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Ratings and Scheduling: Who's the fairest of them all?

Serena

By Serena
in Once Upon A Time

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Shanna Marie
Shanna Marie

I've realized that my feelings about the show's current status and cancellation potential are like when you're in that phase of a relationship where you're realizing it's not working, but you don't re

Curio
Curio

So, this OUAT ad played during the Oscars last night. The Oscars drew 32.9 million viewers. Not including sporting events, the Academy Awards is consistently one of the most-watched events on tel

Mari
Mari

So, the last five minutes were so bad they caused widespread device malfunction?  Sounds about right.

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jjjmoss

jjjmoss

(edited)

Well renewals are mostly based on official stats, which we can all see without needing to "have inside scoop."

 

With a few anomalies each year. Like renewing American Crime for the awards.

 

Also, the show has notoriously dropped viewers from the premiere to episode 2, which it didn't do this season. Are ratings as good as they could be? No, but that's mainly because of the mess in the season 2. We've now reached a point where this show is steady, which is more than ABC can say for some of its other offerings.

 

It didn't notably drop in S3 either the 2nd week, but the season average still ended up being 15% lower than the premiere's #s. That level drop would give us a 1.5 average for the season.

Edited by jjjmoss
retrograde

retrograde

As I understand it, TV by the Numbers still runs the Cancellation Bear twitter and vertical. One of the site's founders -- and the guy who started the whole Cancellation Bear schtick -- left (after selling the site last year and then staying on for awhile) and started TV Grim Reaper doing the same thing. But they both seem to use basically the same formula for predictions. 

Serena

Serena

  • Author
(edited)

But hasn't the TV Grim reaper been saying since the premiere number that once is "safe"? And Cancellation Bear says it's "borderline" instead? This is what I mean by saying they have no inside scoop - they get the same numbers and have totally different conclusions.
 

Well renewals are mostly based on official stats, which we can all see without needing to "have inside scoop."


No, not really - it's based on a lot more than that. ABC produces Once, so it takes into account lots more stuff we aren't privy to: how many countries did it sell Once to, and for how much money? How much is Netflix paying to have Once? Stats came out that Once and The Blacklist are Netflix's most popular shows. How many DVDs are they selling? Do they have something to substitute for Sunday at 8PM if Once gets cancelled? Something kid-friendly, possibly? If not, do they want to develop another fairy tale/Once spin-off to go in its place? How are negotiation for syndication going? Etc, etc.

Edited by Serena
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Camera One

Camera One

I know A&E said no already but one way to boost 5B ratings would be to do Star Wars in the second half of the season.  "The Force Awakens" opens this December, so "Once" might be able to garner new fans by having Dark Emma team up with Emperor Palpatine, while the clan from Storybrooke heads to find Yoda to cure her of the Darkness.

sharky

sharky

There are some sacred cows that Disney won't even let Once play with. I bet Star Wars is one of them. The Marvel universe is probably another.

 

Serena -- All good points about what else ABC takes into consideration besides the ratings. Also, check out the media thread here. There are fans talking about the Funko figures they bought, the t-shirts and mugs from Hot Topic, and the new action figures that are being licensed and produced. You can't make action figures to go along with a show like Scandal. And since ABC owns Once, they're making even more extra revenue from it.

 

I noticed the TVbytheNumbers chart is slightly different this season than in past seasons. Two things that they added that I really like are the actual average 18-49 rating and an O next to shows that are owned by the studio. It gives you a better idea of what they use for their decision-making process. One that stuck out to me this week was Agents of Shield -- they have a lower average rating than Once and a higher predicted renewal. Again, marketing for Disney's Marvel and the ability to make action figures and other products give it a bit of an extra boost.

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YaddaYadda

YaddaYadda

About AOS, isn't Marvel forking the money for that show though? I thought I read that when the show started and it was doing poorly in the ratings. 

 

As far as Once goes, I hope they never do Star Wars, not because I love Star Wars, because I really don't it at all, but because Once is supposed to be about fairytales. They should at least try and keep that premise intact.

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orza

orza

Ad sales is just one revenue stream for this show. Revenue from Netflix, Amazon and foreign distribution probably exceeds ad revenue at this point. These are very good reasons to keep the show on the air as long as possible.

 

Once is also a Disney brand that can be integrated well into the theme parks. They have already begun doing so by add Mr. Gold's shop to one of the parks in Florida. The show just needs to visit maybe two more lands to have enough material for an engaging Pirates of the Caribbean style theme park ride. From various things mentioned or hinted at in interviews, I have no doubt that is coming.

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jaytee1812

jaytee1812

Well I disagree, and the vast majority of the time the straight numbers tell you full-blank whether a show's returning, so whatever.

Agreed. If it's close between two shows other revenues might be taken into account. But the majority of decisions will come down to number of eyeballs that watch live. Ad buyers aren't interested in those who watch on catch up either.

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Amerilla

Amerilla

Well I disagree, and the vast majority of the time the straight numbers tell you full-blank whether a show's returning, so whatever.

