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Ratings & Scheduling: The 100... People Watching

Stinger97

By Stinger97
in The 100 [V]

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In2You

In2You

Who cares if the show is targeted at teenage girls? That shouldn't be a knock on it. A lot of good shows have been targeted at teenage girls. And honestly I think The 100 is very underrated. It's way better written than the novel, which I tried to read, and yikes. Yes the show has problems with things like continuity, but it treats its characters and their relationships very well, it's not afraid to go to certain places, it shows that there are consequences for your actions. That is way more than I can say for a lot of shows.

Did I say it was bad thing for the show to be targeted at teen girls? No! I simply pointed out that yes teen girls are its target when a poster tried to say they weren't. And yes its better written than the book but not by much. This season just like last season had alot of filler episodes which in a series order this small shouldn't even happen. They don't spend enough time on some of the characters giving them strong development and the Mt. Weather plot was flimsy and lost its momentum. As for relationships these writers just aren't good at developing strong relationships and I'm not talking about just romantic ones. 

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Minneapple
Minneapple

Who cares if the show is targeted at teenage girls? That shouldn't be a knock on it. A lot of good shows have been targeted at teenage girls. And honestly I think The 100 is very underrated. It's way

Lord Kira
Lord Kira

I don't care what the ratings all, as long as its renewed. I'll worry about the ratings again next season when it matters. Of course, as long as the show has a proper ending I'll be able to live with

Julie335
Julie335

I'm out. I initially was going to keep watching after Lexa died.   Then I found out about how the showrunner baited the LGBT fanbase, and I witnessed how he reacted to the fall-out.   Don't want t

justcris

justcris

I have to chime in here to defend the show vs the books. The books are terribly simplistic when compared to the TV show. Any single episode is more compelling than any one book, and more happens in it too. 

And I'm loving the character development in the show. Clarke, Octavia, Bellamy, Jasper... they've all been through this mad journey and came out the other side different people than they started out as. I'm enjoying it immensely.

 

I'm getting the feeling though, that in the US people don't take the CW very seriously. Is that accurate?

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viajero

viajero

That's true. There was a period of shitty high school shows thanks to the previous president, so the network doesn't have the best reputation now (but things are slowly turning around).

 

I'd hope so.  Between The 100 and Jane the Virgin, I think the CW is beginning to demonstrate that it's capable of showing high quality adult shows.  Good thing too, since the best high school shows seem to be on MTV these days.

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Lord Kira

Lord Kira

I don't care what the ratings all, as long as its renewed. I'll worry about the ratings again next season when it matters. Of course, as long as the show has a proper ending I'll be able to live with it not being renewed again.

 

As for the book/tv show comparison? This show was in development before the book was even released from what Rothenberg said, so he's not particularly beholden to what happens in the books. 

 

The show is not aimed specifically at teenage girls.... anymore. It was before the show premiered, and was during the first half of season 1. Those promo's focusing mostly on young attractive stupid kids partying ("whatever the hell we want!"), the Clarke/Finn teen drama in the first half of the season, and what looked like the perfect set-up for a Clarke/Finn/Raven love triangle, etc. It kinda looked like the show was trying to reach that TVD, Starcrossed, romance crowd. But whether it was due to critical review and fan reaction (or maybe just the writers thinking that they had a better chance of being picked up at the CW if they had those things early on) by mid-season things changed. The Clarke/Finn thing took a backseat, there was no real love triangle, and the young attractive stupid people had to smarten up and fight for survival. It became a show that focused less on attracting any specific demo and just became a good show.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

(edited)

Awww, that sucks so much :( I can't understand why even lower rated and generally crappy Reign was chosen over this show.

Oh well, at least they'll still show it... even if a year later. Or maybe they'll replace Crazy Ex-GF with it when it inevitably tanks.

Edited by FurryFury
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Carrie Ann

Carrie Ann

I'll miss it until then, but if it means we get the whole season in one shot, rather than split by a hiatus, I'm okay with this. I think/hope a lot more networks and shows will start going that route--staggering seasons of shows so that there are minimal breaks, rather than stretching them across the standard Oct-May span.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

I don't think there were that many breaks last year. Only a midseason one which worked pretty well story-wise.

 

There's also the thing with syndication, 22-episode/season shows are basically guaranteed season 4 if they are picked up for season 2, but The 100 (and iZombie, another of my CW favorites) both had short 1st seasons (and I assume it will continue) so there's no promise. It would suck for it to be unceremoniously canceled at the end of s3. One good thing is I think the writers realize it and there hopefully will be more closure in the season finale.

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kdm07

kdm07

(edited)

I agree with you FurryFury, if the CW keeps the short format for the show, I don't mind it airing midseason. Hopefully, the network is just retooling how they air their shows and not just planning on cancelling the show after S3. Maybe having the season air all at once will sharpen up the writing and we'll have less glaring plot-holes.

