Ratings and Scheduling: Hail to the Gods

[kismet]

Just a quick correction, because I see this a lot. Adjusted ratings do not account for streaming views. Nielsen ratings only cover live TV and DVR/time-shifted viewing. And the DVR viewing is limited to three modes only [although there is talk of expanding the time spans]: 1. same night; 2. following 3 days; 3. following 7 days.

 

There are no numbers for streaming views of much of anything published anywhere the general public can see.

thanks for the clarification :)

[Primal Slayer]

That is why we can't really take social media/review sites to gage how charecters impact the show. (I would quote but on my phone so to much to delete)

The CW would be doing better if DVR was recognized more and now tweets are suppose to add to ratings.

[quarks]

Except social media sites/reviews make up a very small percentage of viewers. It's like movie reviews, they can be really bad for movies but the movie in question can still make bank. Half the audience hated Olicity in S3 and half the audience hated Black Canary in S3 but the season was still one of the higher rated in terms of ratings.

 

 

I think most of this is debatable. Data from Rotten Tomatoes doesn't seem to support the film review statement, for instance. Season 1 of Arrow had higher ratings than most of season 3. 

 

With social media/reviews, I think it's a bit fuzzy. Reviews and forum sites like this one, yes. (This forum is maybe 1/1000 of a percent of all Arrow viewers. I can say that we're definitely not representative.) Nielsen/Twitter data suggest that Twitter users account for about 5 to 7% of Arrow viewers, with a number of caveats:

 

1. #Arrow returns a number of false positives for other types of arrows.

 

2. To counter that, Nielsen may be missing a number of #Arrow livetweets that leave out the hashtag and just have things like "Go Oliver!" or "Is Roy ok?"

 

3. Many #Arrow tweets may be discussing the first and second seasons.

 

Twitter numbers, however, are smaller than Facebook numbers, and it's not clear to me just how much overlap there is between the two. (Obviously at least some, but are half of all Twitter users also liking things over on Facebook? Good question. I don't know.) 

 

Let's say, conservatively, that Twitter and Facebook together account for 7 to 8% of all Arrow viewers. Small and possibly unrepresentative. I'm still a bit puzzled by how you've gone from suggesting that these numbers are unrepresentative, to declaring that half of Arrow viewers hated Olicity and half Black Canary.

 

I'm puzzled in part because I'm not seeing the same divide that you are.  On forum/review sites, maybe, but even there, I see quite a bit of fuzziness that changes episode to episode. Taking just this forum, for instance - this place tends to be pretty anti-Laurel Lance, but many posters here liked her in "Suicidal Tendencies" and/or in her scenes with Nyssa in "Al Sah-him" and posted that - and then went right back to criticizing her at the end of the season. Posters here also had some very negative things to say about how Oliver and Felicity were written this year, but despite those negative comments, this forum still tends to be pretty pro Oliver/Felicity, so, just as positive comments about Laurel for some season 3 episodes don't necessarily suggest that she's become a popular character on this forum, negative comments about Oliver and Felicity for some season 3 episodes don't necessarily suggest that the pairing is unpopular on this forum. There's also fuzzier things like the various lists of "Best Couples" and similar lists, where Oliver and Felicity almost inevitably make an appearance, and "Worst Characters/Most Hated Characters/Most Useless Characters," where yes, even after season three, Laurel Lance is still making regular appearances.