 

But the majority of decisions will come down to number of eyeballs that watch live. Ad buyers aren't interested in those who watch on catch up either.

 

I would tend to agree with all that. At a certain point, they're little up-side in funding a show that's fallen to "meh" ratings when you could be trying to fund the next hit that you can sell to a bigger audience at higher ad rates.

 

After this season, it's going to be a question of when to stop trying to balance profit and loss. With about 8,000 cast members, a large production staff, and a huge amount of crap-tastic CGI, it's a fairly expensive show to produce. Now that they're going to be able to add traditional syndication to other revenue streams (international syndication, Netflix and other streaming services, DVDs, merchandising), it becomes that much harder to justify production costs when they could be looking at (mostly) pure profit instead. This thing is a classic cash cow.

 

That said: I think S6 is a lock. A S7 or S7+ would surprise me.

sharky

sharky

Agreed. If it's close between two shows other revenues might be taken into account. But the majority of decisions will come down to number of eyeballs that watch live. Ad buyers aren't interested in those who watch on catch up either.

But see, I think the ratings for all the shows are getting so tight that this could be a deciding factor when choosing what to keep or cancel. Stalwarts like Castle and Nashville are struggling more than Once. And let's be honest: this is likely Castle's last season. Shows that are doing well and aren't part of Shonda Thursday are all comedies. The only non-Shonda drama doing better than Once is Quantico. So for me, ABC is going to have to be making decisions about how much comedy they want in their line-up, and Once could easily squeak in ahead of some shows that are only going to air for a half hour instead of a full hour. It would be interesting to see how much it costs ABC to pay for two half hour shows compared to one full hour, and if that cost would play into the decision as well.

Serena

Serena

  • Author

I actually think Quantico won't be doing better than Once for long. Episode 1 was fine, but 2 was unbearable - but even if it keeps up, it's doing in its first season numbers that Once does in its 5th. Anyway, it's the only successful launch of the year for ABC so far... they need more than TGIT and comedies. Oh, I guess Dr Ken launched decently as well.

stealinghome

stealinghome

(edited)
Episode 1 was fine, but 2 was unbearable - but even if it keeps up, it's doing in its first season numbers that Once does in its 5th.

I don't disagree, but to be fair to Quantico, it's a Sunday 10pm show, and network TV ratings across the board have fallen off a cliff since OUAT premiered.

Edited by stealinghome
Hookian

Hookian

(edited)

Wow Once is really holding steady. I'm really impressed. Yes it dropped but look at the big picture of this season. In it's 5th season Once now has the same ratings as a show that only has 3 episodes on it's belt. I think that's a pretty big indication as to how Once is fairing with the audience.

 

Not to mention look at the rest of ABC's lineup there's literally only a handful of shows that are doing better than Once and in the case of Dramas the only ones that top Once are the Shonda trio. 

Edited by Hookian
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TheGreenKnight

TheGreenKnight

Anyways, maybe this'll make them do some hardcore PRing for 5b when it comes around.

Honestly, that's the best plan for this show considering the spring is always where it shaves off viewers. Season 3 was the steadiest and that's because the heaviest promo went towards 3B. I'm surprised they didn't continue that pattern last season, especially since Frozen would've sold itself without much push.

Souris

Souris

Half-hour breakdown.

 

8:00 p.m.

ABC – Once Upon a Time
Viewers: 5.34 million (#3), A18-49: 1.6/ 5 (#3)

CBS – 60 Minutes
Viewers: 14.58 million (#2), A18-49: 2.4/ 7 (#2)

NBC – Football in America (part three)
Viewers: 14.62 million (#1), A18-49: 5.1/16 (#1)

Fox – The Simpsons
Viewers: 3.29 million (#4), A18-49: 1.5/ 5 (#4)

———-

8:30 p.m.

ABC – Once Upon a Time
Viewers: 5.09 million (#3), A18-49: 1.6/ 4 (#3)

CBS – Madam Secretary
Viewers: 11.47 million (#2), A18-49: 1.6/ 5 (#2)

NBC – Sunday Night Football (San Francisco 49ers at New York Giants)
Viewers: 18.16 million (#1), A18-49: 6.5/19 (#1)

Fox – Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Viewers: 2.73 million (#4), A18-49: 1.3/ 4 (#4)

 

--

 

An in-ep drop is never good, but it was more for overall than 18-49. Once is still doing OK -- not great, but not dire. Blood & Oil is gonna be canceled sooner rather than later. Those 18-49 numbers are OUCH. The Walking Dead's return really affected it.

Rumsy4

Rumsy4

(edited)

Ratings drop off more in Spring in general. Besides, the 5B arc will be centered around Regina, I'm not sure we can expect stellar writing just because of A&E's permaboner for her. I just hope the writers don't throw in 5 more guest villains into the mix in a bid to attract viewers. 

