Ratings and Scheduling: Hail to the Gods

[BkWurm1]

I see Bkwrm1 provided the link before I could :)

Lol, sorry for jumping in there.  TV by the Numbers is a favorite spot of mine.   It's not nearly bad as the link to TV troupes but I sometimes get lost in the data over there - usually right around renewal time. 

[ban1o]

http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/02/ratings-news-19th-february-2015.html#disqus_thread

 

Ratings stayed steady with a 1.1 and went up a little in total viewers with 2.81. 

[Morena]

[Guest]

Wow. Seeing the ratings like that is kind of eye opening. That drop from 301 to 302 is huge, though I'm not surprised. Seeing Sara fall to her death like that was just the worst thing and put a dampener on everything. 

[Genki]

Also are we still in Feb Sweeps? Isn't it a failure to have rating drop during Sweeps? 

 

The pattern is there so the IIC will probably think nobody likes the "Sara" focused episodes. If they had taken the season in a different direction I'm pretty sure that they could have hit 4 million by the Flash x-over.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Genki

[statsgirl]

We're still in February sweeps for this episode.  I think maybe the next one too.

 

Other than Sara, the worst-rated episodes were those about Laurel/without Felicity (although Draw Back Your Bow doesn't do well).  Huge bump with the cross-over though, I can see why they're keep to have Cisco come to visit.

 

After the cross-over, the demo stays fairly high, but you can see the number of viewers slip slidin' away, especially after Laurel - focused episodes.

 

Do they still rely only on the demo, or is overall viewers also taken into account now?

Edited February 19, 2015 by statsgirl

[ban1o]

 

 

Do they still rely only on the demo, or is overall viewers also taken into account now?

demo counts more than viewers to the advertisers and to the network. You often see shows with a lot of viewers but very low demo get cancelled. So  I would say CW is really happy with the ratings since the hiatus. 

The pattern is there so the IIC will probably think nobody likes the "Sara" focused episodes. If they had taken the season in a different direction I'm pretty sure that they could have hit 4 million by the Flash x-over.

It's possible I guess but I doubt it. The show hasn't hit 4 million viewers since the pilot. The crossover episode was rated higher than the pilot despite having less viewers and it was seen as a series high in the media since viewers don't matter as much as the 18-49 demo do.  

Edited February 19, 2015 by ban1o

[Genki]

demo counts more than viewers to the advertisers and to the network. You often see shows with a lot of viewers but very low demo get cancelled. So  I would say CW is really happy with the ratings since the hiatus. 

 

Well that is disappointing since appealing to a specific demo (Masks over character development and organic storytelling) is probably accounting for the drop in quality. IMO. Which is sad because the buzz generated for the show comes from a different demo. 

 

Highly, highly doubt it. The show hasn't hit 4 million viewers since the pilot. The crossover episode was rated higher than the pilot despite having less viewers and it was seen as a series high in the media since viewers don't matter as much as the 18-49 demo do.  

 

 

I will maintain that if season 3 started out building the way season 2A did, the added viewers from the Flash crossover could have bumped the numbers up to 4 million.

Killing Sara at the end of 3.01 put the writing on the wall for me and frankly the EPs have lived down to my expectations. 

[Chaser]

The Flash crossover was the best thing to happen to Arrow this season. I'm not sure they are going to maintain it past this next hiatus but they have been pretty clever with their marketing. The promos for The Return were all Oliver/Slade/Thea on the Island. I think that was really smart and gave the episode a boast. The show dropped in viewers for both Canary focused episodes (and only a slight raise for Uprising). Midnight City with 2.91 v Canaries with 2.64. I think the viewers would have continued to drop if they went with another BC heavy promo.

 

I know that people consider the demo more important, but IMO the demo will eventually follow the viewers.

 

Next few weeks are going to be interesting.

[Morena]

Last night's Arrow rose +11% week to week in A18-34 (1.0/4) and rose +5% in total viewers (2.81M), while holding steady in A18-49 (1.1/4). Arrow also gained +27% in M18-34 (1.4/6) over last week, and rose +8% in M18-49 (1.4/5).
Arrow ranked #3 in the hour in A18-34, #2 in M18-34, and tied NBC in A18-49.
Versus this same week a year ago, Arrow is up +15% in total viewers, +43% in A18-34, +40% in M18-34, +22% in A18-49, and +40% in M18-49.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/02/19/the-cws-arrow-the-100-rise-in-adults-18-34/365376/

[statsgirl]

This same week a year ago was a repeat.  Is that what they're comparing this to?