 

I'm also seeing something different from the sites with actual numbers or rankings:  YouTube vids/views, Google results, IMDB.com ratings, Reddit comments, Facebook likes/dislikes, Tumblr posts, and sites that are not exactly social media, but where we have rankings but not actual numbers (for instance, the Shop DC Entertainment site). For instance, if you sort by bestselling, the Felicity Smoak action figure is currently outselling everything in the Arrow shop except for the 2016 calendar and the new Arrow T-shirt that seems to have the season four Arrow logo on it - including the Laurel Lance figure. A YouTube search for "Olicity" brings back 64000 results; a YouTube search for "Laurel Lance" brings back 15600 results. All but one of the first ten "Olicity" results has over 100,000 views; the first Dinah Laurel Lance vid (the "Fight Song" vid) has 10930 views, the second has 9318 views, the third 73 views. On the Arrow Facebook site, Olicity pictures tend to get more likes than Laurel Lance pictures. And even on something like IMDB.com, generally considered a pro-Laurel Lance site, episodes featuring Laurel tend to get lower ratings than those with major Oliver/Felicity moments.  With Nielsen, in general, Laurel-focused episodes tended to get lower numbers of viewers than episodes flanking them. For instance, "Midnight City," Laurel's first major official outing as Black Canary, had fewer viewers than "Left Behind" and "Uprising," "Canaries" had the lowest number of total viewers of any February episode.

 

None of this is conclusive, of course, but I also don't think it suggests that Oliver/Felicity were as disliked/hated as last season's Black Canary storyline. Do you have other numbers/sites that I'm not seeing?

 

The CW would be doing better if DVR was recognized more and now tweets are suppose to add to ratings.

 

 

 

I may be misunderstanding your point here? This isn't the problem getting reported by Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, CBS financial reports, and Tribune press releases. The CW's problem is specifically with its affiliates, which are entirely dependent on ad buys, the rates for which are not that affected by DVR views since DVR viewers commonly skip ads.  

 

If you are stating that Nielsen ratings understate the total number of viewers for CW shows, yes, that's true, but the CW would be doing better if it owned or had controlling interest in more of its stations, and/or was not tied to the ongoing ad buy revenue model, not if DVR numbers were included.  

[Primal Slayer]

I'm not saying it is 100%, it's a generalization and as i said above, why it is hard to use reviews/online response to judge what people are thinking about a charecter. With so many sites out there of course no one can say 100% about anything.

[EmilyBettFan]

Meh, hate speaks louder than love apparently. So it seems like half the fandom hates Olicity when it isn't really like that. One thing to prove this is that on facebook, the Olicity image has the most likes of every photo upwards of 300k, whereas the negative Olicity comments got likes upwards of 2k (and I'm being generous here).

Not to mention Olicity is still what all the media outlets are talking about, only reason why is because that's the subject matter that gives them the most traffic. Not everyone comments though so the traffic is probably much higher than we think.

And just like what @dtissagirl said, the promos have been heavy on Olicity. Obviously the network wouldn't push it if they weren't confident re: the amount of Olicity supporters.

If anything, the numbers are there to prove that Olicity is popular. The numbers, however, aren't there to prove that Laurel is as popular. 'As' being the key word here.

Yes to all of this. Their promotion dictates what they know most fans like to see. Hence all the Olicity!

[quarks]

Since today's the official release date for the Arrow Season 3 DVD/Blu-Ray, I thought I'd check its current Amazon.com ranking. It's at 70 for Movies and TV, 8 for Movies and TV/Drama, and 15 for Movies and TV/Action.

 

For comparison, season 1 is at 1,136 for Movies & TV (which basically just means it's still selling) and season 2 is at 747 for Movies & TV.

 

Season 1 of Flash is at 55 in Movies & TV.  I'm somewhat surprised; I would have thought Flash would have been much higher than Arrow in comparison.  Gotham is at 248, but it's been out for a couple of weeks now and is slightly more expensive than the Blu-Rays for Flash and Arrow.

 

Though price might not be that big of a factor - the second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is winning this, at 46 in Movies & TV, after a September 18, 2015 release, and, as many of the comments note, a considerably higher price from Amazon, ($54.99; Arrow and Flash are at $37.99, and Gotham is at $44.96) enough to make me wonder if Amazon and Disney are about to go head to head. 

[lemotomato]

I am really hoping that baseball playoffs don't affect the premiere ratings tonight. The overnights for The Flash are a little bit down compared to its season 1 finale numbers, but there was a Yankees playoff game on at the same time. East Coasters don't really care that much about the Cubs-Cardinals, right?