Edited by Rumsy4
sharky

sharky

It would make sense to have 5B be better than 5A ratings-wise based on the PR that they haven't put behind this first half of the season. I wonder if they decided to wait until the second half to spend that money instead.

 

Plus, it sounds like numbers are down again across the board. The LA Times had an interesting take about how bad the 18-45 demographic is now that more and more young people leave TV for streaming and downloading services.

LizaD

LizaD

 

True, and OUAT has become a big hit on Netflix,

 

Well that was based on late last year and we don't know if that was due to Frozen or not. There was also no mention of time period that that accounted for from the self-responders. Shifting it a couple of weeks or even days might have changed the results with something like Netflix. CBS did the survey and were trying to discount Netflix's original shows by claiming that the most popular shows on Netflix aren't even Netflix original programming but network scripted dramas and hence networks still rule the roost.

 

 

There are some sacred cows that Disney won't even let Once play with. I bet Star Wars is one of them.

 

I agree. We're talking about billions of dollars in revenue for Disney from Star Wars. Once is a drop in the bucket so it makes no sense for them to let Star Wars boost something that inconsequential overall. Too much hassle for a temporary and very brief boost. They wouldn't even give free rein to Frozen to these guys and that's a direct tie with the fairy tale thing. There's nothing else in Disney's fairy tale vault that would revive this show, I don't think as evidenced by Merida. They've burned through most of the princesses ones, except for Jasmine although Jafar was in Wonderland. They could start making human versions of the Lion King, Winnie the Pooh and the like I suppose.

KingOfHearts

KingOfHearts

(edited)

 

There's nothing else in Disney's fairy tale vault that would revive this show, I don't think as evidenced by Merida.

Frozen was the biggest draw possible from the Disney franchises. You can't get any more popular than that. I'm not sure if there's anything they could possibly do at this point that could lure in new viewers, regardless of big name franchises.

Edited by KingOfHearts
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LizaD

LizaD

(edited)

No the numbers Adage is talking about is C3. That's plus 3 days that people are watching on DVR but NOT fast forwarding the commercials. It means they're sitting there watching commercials on DVR. Nielsen doesn't release C3 numbers publically. You have to buy it or sometimes networks will release them if there's a bragging point to be made. The numbers that media sites publish for the public is L+3 (live+3 or live+7). Meaning that's the plus 3 days counting ALL viewers regardless if they watch commercials or not. That number doesn't matter because again, people are only interested in number of people who watches commercials, not the show itself.

 

ETA: Since Once wasn't mentioned, it's safe to assume they didn't get any significant bump in the C3 numbers and therefore wasn't worth mentioning.

Edited by LizaD
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Hookian

Hookian

Anybody that wants to tell me OUAT is not gonna make it to it's desired 7 seasons from the writers or beyond needs to take a look at all the rest of the ABC shows.

 

Just last night take a look at how bad all the shows are doing including the brand spanking new "Muppets" show and then try to say that OUAT is in trouble. Once is still one of the top performing shows of the network.

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Souris

Souris

Yep, Hookian. From TVGrimReaper: A key point is that your favorite show is in renewal competition *only* with shows on the same network. Other net’s shows matter not.

 

I'm not sure about ABC moving Quantico to 9 p.m. They might, but that would put it against The Walking Dead and would probably make its ratings go down.

Serena

Serena

  • Author

I've been wrong so far, but Quantico has to drop hard at some point, right? It's so awful, and unlike Once doesn't have engaging characters. But anyway, I agree that Quantico will get the post-Once spot, and they may end up helping each other. But yeah, ABC must be hurting that the Muppets tanked. They must have spent sooo much money promoting it. Castle is getting series lows, and it's in its 8th season anyway - plus, allegedly the two leads don't even like each other. So all things considered, Once is safe.

Curio

Curio

I've been wrong so far, but Quantico has to drop hard at some point, right? It's so awful, and unlike Once doesn't have engaging characters. But anyway, I agree that Quantico will get the post-Once spot, and they may end up helping each other. But yeah, ABC must be hurting that the Muppets tanked.

 

I never thought another show could out-complicate, out-twist, and out-MarySue OUAT, but Quantico seems to have accomplished that already. Their writers actually make Once's look like geniuses at times. Sad to hear about The Muppets though; I wanted it to perform well.

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sharky

sharky

According to TVbytheNumbers, The Muppets still a 2.2 rating and is within the renew part of the index, but it sounds like it's riding alot on the coattails of its premiere. I don't know why more people aren't watching it -- it's a great show. As for Quantico, I'm not watching it but based on what you've all said, I do wonder if it's got the same campiness as Revenge had in that slot, which makes me wonder whether they do plan to move it when Blood and Oil gets cancelled. Do we know if ABC has anything ready to fill that space at 9pm? It's been a bit cursed for several years now so whatever they throw in there has to be strong or ready for the slaughter. And I wonder if they're going to at least hold Blood and Oil until the two-hour Once episode in November to make a smooth transition or just cut it in the next few weeks.

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