I've merged your Zap2it and Futon Critic posts into one as they are of similar nature. In regards to ratings, Angel seems to be doing well and is not losing ground to other shows. Perhaps some one can tell me how well the show is doing at this point compared to other seasons?

And what was the highest rated season? Was it season 2?

Simon | November 21, 03:13 CET

im sorry, i dont understand this whole rating thing. so is this a good amount? or bad? or soso? thanks!

bunnyofthekungfu | November 21, 03:29 CET

I would of merged them myself, but i dont know how to put a link in a link so thank you, and i think there was a topic on the alt.tv.angel newsgroup that pited the seasons ratings against each other, but I won't swear to that.

400lb_Gorilla | November 21, 03:36 CET

The A HREF tag will create a link

For example:

<A HREF="http://www.whedonesque.com">Whedonesque</A> will come out as Whedonesque.

This site HTML Goodies has some useful primers for basic HTML code.

Simon | November 21, 04:28 CET

ahh thanks

400lb_Gorilla | November 21, 05:00 CET

If you think that these ratings numbers are good then you are [unfortunately] seriously kidding yourself...Last night's episode was excellent and only caught 2.9 millions viewers. That is very bad! What we really need are the figures for viewer holdover from Smallville, this is what the network is really concerned about.

[ edited by Simpleba on 2003-11-21 04:53 ]

Simpleba | November 21, 06:14 CET

The ratings can be very confusing but the key components are targeted demos (coveted 18 - 34's), the holdover from Smallville and the overall averages.

Angel loses about 30% of the Smallville audience which isn't terrible but it would be much better around the 20 - 15% loss ratio. The show's overall rank is up a good 5 - 10 places now and the overall show average last season was a 3.65, this season is about a 4.8 - a nice increase for a 5th season niche show thus the full season order from the WB.

TaraDi | November 21, 07:38 CET

Correct TaraDi, but the WB has expressed dissatisfaction with Angel's ability to keep Smallville's audience. You are right that 70% of Smallville's viewer ship isn't bad but the execs are not happy with it...Because it generates such a price disparity between Angel and Smallville concerning advertising dollars...I was very excited to see Angel's ratings this year and then I read articles that conveyed that the WB was not happy with the improvement from last year...Regardless, season five is set but things should improve if we are to expect a sixth season (and hopefully more production money from the WB as well).

Simpleba | November 21, 10:00 CET

Simpleba - I haven't read any articles where the WB stated that they are unhappy with Angel's hold from Smallville. I mean I'm sure they are I just haven't read anything about that specifically.

I went in thinking this would be the end for Angel with it barely being renewed from last season and all. It's strongest hope may be the WBs inability to create succesful new shows (see Tarzan or Fearless). If the WB had been more successful with it's pilots last year, I doubt we would have even seen season 5. The downside for Angel is that the WB put effort in to trying to "fix" the show with bringing over Buffy characters and asking for a more streamlined episodes. If those changes can't bring extra juice, they may decide that the show is just to culty to save.

I have to say though that I am mighty impressed with Angel's ability to hold up againist The OC, which is the hot new show of the year and appeals to the exact market the WB typically courts. Angel has lost very few viewers to The OC since it's move.

Another thing about last night was the finale of The Bachelor which looked like it dominated the timeslot and probably drove Angel's numbers down a bit.

Unitas | November 21, 11:46 CET

Wow that gave me a scare. The number 2.8/4 I mean. But then I noticed it was on a different media site than usually is linked to here for Angel's ratings. Which is 'Mediaweek', and there the ratings for this week's ep (which was excellent if you ask me) is 4.2/6. Which is pretty consistent with what's it's been lately and actually a little up from last week.

And when you look at 'Zapit' (the 2.8/4 site), they show Smallville and Jake 2.0 to be pretty much at the same spots from Angel proportionally. So I take it this site simply has their own findings and/or calculations? Really, the ratings are confusing and dubious enough as it is.

So overall we can say Angel is going pretty steady, better than last season averagely, but still not retaining as much from Smallville's audience as hoped. Would that be a correct assessment?

Then I would like hear you guys' thoughts on this: what if Angel was NOT right after Smallville. What if Smallville was on monday or something, and Angel had the exact same ratings, would that seem more favorable then?

It all seems very relative.

EdDantes | November 21, 12:34 CET

Just to add, I keep a list of the ratings and 'Lineage' last week was said to have done 4.0/6. So this week's 4.2/6 is pretty much the same, but slightly up.

And yes, if the Bachelor had it's finale at the same time, (I didn't know) I'd say that's pretty good.

EdDantes | November 21, 12:39 CET

"So overall we can say Angel is going pretty steady, better than last season averagely, but still not retaining as much from Smallville's audience as hoped. Would that be a correct assessment?

Yes, that is a correct statement. I hadn't heard/read anywhere either that the WB was "displeased" with the carryover - just that they would like it higher. If they were displeased, you can almost be assured that they would have moved Angel already or not given it the season pickup.

Otherwise, IF Smallville was not the lead-in and the numbers were attributed JUST to Angel's concept & cast changes alone, the increase in numbers would be a HUGE surge and a major plus for a 5th year, niche genre show.