 

If they put the show on Fridays then I'll start to worry.

Edited by kdm07
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Bort

Bort

If they put the show on Fridays then I'll start to worry.

Genre shows seem to thrive fairly well on Fridays on CW. Supernatural and Smallville did pretty well there (plus, networks have lower expectations for that day so there's less ratings pressure).

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In2You

In2You

Genre shows seem to thrive fairly well on Fridays on CW. Supernatural and Smallville did pretty well there (plus, networks have lower expectations for that day so there's less ratings pressure).

Those shows are completely different examples. Supernatural already had its cult fanbase from the WB. And Smallville was a DC property.

 

The Messengers just did horribly because The CW put it on Friday and thats a genre show.

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Free

Free

Those shows are completely different examples. Supernatural already had its cult fanbase from the WB. And Smallville was a DC property.

 

The Messengers just did horribly because The CW put it on Friday and thats a genre show.

 

Exactly, Messengers was pretty much a bonafide DOA burn off.  Only comic book super heroes seems to actually do well for the network.

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ninathena

ninathena

I really hope they could settle around 0.6, that would be great. And really, the show deserves more eyeballs.

 

I agree, and I really hope the ones watching the other night were not just because of Shawn Mendes, or if they weren't, that they'll continue watching despite his cringe-worthy musical moment. But I feel positive when it comes to this season.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

No idea who's Shawn Mendes (I mean I know it was that kid near the end with the song, but I don't know if he's a famous singer), but I sincerely doubt his fans would watch TV just to see him. There's Youtube for that.

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Artsda

Artsda

Also for CW, “The 100” held up well too (0.6/2 in 18-49, 1.7 million viewers overall), down just a tenth from its third-season premiere of last week. For the night, the net was up vs. the comparable Thursday a year ago (“The Vampire Diaries” and “Reign” ) by 60% in 18-49 (0.8 vs. 0.5) and by 80% in total viewers (2.25 million vs.  1.25 million)

 

Ratings: CW’s ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Holds Well in Week Two;

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Riful

Riful

 

Would be interesting to see what the ratings for this week are in light of the 307-gate

 

Same or higher because people want to see the fall out from everything that happened. It is rare that it goes down immediately. The interesting bit will be after next episode of pure Arkadia, which has been the weakest part of the show, and a two week hiatus. However I think the show has settled on a core audience, and any bleed has probably been prevented by the Legends of Tomorrow lead in and lack of competition.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

In case people think that Lexa's death is to blame, Legends of Tomorrow, the lead-in, got a whopping -0.2 this week (which sucks because it's fun, if kinda stupid, show). As much as I hate what happened this season to The 100, I still think they deserve one more season.

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kdm07

kdm07

To be expected considering how well the first bit of the season did. I, however, will not be returning for S4. The writing is literally on the wall, this show is not going to get better writing-wise, probably only worse.

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wevel

wevel

Not sure I'll be watching S4, but I'm glad the show got a renewal because despite Lexa's terribly written death, there are still several interesting female characters on the show of a type we don't see very much.  I wonder if they'll get another 16 episodes or something a bit shorter than that.

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RedKeep

RedKeep

I expected a renewal too, if only because this season went into production 8 months ago and it's not like the reactions to what happened so far, both on screen and behind the scenes, and might still happen in the next few episodes could be taken into consideration in any major way. And I expect the finale to end on a cliffhanger so the renewal also seemed likely if only to give them time to wrap things up properly if they do get in trouble with ratings this year. I won't return for season 4 either, though. Maybe I've set the bar too high in terms of my expectations after season 2, but I'm disappointed in the writing all around. I can't even come up with an actual storyline that I found honestly compelling so far, it's mostly a handful scenes rather than on-going stories that stood out for me. And I do fear Lexa's (terribly written) death will serve as a reset button on quite a few levels instead of moving the characters and their journey forward, in the new direction they originally teased.

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Halliwell

Halliwell

(edited)

No surprise here, it was pretty obvious they would get another season. Eliza/Clarke is the only reason I would even think about watching season 4. We'll see. My love and enthusiasm for this show died last week along with Lexa. 

Edited by Halliwell
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Ravenya003

Ravenya003

(edited)

Not surprised, but like many others, my attitude toward the show has soured. I can't change the decisions that have already been made, but I can change the channel. 

 

Edit: This is an interesting read - Angry Fans May Have Driven Down the 100's Ratings

 

This comment in particular popped out:

 

"As to the specific massive reaction The 100 has received from queer viewers, they played Russian roulette with a gun that other television shows spent 20 years loading, and this time they lost...