 

The next new episode was Time of Death, one of the most disliked episodes of season 2 on February 26th.

[Velocity23]

Arrow was adjusted up to a 1.2 and 2.91 mil viewers

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/02/19/wednesday-final-ratings-empire-arrow-american-idol-the-100-stalker-adjusted-down/365253/

[quarks]

Twitter mentions were also slightly up, except in one category, Impressions, which fell slightly.

 

This week (The Return):

 

Unique audience (000): 630

Impressions (000): 2,621

Unique authors (000): 13

Tweets (000): 46

 

Last week (Canaries):

 

Unique audience (000): 564
Impressions (000): 2681
Unique authors (000): 12
Tweets (000): 43

 

Our friends at IMDB were slightly less happy: they gave "The Return" an 8.7 so far, which seems fair to me. I should note that since I last checked, the IMDB rating for "Canaries" slipped from 9.1 down to 8.9, so the IMDB rating for "The Return" might change by next week as well, as more viewers weigh in. 

[Chaser]

What is Impressions?

[quarks]

Impressions is Twitter's count of how many people actually saw any given Tweet, or, in their words, "The number of times any Tweets ascribed to a TV episode were seen." It's basically the way to weigh people with different numbers of Twitter followers - someone with 10,000 followers has more people reading any one given Tweet than someone with 100 followers, though it's a bit dubious since it's not always clear if people read everything that appears in their Twitter feed. 

 

To put all this into some perspective, Twitter also has the following numbers for the Saturday Night Live special:

 

Unique audience (000): 9064
Impressions (000): 187,664
Unique authors (000): 449
Tweets (000): 1,316

 

Of course, that show lasted for three and a half hours, unlike Arrow.  Also, Nielsen Twitter separates out sports shows; basketball did better than pretty much everything except Saturday Night Live last week.

 

Arrow has previously broken into the top ten shows for the week using this metric, but the only CW show to manage that last week was The Vampire Diaries.

[strikera0]

Arrow's ratings are surely inflated because of after-effects from the Flash crossover. That being said, as much as I enjoyed Sara, I am starting to think that there are more comic book purists amongst casual viewers than I would like to believe.

[apinknightmare]

Arrow's ratings are surely inflated because of after-effects from the Flash crossover. That being said, as much as I enjoyed Sara, I am starting to think that there are more comic book purists amongst casual viewers than I would like to believe.

 

Or there are casual viewers who a) didn't care that much about Sara, b) don't dislike Laurel's journey or c) don't care enough about Laurel's journey to let it ruin the rest of the show for them. I really don't think that compared to the total number of viewers there are that many comic book purists watching. 

[strikera0]

Or there are casual viewers who a) didn't care that much about Sara, b) don't dislike Laurel's journey or c) don't care enough about Laurel's journey to let it ruin the rest of the show for them. I really don't think that compared to the total number of viewers there are that many comic book purists watching. 

 

Could be. I'm just starting to consider the possibility that there may be more people (than I previously thought) who mainly care about characters names and such in light of MG's claim that 95% of hate mail came from "real" BC fans/Sara-haters and the big ratings loss in the second half of season 2 (when Arrow became the Sara Lance show, as certain people called it).

Edited February 24, 2015 by strikera0

[statsgirl]

95% of the hate mail could have come from Laurel fans, although I think that's an exaggeration because the rest of us weren't sending much to him last year. Other than 2B, it was a good year for Team Arrow and Olicity.

 

This year is a different story. I'd say there's a lot of love coming from Laurel fans, and a lot of dislike from O/D/F and Olicity likers.

[AyChihuahua]

Is Survivor starting back up going to hit Arrow's ratings?  

[jay741982]

Is Survivor starting back up going to hit Arrow's ratings?

