Tuesday, April 08, 2008

A Feminist Classic…and ratings.

The ratings for last Friday are out; here is the positive spin, and the negative spin. I wonder what the ratings would look like if you could add not only the DVR/Tivo numbers, but also the Sci Fi Rewind, Hulu, and torrent numbers. We may never know. ;)

By the way, the ELLE magazine mention in NBCU’s press release comes from this month’s issue, where the writer calls BSG possibly “the most feminist show on TV.” Here's a scan of the article.

Word.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't get the negativity... "the internet buzz means nothing". I mean - what?! WHAT?! People who are likely to be influenced by internet buzz are far more likely to find a more technologically savvy way of seeing Galactica... Butt in the seat in front of the TV for the episode premiere showing is just something that doesn't work for modern viewers, especially those most likely to enjoy BSG - with the internet streaming, digital purchases, TiVo, illegal downloads, it's not the show's fault it's not drawing numbers the way shows used to do in the eighties... It's just further proof that the system doesn't work the same for everything.

CSI Miami drawing 7x the BSG audience says more about the average viewer than Battlestar Galactica.

For the record - I'm from Montenegro, and I can tell you that even though it was never shown on TV or sold on DVD anywhere near this part of Europe, BSG has a huge cult following and rabid fans who are no less enthusiastic about it than those in the US. Hell, my girlfriend and I went to a costume party dressed as Starbuck and... escort recently.

But we're on our own. I'd love to contribute cash towards the BSG cause, but there is no commercial construct in place that would allow the creators to tap into these international markets, and that is something that will have to change soon.

Robert Seidman said...

Budo and ProgGrrl: my ratings analysis of BSG on TVbytheNumbers.com wasn't meant to be negative. I'm a fan of the show and enjoyed the season four premiere.

My favorite show ever is probably The Wire which also had a massive amount of Internet buzz, but its series finale found fewer viewers (as measured by Nielsen) than the BSG season 4 premiere. Granted, not as many people have HBO, but still.

The numbers reported do contain any same day DVR viewing. As for the live+7 #s, I'm not sure we'll get to see them. They'll need about a million additional DVR viewers on top of any who watched the same day for us to wind up seeing the data. It could happen, and I hope it does.

While it doesn't happen much that cable shows have over a million viewers via DVR, it does happen as it did for Project Runway the week ending March 9 (1.08 million total dvr viewers that week).

If we wind up seeing the numbers, I'll certainly write about it, and I assure you that would be with a very positive spin! :-)

Anonymous said...

I don't think these numbers reflect the fact that there are at least 5 or more people watch one television at a frak party.

Anonymous said...

@budo..

"Hell, my girlfriend and I went to a costume party dressed as Starbuck and... escort recently."

what did your gf dress up as?

boom boom

Unknown said...

Of course, anonymous comment...

She was Starbuck, of course (I'm not a big fan of the original series, you know, and I don't smoke cigars either), down to every tattoo and detail. I was wearing a colonial uniform, but not Lee or Anders - we're joking that I went as one of the guys from the Galactica Starbuck was doing at the time.