 

They gave interviews with blogs for queer women, which attracted the lesbian TV herd (we migrate like nobody’s business, forever seeking quality representation), and did a lot of twitter outreach. It worked! They got a ton of queer women watching, many of whom are loud teenagers on twitter. Because The 100 is a low-rated show on the smallest broadcast network in a historically fractured American television landscape, they're likely have the smallest straight audience of any broadcast show to kill a queer female character. They have a relatively large group of queer fans to be angry with them for going to the overdrawn well of the Tragic Lesbian Death, and historically few straight fans left over who don’t understand the controversy or history.

 

A second explanation is accumulation- when a spate of queer women die on tv, the first one gets the least backlash. Network mate Jane the Virgin killed off a lesbian 10 days before Lexa, and fellow genre show Shannara killed off a queer character a few days before Lexa, so almost every angry queer woman you see on social media was judging The 100 with especially frustrated eyes. A third explanation is the Buffy rip-off. Most of their queer audience knows who Tara Maclay was and how Buffy killed her off when she was half of the only recurring lesbian couple on primetime TV. The 100 made every effort to evoke an emotional response to Lexa’s death, and they tapped a specific vein of hurt that they didn’t understand."

Edited by Ravenya003
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kieyra

kieyra

In case people think that Lexa's death is to blame, Legends of Tomorrow, the lead-in, got a whopping -0.2 this week (which sucks because it's fun, if kinda stupid, show). As much as I hate what happened this season to The 100, I still think they deserve one more season.

But Legends of Tomorrow is a hot mess that shows no signs of tightening up yet. It might be shedding viewers on its own terms.

I didn't watch this week. Done for now, I think.

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Julie335

Julie335

I'm out. I initially was going to keep watching after Lexa died.

 

Then I found out about how the showrunner baited the LGBT fanbase, and I witnessed how he reacted to the fall-out.

 

Don't want to support someone like that. Or help send a message that that type of behaviour is okay, as long as he can continue to pull in the viewership (i.e. end justifies the means).  

 

If he's replaced, I'll give it another go.

 

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Lion

Lion

...

Network mate Jane the Virgin killed off a lesbian 10 days before Lexa,...

I've spoiled myself with this, didn't realize CW killed off another lesbian on Jane the Virgin.  So not excited to catch up with that show now.  I think it was last season they killed a bisexual character with Sara Lance on Arrow, though they maybe think it doesn't count since they brought her back.

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kieyra

kieyra

(edited)

I've spoiled myself with this, didn't realize CW killed off another lesbian on Jane the Virgin. So not excited to catch up with that show now. I think it was last season they killed a bisexual character with Sara Lance on Arrow, though they maybe think it doesn't count since they brought her back.

Going to give JTV a HUGE amount of leeway here. They hit diversity issues head on in different ways, their cast is primarily POC and *bilingual on screen*. Meanwhile, the death of a lesbian was a crime boss who likely won't turn out to be dead, because it's a telenovela (and played by Bridget Regan) ... and which set up the seeds of another lesbian romance. The character is also not remotely a regular.

Meanwhile, just one of the recent issues they've tackled is slut shaming. And they deal with all these things in ways that are both extremely thoughtful and occasionally funny. There's rarely a week they don't take on something like that, and handle it in classy ways that do NOT reek of Very Special Episode.

Much better than LoT's ham-fisted approach with their Pleasantville episode.

Edited by kieyra
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loki567

loki567

Hate to be that guy but I do have to make the point that the ratings drop still probably had nothing to do with Lexa's death and the ensuing backlash. Besides the Republican debate (surprised to describe that as a ratings draw but its true), The CW was preempted in a lot of markets because of college basketball. The ratings will likely be down the next couple weeks because of it. For comparison's sake, there was a large drop-off last year during the same time period and that was between part one and part two of the finale.

 

It's bad luck for JR because this is all kind of a perfect storm of events (predictable ratings drop in the middle of a controversial storyline) that feeds in a continuing media narrative, but I don't think it had much to do with The 100's decline. 

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Gabe Torres

Gabe Torres

(edited)

Besides the Republican debate (surprised to describe that as a ratings draw but its true), The CW was preempted in a lot of markets because of college basketball. The ratings will likely be down the next couple weeks because of it.

 

There have been a Republican debates on and off since episode 2 of S3, and also a Democratic debate during episode 3 and episode 4. The pre-emptions were from what I found on the TV Grim Reaper's twitter Green Bay-Appleton, Norfolk-Portsmth-Newpt, Tallahassee-Thomasville, which is no where large enough to have a noticeable effect. The TV Grim Reaper also said "pre-emptions do not typically cause declines in the preliminary ratings".