Don't really know but I know I'm watching Survivor live and Taping Arrow. Last season I was so excited for Arrow. This season not so much. I taped Arrow while Survivor is on but the first two seasons especially after Felicity joined the team I was excited to watch Arrow now not so much cause of how damn depressing this season has been and the Olicity angst watching people who said they were big Felicity fans turn on the character cause of bad writing, Sara being Killed, being told Ray is so awesome and Oliver being a dumbass all cause these IIC only care about the show being too Goddamn dark

[Morrigan2575]

I believe it comes back this week. I haven't watched in a long time but I saw the ad for it recently.

[tv echo]

Early overnight ratings are giving "Nanda Parbat" a 1.0 (18-49) and 2.87 (viewers)...

 

Ratings News - 26th February 2015
Posted by DarkUFO at Thursday, February 26, 201

http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/02/ratings-news-26th-february-2015.html

[wonderwall]

lol I really hope it adjusts down. I also hope that the ratings for episode 16 are worse. Nothing wakes a group of writers up like shitty ratings. Things the writers need to stop ASAP:

• Malcolm Merlyn redemption
• The blatant Batman ripoffs
• The weak ass LoA plot they have going on right now
• Ray because he should be on another show. He adds nothing to Arrow

 

Those are the more pressing issues I have about this season. Laurel is still a problem for me because of weak characterization which the writers don't seem to want to fix, but I'd much rather see the writers fix the aforementioned and then deal with Laurel. Also, since there's no room this season for it, I want Felicity to have her own arc that's relevant to the plot and TA next season as well as Digg's HIVE arc (I want it to be 3 episodes please). 

[strikera0]

I think the ratings will probably adjust up to a 1,1 in the demo, which would be down from last week, but still great numbers overall. If ratings still take a hit this season, it will probably happen after DST hits, so the producers/writers will have a ready-made excuse for it and nothing's going to change about how they approach the writing for this show. 

Edited February 26, 2015 by strikera0

[wonderwall]

I think the ratings will probably adjust up to a 1,1 in the demo, which would be down from last week, but still great numbers overall. If ratings still take a hit this season, it will probably happen after DST, so the producers/writers will have a ready-made excuse for it and nothing's going to change about how they approach the writing for this show. 

Sorry, friend. But what's DST?

 

I actually think it'll stay the same but hope it adjusts down :p

 

But with what I've been seeing, people are becoming more disillusioned by Arrow. Why?

• Oliver making constant stupid decisions and just being annoying in general
• Twists that are really predictable yet make no sense
• Sidelining Diggle
• People don't like Felicity as much
• The show has gotten 'boring' 
• Lost its purpose/direction

Edited February 26, 2015 by wonderwall

[Sakura12]

Without a steep drop in ratings (like Sleep Hollow), Arrow's EP's will keep doing what they are doing and think they are doing a great job writing this show. 

[ban1o]

I`m pretty sure the ratings will adjust up to a 1.1 They`ve been adjusting up for the past 3 weeks. 

Edited February 26, 2015 by ban1o

[wonderwall]

I`m pretty sure the ratings will adjust up to a 1.1 

You bite your tongue! :p Ugh is it too much to hope for the ratings to be so bad that the writers actually try to write better this season? I mean they're writing episode 21... Oh crap, they'll be done writing the season before we get to episode 16 or even 17... Ugh

 

There's hope for season 4 though

[SonofaBiscuit]

I basically don't see anything drastic changing unless this show goes the way of Sleepy Hollow, and TPTB are forced to step in.  I know that people are thinking "well, maybe things will turn around in season 4," (ha, wrote that before I saw your post, wonderwall) but I don't think that's gonna happen as long as MG is in charge.  The ratings are steady, and I think that they will continue to be because for every one of us that thinks that this season is complete shit, there is another viewer proclaiming each new episode as "the best evah!"

Edited February 26, 2015 by SonofaBiscuit

[wonderwall]

I basically don't see anything drastic changing unless this show goes the way of Sleepy Hollow, and TPTB are forced to step in.  I know that people are thinking "well, maybe things will turn around in season 4," (ha, wrote that before I saw your post, wonderwall) but I don't think that's gonna happen as long as MG is in charge.  The ratings are steady, and I think that they will continue to be because for every one of us that thinks that this season is complete shit, there is another viewer proclaiming each new episode as "the best evah!"

