Meanwhile, Global has spilled the beans on which shows they’ve picked up. For all the information, you can follow to The Hollywood Reporter. For a complete summary and analysis, keep reading.

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Filed under Back to You, Chuck, CTV, Global, Gossip Girl, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, Television, Upfronts, Without a Trace

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May 24, 2007 · 3:10 pm

Casting Call: Producers Plan to Expand the ‘Heroes’ Universe with New Characters

Well, we know little about them, but The Hollywood Reporter is telling us that the series will be dealing with some new faces next year. We knew that there would be some shifts in casting with the show, in order to keep things fresh, but these are certainly a cryptic and scattered array of casting selections. Via casting calls, the following are confirmed:

– A Boyfriend for Claire (Sexy, it says)

– A 28-year old Black Mother

– A Surrogate for Niki’s Son

– An Irish Mobster (Black Donnellys cast, hello!)

– A Twentysomething Latina

I worry about this, only because none of these character sounds all that interesting outside of an Irish Mobster. I also worry about the show’s ability to balance these character arcs: Hana, the Wireless girl, came and went so fast (Before showing up in Five Years Gone) that she didn’t even matter in the end. Was that really worth the short time we spent on her? I think the show needs to stick with its own characters, at some point.

Either way, this list remains tentative, and we can only speculate for now how these people might come into play…and what powers they might have.

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May 24, 2007 · 12:10 pm

Reviewing the Finales: Lost, Heroes, 24 Ratings Breakdown

Well, this week has seen perhaps three of the biggest cult hits of the last decade end their seasons. 24, Heroes, and Lost are perhaps the biggest shows amongst the younger viewers that advertisers crave so much, and each show also shares something else: a rabid fanbase. These fanbases are devoted, and I have been a part of each of them since each series began. Which is why I want to, over the next few days, consider the way these three shows ended their seasons. I want to do so on a number of levels (Because my decision on quality will be one-sided). While the others will take time, the first thing that we need to consider is gloriously quantitative.

The Ratings

[Ratings Data from PIFeedback and TheFutonCritic]

Lost

Hour One

Total Viewers: 12.4 Million

18-49: 5.2

Hour Two

Total Viewers: 15 Million

18-49: 6.4

Total Average

Total Viewers: 13.66 Million

18-49: 5.8

Lost needs to be commended for a HUGE Post-Idol boost, as people seemed willing to watch just the final hour of the season after the reality show concluded. That huge boost in viewership boosts Lost’s total viewers ahead of Heroes, and its overall 18-49 within the same range. Facing off against stiffer competition, Lost is inevitable the ratings champion amongst the three shows with a strong performance in all key categories in the tougher spot…and it bodes well for next season with 15.4 Million catching the last half hour of the episode.

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