[WaitandHope]

I vaguely remember that the CW in Chicago also airs the Cubs sometimes and the show sometimes gets preempted?  Could that be right?  But I guess tonight that the Cubs will be on ESPN or something else so at least the show shouldn't be preempted.  I'm speculating.  quarks?   That said, I think MLB is expecting boffo ratings for the Cubs' return to the playoffs, so it probably will be down some. 

[apinknightmare]

Yeah, I have a few friends in Chicago who love the Cubs, and they're all planning on watching the game live (obviously, that's the way to do it!) and Arrow later. 

[Morrigan2575]

I am really hoping that baseball playoffs don't affect the premiere ratings tonight. The overnights for The Flash are a little bit down compared to its season 1 finale numbers, but there was a Yankees playoff game on at the same time. East Coasters don't really care that much about the Cubs-Cardinals, right?

The game aired on ESPN, the show wasn't preempted for Baseball.  If you're talking about competition, highly doubtful it was a Wild Card game and I think most Yankee fans (like me) knew it was a doomed venture after the crappy way we ended the season

[Sakura12]

I'm from Chicago, the Cubs are on TBS not WGN/CW tonight. So it's not going to interrupt Arrow. 

 

The CW only exists in Chicago from 7-10pm.

Edited October 7, 2015 by Sakura12

[kismet]

So long as people watch it within a certain time period that will still up the online or on-demand viewership numbers so it might be a win win. Heck I'm happy for Cubs fans that they finally are in the playoffs, I can't begrudge them wanting to watch their team live.

[lemotomato]

I don't either... I just really want the show to come back strong and have the ratings reflect that. Otherwise I know a numbers drop will be blamed on the Olicity promotion, even though baseball is a factor.

[Coop33]

Die hard Cubs fan here. I'm planning on watching both. I'll watch Arrow live while the game is on my laptop and then after Arrow switch solely to the game. I'm so anxious about the game that I think Arrow will be a welcome distraction. All other Arrow/Cubs fans I know are planning on doing something similar.

[Morrigan2575]

Good Luck to the Cubs. I'm throwing my support behind the Mets but I'll be happy either way.

[kismet]

Well Congratulations to the Cubs! Got to admit I'm rooting for them this post-season. As someone who has lived through Championship droughts and curses, I have to admit it is about time something goes the Cubs way.

 

And to make this about Arrow, the #Arrow tag trended from at least 2020 EST all the way through this post (@2323 EST) and straight into the West Coast airing when it is still trending. Surprised it was still trending in the 10p hour. So at least that will add to the "ratings" (or whatever they call the social media effect on ratings). It also survived #Empire 's airing & #Cubs who are also trending. Congrats all around :)

Edited October 8, 2015 by kismet

[KenyaJ]

This morning on ESPN radio, of all places, I heard that Arrow got 142,000 tweets last night. The hosts were talking about the fact that the Cubs game got a million tweets and comparing that to Empire, which was next with 500,000 tweets, and Arrow, which was third.

[blixie]

If the Cubs win the year that Marty went back to the future I will FLIP.

[Starfish35]

Arrow got a 1.1 in preliminary ratings.

http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/the-sked-wednesday-ratings-10-7-2015.html

ETA: that's actually up a little bit from last season's finale. Not bad.

http://www.spottedratings.com/2014/10/spotvault-arrow-cw-2014-15-ratings.html

Edited October 8, 2015 by Starfish35

[Morrigan2575]

That's also up from the S3 premiere which scored a 1.0 in the demo.  

[NumberCruncher]

I'm very glad for Arrow. Not too shabby--especially competing with the Cubs game. Given we know that The CW's viewing audience tends to watch later via DVR, the fact that they kept the live ratings strong is pretty cool.