 

You're right. However, I've been seeing an increasing amount of people who've been really annoyed by this season, I wonder if they'll be back in season 4. If we don't see ratings decreases this year, we'll sure see it in season 4 especially after the Flarrow hype has died down. 

[Starfish35]

I'm sure it will adjust up too - it usually does.

I'm more interested to see what the ratings are after the break. This last run of episodes has been rather polarizing, and that "cliffhanger" was nowhere near the kind of cliffhanger that The Climb had.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Starfish35

[Orion]

Same Starfish35. At this point I'm more interested in ratings when they come back. 

 

We have a three week break, long enough for viewers to detach themselves, something I plan on working on. The easiest thing in the world is to look toward next Wednesday and think, "this has got to get better. I'll just watch one more." But wiith a batch of episodes that ended with some of the most idiotic writing I can remember on a TV show, a beyond dark chunk of episodes that the CW should have provided an anti-depressant goodie bag to watch, a major ship stall with a very unliked third party, and every. single. character becoming stupid, I wonder if people will just walk. If they don't, I don't think any thing will change. Going by MG's responses on Tumblr he's to far down the rabbit hole to see the problems.

[Sakura12]

I don't think the ratings will go down enough. There are a lot of fans that are thrilled with gaggle of masked super heroes running around with Ra's al Ghul and Malcolm Merlyn. They are watching a comic book/cartoon come to life. If you are looking for something deeper than that,  I don't think this show is going that way anymore. 

[NumberCruncher]

I don't think the ratings will go down enough. There are a lot of fans that are thrilled with gaggle of masked super heroes running around with Ra's al Ghul and Malcolm Merlyn. They are watching a comic book/cartoon come to life. If you are looking for something deeper than that,  I don't think this show is going that way anymore.

Yeah, I think this is the case too. It's clear that this particular audience isn't looking for character development and compelling storylines. I think as long as they get superheroes of any variety they're happy and so good for them.

[SonofaBiscuit]

The Nielsen's TV Twitter ratings were pretty much on par with last week.  I just don't get the impression that there is this massive level of excitement to see the superhero Atom because I would expect a social media explosion if people were really interested.  But, what do I know?

[quarks]

The Twitter ratings seem to have gone up, actually: 

 

This week, Nanda Parbat:

 

Unique audience (000): 880

Impressions (000): 3285
Unique authors (000): 13
Tweets (000): 47

 

Last week, The Return:

 

Unique audience (000): 630
Impressions (000): 2,621
Unique authors (000): 13
Tweets (000): 46

 

So everything is up from the previous week except for unique authors. 

 

That said, I'm kinda interested in the trend of overall tweets:

 

The Calm: 77,000

Sara: 44,000

Corto Maltese: 29,000

The Magician: 27,000

The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak: 49,000

Guilty: 33,000

Draw Back Your Bow: 39,000

The Brave and the Bold: 64,000  (Thanks, Flash fans!)

The Climb: 77,000

Left Behind: 62,000

Midnight City: 41,000

Uprising: 57,000

Canaries: 43,000

The Return: 46,000

Nanda Parbat: 47,000

 

Except for "The Brave and the Bold," the previous episodes with high numbers of individual tweets were "The Calm," and "The Climb."  The first was a big Oliver/Felicity episode ending with Sara's death. The second was a big Oliver/Felicity episode ending with Oliver's "death."  Nanda Parbat was a big Ray/Felicity episode followed by nobody's death.  

 

I hope this trend doesn't set off an Arrow killing spree. 

[SonofaBiscuit]

I mean, the tweets were up 2.17%, but that hardly seems significant.  It's my understanding that impressions and unique audience pertain to the number of times a tweet is seen and the number of twitter accounts that have seen those tweets, is that correct?  So more people saw tweets this episode, but I don't really know what good that did since it didn't lead to more people sending tweets.   

Edited February 26, 2015 by SonofaBiscuit

[TyranAmiros]

I think the pattern is that Felicity/Olicity fans drive the twitter impressions. Episodes with big Felicity presence (Calm, Secret Origin, The Climb, Uprising, the crossover) get lots of tweets and episodes with less Felicity (The Magician, Corto Maltese,Canaries, the Return) get fewer tweets.