[ edited by TaraDi on 2003-11-21 19:41 ]

[ edited by TaraDi on 2003-11-21 19:42 ]

TaraDi | November 21, 18:28 CET

Interesting ratings tidbit here. According to The Futon Critic, Angel is losing 29% of Smallville's audience (as of the first week of November) on average. For other WB shows, One Tree Hill loses 33% of Gilmore Girls audience on Tuesday and Everwood loses 24% of Seventh Heaven's audience on Monday.

One more thing, I looked up Tarzan and it lost 5% of Charmed's Sunday audience in it's first airing but was losing as much as 50% by week #6 which is the reason that show got cancelled. Tarzan is a real embarassment considering the considerable amount of advertsing the WB did. I live in LA and you haven't been able to go to a theatre in three months without seeing a Tarzan ad before the movie... along with a Smallville ad and then a general WB ad featuring all the stars on the WB without a single shot of anyone from Angel. I mean they have the entire cast of Grounded For Life, for pete's sake.

Unitas | November 21, 19:09 CET

About the 18-34 male demographic. It appears that The WB are now joining with the major networks in being concerned about young men switching off. And just NBC did, The WB are blaming Nielsen for faulty reporting.

You read about this in the Hollywood Reporter and Fox News has a similar story as well.

And thanks to the very nice person who emailed me this link which has ratings for all of the seasons of Buffy, Angel and Firefly. Much appreciated.

Simon | November 21, 19:29 CET

According to a recent USA today article (see archives), Angel is one of the few shows to actually grow the 18-34 male demographic which is certainly a point in it's favor.

Unitas | November 21, 19:35 CET

Presumably the 18-34 male demographic has the most spending power in terms of advertising and what not?

Does anyone know what the average male in this demographic spends on products as a result of TV advertising?

Simon | November 21, 19:41 CET

Since several people have expressed confusion about the ratings, I'll try to help ...

These ratings come from Nielsen Media Research and are displayed in the form: rating/share. The rating is the percentage of households watching the program. The share is the percentage of TV sets in use that are watching the program.

The overnights (aka metered markets) are sampled from the top urban areas of the US. The national rankings cover 100% of the country. As a rule, sci-fi/fantasy shows tend to do better in urban markets. In the national rankings, one ratings point equates to a little over a million people (the total number of TVs in the US is in the neighborhood of 106 million).

Breakdowns by demographics are done at the national level.

Clear as mud?

Scott | November 21, 19:54 CET

Ouch! I just looked at Firefly's ratings. 4.0 - 3.6 - 3.3 - 2.7...
It made me want to cry thinking what COULD have been had they started off with Serenity as god intended.
I mean had it been anyone but Joss I wouldn't have watched the show after The Train Job either. And then I would never have seen War Stories. Or, god forbid, Objects in Space, which may well rank with Hush, Conversations with Dead People and the Twin Peaks pilot for television goodness. OK, I'm just spouting off and picking other top shows out of the air - I'd have to think about that last statement a bit to see if I really believe it. But it pains me when I think what I might have lost had I not had faith in Joss and kept watching that show. And what we have all lost by Fox's lack of faith.
/rant

melsta | November 21, 20:07 CET

Quote:

And what we have all lost by Fox's lack of faith.


Well, I think she changed her name to Tru, but Faith's alive and kicking at Fox. :)

splay | November 21, 20:42 CET

Hey, Fox may have Eliza, but they've never had faith. ;-)

[ edited by melsta on 2003-11-21 20:09 ]

melsta | November 21, 21:51 CET

Re: networks pissed at the Nielson company: There's an article in Variety this morning about this.

It's pointed out that there's been bad blood between the networks and the company for some time anyway, because the networks and other clients consider the Nielson data (1) overly expensive and (2) innaccurately and poorly acquired from their test base.

Can't comment on (1), but having heard how a Nielson household is tracked, I have to agree. I have a TiVo, and my viewing habits are automatically and exactly tracked (including what commercials I zip over, what parts of the show I fast-forward or repeat, etc.), with no muss, no fuss (and anonymously).

If the Nielson's used a similar piece of hardware (perhaps with something that allows each family member to "login" when they're watching or not), they could save themselves significant money in processing all the written data they currently get, plus provide extremely precise info.

I'm amazed TiVo hasn't made a grab for Nielson's business.

bookrats | November 21, 23:15 CET

Well, according to that link that was e-mailed to Simon it looks like Angel is doing well this year compared to last year and that the numbers are up and holding steady even with the competition of the OC. I went into this season just happy that there was going to be a fifth season. I do hope we get a sixth season and I'm hoping the failures of shows such as Tarzan only help the WB see that they have a sure thing with a steady fan base that follows it around no matter what night they put it on. As for Firefly, sigh, if only they had shown it in order maybe we'd still be watching but then again, I think someone at Fox just wanted to sabatouge the show no matter what the numbers were. At least it is not the end and we will get a movie. My personal favorite episode was "Out of Gas"!

Firefly Flanatic | November 21, 23:26 CET

I'm also pretty happy with the fact that Angel's ratings did not drop all that much when the OC started. It seems to be holding it's own.

Of course inside I'm screaming at a world so crazy that it favors sooo many other crrrappy shows over this one. So much junk that does higher in the ratings......sad.

As for the TiVo's I think they don't matter because you can leave the commercials out of them right? So advertisers (who are all that matter to the networks) won't care if the whole country watches Angel via the TiVo.

EdDantes | November 22, 00:26 CET