[quarks]

Nielsen's released the Twitter trends. Arrow came in third - behind American Horror Story: Hotel and Empire.  All three were soundly beaten by the Cubs game, which hands down won Twitter for the evening, and also by the Hawks/Cavaliers game, proving sports still dominates. However, back to drama:

 

"Green Arrow"

 

Unique audience (000): 955

Impressions (000): 3754

Unique authors (000): 19

Tweets (000): 79

 

For comparison, the numbers for "My Name Is Oliver Queen":

 

Unique audience (000): 959
Impressions (000): 4385
Unique authors (000): 21
Tweets (000): 91

 

My impression was that #Arrow had trended for longer than usual last night, but then again, individual character names/events didn't seem to trend, which may have been part of the reason the Twitter ratings are slightly down from the finale. But these are still decent numbers, and better than some of the Twitter trend numbers from last season. 

[Angel12d]

Has the way trends work changed lately? Because Olicity fans tweeted something like 40k worth of tweets before the episode with their usual weekly Olicity tag and it didn't trend at all which I found weird.

[Chaser]

Has the way trends work changed lately? Because Olicity fans tweeted something like 40k worth of tweets before the episode with their usual weekly Olicity tag and it didn't trend at all which I found weird.

They changed something at the end of last season. It's much harder to trend now then it was before. And it's random. Somethings trended for less than what Olicity was tweeting.

[apinknightmare]

My impression was that #Arrow had trended for longer than usual last night, but then again, individual character names/events didn't seem to trend, which may have been part of the reason the Twitter ratings are slightly down from the finale. But these are still decent numbers, and better than some of the Twitter trend numbers from last season. 

 

I didn't tweet very much last night, because for the first time in a while I was actually engaged in almost everything that was happening on screen. I only took time out to tweet during commercial breaks, or when I thought something in particular was ridiculous. 

[Angel12d]

They changed something at the end of last season. It's much harder to trend now then it was before. And it's random. Somethings trended for less than what Olicity was tweeting.

 

That's what I found weird because some trends had less tweets. Makes no sense. 

[dtissagirl]

It's a combo of number of Tweets + diverse geolocation. Someone tweeting a thousand times from the exact same location is way less significant than a hundred tweets from a hundred different locations.

[Velocity23]

CW Press Release

 

 

http://www.tvmediainsights.com/forum/topic/wednesday-100715-4/

Edited October 8, 2015 by Velocity23

[HighwayFlower]

Do Nielsen ratings matter anymore, since digital tv can track almost all viewers, and not just a select pool?

[dtissagirl]

The CW is so happy dudebros still like Arrow, it's adorable.

[lemotomato]

SA is attributing the bump to the WWE audience. Yeah, ok man. Whatever you need to convince the network to let you go back.

[Angel12d]

SA is attributing the bump to the WWE audience. Yeah, ok man. Whatever you need to convince the network to let you go back.

 

You're kidding?! LOL. What.

[lemotomato]

@amellywood: Thanks to everyone in the @WWE Universe who checked out the show. Had our biggest premiere since launching in 2012. #NotAnAccident

https://twitter.com/amellywood/status/652157967958081537

[Angel12d]

He's got to be joking. I hope he's joking, considering there's a very loyal fan base who consistently promoted the show by themselves this whole hiatus. *glares*

[Chaser]

I find that hilarious and a bit insulting at the same time.

[NumberCruncher]

Eh, I don't care if he's crediting the WWE audience. I personally doubt that's the case, but whatever floats yer boat, I say. I'm just happy that ratings were strong. It deflates the naysayers' predictions that we've had to endure since the S3 finale so I'm good.

[tarotx]

In comments I keep ready that it was because a great Olicity was shown in the previews or because the comic fans have hope for a more Comic GA and a comic BA. And now Stephan is saying it's because of WWE.  Everybody has their take on it. 

[Morrigan2575]

He's an idiot.  