It's too bad we can't know positive vs negative tweets--most of the Arrow tweets I saw this week we're pretty negative, but they still count toward the total.

[SonofaBiscuit]

It's too bad we can't know positive vs negative tweets--most of the Arrow tweets I saw this week we're pretty negative, but they still count toward the total.

 

I would like to know if someone compiles all of this data and reports back on their findings.  Because if there are a lot of tweets on one topic but a huge majority of the tweets are negative, I think it would be good for the EPs to know this (not that this feedback matters, because the EPs will still give us what we "need", not what we want)!

[lemotomato]

I would like to know if someone compiles all of this data and reports back on their findings. Because if there are a lot of tweets on one topic but a huge majority of the tweets are negative, I think it would be good for the EPs to know this (not that this feedback matters, because the EPs will still give us what we "need", not what we want)!

Except that the EPs don't care whether the tweets are positive or negative, just as long as people are paying attention. Something that they've repeatedly emphasized is that they just want to elicit reactions from the audience, whether it's love or hate. It's apathy that they're afraid of.

People that hate watch or go on social media to complain still count as eyeballs in the ratings. There won't be any changes unless people stop responding/watching.

Edited February 26, 2015 by lemotomato

[kismet]

Except that the EPs don't care whether the tweets are positive or negative, just as long as people are paying attention. Something that they've repeatedly emphasized is that they just want to elicit reactions from the audience, whether it's love or hate. It's apathy that they're afraid of.

Thats why my game plan this break will be to just go silent. Refuse to engage them on social media. They don't want to hear valid points or flaws as is indicated by MG's responses. I also plan on avoiding all media outlet reviews/articles. The less ticks they get, the less $$ the advertisers get - hopefully that will a small message, but doubt it will. I still am wondering why the CW felt the need to have such a media frenzy on this particular episode. It was first time, I saw such a directed attempt for publicity. I think we'll have to wait until s4 before any changes happen since they are already writing the final episodes now. The neilsen ratings don't really change much & not sure how much the CW really factors them in because the boxes are antiquated. I do think they look more at the on-demand, online & other pay viewings as an indicator. Which is is why I will try to watch the show live (don't have a nielsen box) & avoid watching online or contributing to those numbers or other revenue sources like 2.5 comics. I do wonder how they factor in the twitter, because there was a lot of negative so I don't know how the show measures that.

[statsgirl]

I don't think MG cares, except that he loves getting people upset.

 

I do hope, however, that angry tweets directed to AK, GB and the Writers Room will have some effect.

[strikera0]

Final ratings are in. As expected, they were adjusted up: 1.1 in A18-49 and 3.07 million viewers.

 

Sorry, friend. But what's DST?

 

DST = Daylight Saving Time.

Edited February 26, 2015 by strikera0

[wonderwall]

Final ratings are in. As expected, they were adjusted up: 1.1 in A18-49 and 3.07 million viewers.

 

 

DST = Daylight Saving Time.

 

*hangs head* -- well that's just disappointing. 

 

and thank! :)

[chaos is welcome]

Sigh. I guess people actually like this stuff? *shakes head in utter confusion*

Edited February 27, 2015 by chaos is welcome

[Genki]

If a drop occurs it is likely to happen in the next few episodes, this is why I'm side-eyeing the Spin-off announcement timing and the confirmation of "huge Oliver/Felicicty scene" [/paraphrase] in upcoming episodes.

[tv echo]

Even though the voters are limited to SpoilerTV readers, it's still interesting to compare the poll ratings for Arrow Season 3 episodes so far...

 

Reader Popularity Episode Tables - 2014/15
Posted by DarkUFO at Monday, March 09, 2015
http://www.spoilertv.com/2014/08/reader-popularity-episode-tables-201415.html

[wonderwall]

It's funny how the lowest rated are the Laurel centric episodes (except Nanda Parbat which was just ridiculous in itself)

[BkWurm1]

I'm really curious how much or little this latest hiatus is going to affect the numbers. Normally it's the winter one that does the biggest damage but I wonder how much a draw this Ra's Ollie Guhl storyline will be.