 

I don't think the drop had a lot to do with the pre-emptions or much with the Republican debate. At least not enough to explain that high a drop off. The un-rounded average number was 0.38 if I recall right, with a big drop off after the half hour mark. Do I believe Lexa's death is the primary cause of this? No. I was expecting the same as the rest. While it wouldn't surprise me that there are some loss of interest after 3x07 I am not quite sure what to credit this big drop to.

Edited by Gabe Torres
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stealinghome

stealinghome

I wonder if Lexa's death was the straw that broke the camel's back for people who were already fed up with this season. So it's not Lexa's death per se, but that's the last in a list of things. I do suspect the half-hour drop off was people realizing that it was a Pike and Bellamy-heavy episode and tuning out/not liking what they saw in the first half. A .14 drop in the middle of the episode (last I saw the half-hours were .48/.34) when your show average is about a .55 is hard viewer rejection.

Regardless of preemptions, imo The 100 going down this week isn't a great sign because I tend to think character deaths should make people want to tune in the next week to see the fallout. It's like Derek's death on Grey's--iirc ratings spiked last season around it. Deaths tend to be events on TV these days.

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RedKeep

RedKeep

 

I wonder if Lexa's death was the straw that broke the camel's back for people who were already fed up with this season. So it's not Lexa's death per se, but that's the last in a list of things. I do suspect the half-hour drop off was people realizing that it was a Pike and Bellamy-heavy episode and tuning out/not liking what they saw in the first half.

This is pretty much how I feel, indeed. Even if I seperate Lexa's death as a narrative event on the show from the way said (impending) death was handled in promotion/social media/etc before and after the actual event, it is still a major factor since I've reached the tipping point of what I can still handle in terms of writing decisions that I can't relate to or that take away too much from what has made The 100 enjoyable to me in the past.

 

From spoilers I knew that this week's episode would be limited to Arkadia and since that's one plot I can't stand this season I didn't even bother to tune in. Not that it would have made a difference, I don't add to their ratings. But I find it fairly easy to believe that a lot of people have the sense that even their favorite stories or the writing for their favorite characters keeps getting worse as the season progresses. And a friend of mine, who has no interest researching anything about The 100 on the internet and sticks to just watching it when it's on, is also starting to get really frustrated because some things on this just really don't make a single bit of sense anymore. She's almost given up on fully understanding what's going on in the ALIE story, for example, and that's not a good sign when "Thirteen" was supposed to be big ep for that one, too.

 

I fully expect them to try and milk Lexa's death some more in how they'll promote the next episode, since I assume we'll get a Polis story in that one again and Clarke's emotional state, the upcoming conclave, etc. will be addressed, but even then I'm not sure they can really count on a ratings boost. And there's only so many times you can expect your audience to get excited at the prospect of watching your main character lose and mourn the person she loves anyway.

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Minneapple

Minneapple

Maybe Lexa's death had a small effect on the ratings, but most shows were down Thursday night and most shows didn't kill Lexa. I'd actually be willing to bet that the nice weather on the East Coast on Thursday contributed in some way to the ratings dip. And shows this week will be down as well -- due to daylight savings. It happens every year, just a weird quirk of TV ratings.

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kieyra

kieyra

Doesn't matter since I'm not a Nielsen household, but after a week of reflection, I deleted The 100 from my shows. Not out of any specific protest, but because Lexa was (to me) the most interesting character on the show. 

 

In retrospect I realize that they were telegraphing her possible death (blah blah this kid will inherit my spirit blah), but apparently I was in deep denial, even though I am pretty damned good with tv tropes. 

 

Anyway, I'm guessing I can't be the only one who decided to tune out. 

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Delphi

Delphi

It comes on after another show I watch, so I haven't changed the chanel. But I'm not really watching it, I'm doing work or talking to people. It's not really must see tv for me anymore. I don't think I realized Lexa was my favorite character until she died. I also love Monty but he's been doing nothing this season.

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Solace247

Solace247

I've watched since before the second season started and I've enjoyed it while acknowledging that I have to hand-wave a lot of stuff. Some shows I just love too much to be hyper critical about, but Lexa's death has caused me to admittedly flip the switch--I find myself less willing to hand-wave a lot this season. I knew it was a reality, but how it ended has me questioning the need for the arc in the first place. I guess I'm with you Delphi, somewhere along the line Lexa overtook Clarke as my fave. Still, I'm sticking it out to see Clarke's arc, but the Pike stuff is annoying to no end.

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Gabe Torres

Gabe Torres

(edited)

Ratings for the season premier are in:

A 0.4 in the demo and 1.27 mil viewers

It is a -40.30% drop from last year debut in the demo and -32.27% drop with viewer count.

source

That is quite... ouch. For competition it faced 2 reruns and Criminal minds & Star. Empire won't return for quite some time, which works in favor of The 100.

Edited by Gabe Torres
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