[Chasity]

I think he's saying that because they tweeted this to their 5.7M followers yesterday:

 

Good luck to @amellywood on the season premiere of @CW_Arrow! Take a fond look back at his run in @WWE: http://trib.al/GNpz34h

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/651804202583359488

[apinknightmare]

I don't think he's wrong to thank WWE fans for tuning in-I'm sure his wrestling over the summer did attract new viewers. Now, insinuating that the bump was entirely due to them? Nah. He should really thank people for tuning back in, haha. I think as always the viewership is attributed to different things. People tuned in for comic book stuff, people tuned in for Olicity, maybe some people came back from a long break because this season didn't look depressing as shit. Some people who binged over the summer just started watching live. Lots of stuff.

[BkWurm1]

It wouldn't surprise me if he got some people checking it out from the WWE world but I doubt enough to make the bump.  More likely it's former viewers that left at the end of last season's premiere coming to see if the show is worth watching this year.     

[NumberCruncher]

Of course it's not wrong to thank WWE fans who did happen to tune in--I just don't think they're as plentiful as Stephen believes. And yes, people watch for a whole multitude of reasons. I just enjoy that all of the "OMG! This show sucks/jumped the shark/is dooooooomed" comments basically amounted to a whole lot of nothingness...yet again proving that all of the online commentary really isn't as influential as people think.

[TwistedandBored]

NXTtakeover was going on during Arrow with the much hyped about Sasha Banks vs Bayley IronWoman match. So, I really don't think to many WWE fans turned in to watch Arrow. 

[Velocity23]

Final ratings:

[EmilyBettFan]

Yeah he thanked everyone on Facebook. I know he loves the Olicity aspect but, I think he's being cautious for some reason. It would look like he's picking favorites. But, we all know the truth of the matter is one fandom really went above and beyond trending, promoting, asking the right questions.

[Chaser]

Fans are fans. I don't think he needs to separate them into groups.

[EmilyBettFan]

I know. But, some do more for the show than others. Just saying. It's pretty evident. No matter what they are promoting it's still promoting the show. Plus it's not like the Olicity fandom stays only promoting Oliver and Felicity. They advocate for Diggle and Thea.

Edited October 8, 2015 by EmilyBettFan

[BkWurm1]

Since MG has said that they do look at Nielsen TV Ratings (despite the flaws of that system), I went back and collected all of the final, adjusted numbers for Season 3 episodes and listed them here -- first number is Adults 18-49 Demo, and second number is Total Viewers (millions)...

 

3.01 The Calm     1.0     2.83

3.02 Sara     0.8     2.32

3.03 Corto Maltese     0.9     2.55

3.04 The Magician     1.0     2.49

3.05 The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak     1.1     2.73

3.06 Guilty     0.9     2.60

3.07 Draw Back Your Bow      0.9     2.64

3.08 The Brave and the Bold     1.4     3.92

3.09 The Climb     1.1     3.06

3.10 Left Behind     1.1     3.06

3.11 Midnight City     1.1     2.91

3.12 Uprising     1.2     2.94

3.13 Canaries     1.1     2.67

3.14 The Return     1.2     2.91

3.15 Nanda Parbat     1.1     3.07

3.16 The Offer     0.9     2.37

3.17 Suicidal Tendencies     1.0     2.77

3.18 Public Enemy     0.8     2.48

3.19 Broken Arrow     0.9     2.47

3.20 The Fallen     1.0     2.72

3.21 Al Sah-him     0.9     2.39

3.22 This is Your Sword     1.0     2.54

3.23 My Name is Oliver Queen     1.0     2.83

Brought this forward from page nine to compare with last night's numbers.  I was surprised that the actual viewership numbers were down. 

Edited October 9, 2015 by BkWurm1

[Primal Slayer]

Luckily they like their demos over their actual viewership.

[bijoux]

https://twitter.com/amellywood/status/652157967958081537

I actually read it as two separate things. 1. Thanks to WWE fans. 2. Notacoincidence - because it was a great episode. I don't know, I'm happy for their numbers because, while not perfect, it was a strong season premiere.

Edited October 9, 2015 by bijoux