August 11-15, 2008

[baller]

Interesting read, but no mention of the male viewer jump--that number makes a huge difference about the Olmpics impact

[KevC1980]

I'm so proud of Days for taking advantage of the Olympics lead and getting such huge bumps..The show was excellent last week and featured all the right characters, so it deserves these ratings..Its also so nice seeing them back at the top of the ratings list..That will most likely change, but these ratings today got me very exited...

Toups quick question for you...Wasn't Days pre-empted 4 years ago for the Athens Games??? So glad NBC choose to air Days this time...

[Jess]

Nice column. I posted my rambling thoughts (OK pompous LOL ) on the column itself. However, what I continue to find interesting is the ABC drops.

I've really enjoyed Days lately and I think they did a very nice job recognizing the potential of the Olympics and trying to capitalize on it. I wish it would stay up, but I think a lot of it might have been like what I saw at the university that I work at: televisions turned to the Olympics and Days just showing in between.

Regardless, I think the show has been good.

[Ann_SS]

Y&R's sudden decline in the ratings over the past few months is inexplicable. I find it hard to believe that the transition from LML to the scabs and MAB was so horrific. I simply don't understand what happened. Is it because Y&R had the most viewers to lose? Where have these viewers gone? And why did they leave en masse over such a short space of time? I hope CBS is doing some market research to find out what the happened because it doesn't bode well.

[Sylph]

Inexplicable?! They were

BORED TO DEATH WITH THE STORIES!

[Rocket Man]

Let's look at the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics comparison in terms of ratings impacting NBC's "Days of Our Lives":

Summer 2008 Olympics at Beijing, China August 8-24, 2008, "Days of Our Lives" during the week of August 11-15 achieved 2.4 ratings; it will be interesting to see how the ratings do during August 18-22 week.

Summer 2004 Olympics at Athens, Greece August 13-29, 2004, I believe and recall that "Days of Our Lives" and "Passions" were pre-empted for full two (2) weeks since there was no record of ratings in this site.

August 2-6, 2004 (two weeks before Athens 2004 Summer Olympics)

Days of Our Lives 2.8 ratings with 3,730,000 viewers

Passions 1.7 ratings with 2,390,000 viewers

August 9-13, 2004 (a week before Athens 2004 Summer Olympics)

Day of Our Lives 3.0 ratings with 3,989,000 viewers

Passions 2.0 ratings with 2,672,000 viewers

August 16-20, 2004 (Athens debut!)

Days of Our Lives pre-empted and no record (?)

Passions pre-empted and no record (?)

August 23-27, 2004 (2nd week of the 2004 Olympics)

Days of Our Lives pre-empted and no record (?)

Passions pre-empted and no record (?)

August 30-Sept 3, 2004 (Olympics is over)

Day of Our Lives 2.9 ratings with 3,790,000 viewers

Passions 1.8 ratings with 2,362,000 viewers

Sept 6-10, 2004

Day of Our Lives 3.0 ratings with 3,829,000 viewers

Passions 2.0 ratings with 2,520,000 viewers

Since "Passions" is cancelled for good now, it looks like there's a -.4 (average) difference in the ratings from 2004 Olympics to 2008 Olympics for "Days of Our Lives" and about 700,000 less viewers (average-wise).

What are your thoughts?

[JackPeyton]

^wasnt Days not on during the 04 games?

[MarkH]

Thank you!

[CouchTomato]

I'm not Days follower but I remember reading articles about it amping up to go missing during the Olympics. It involved killing off several vet characters in terribly insulting ways. It also involved a circus of horrors, a tiger & rehiring Thao Penphlis (sp?). The cliffhanger was "which characters would turn up alive when Days came back after the Olympics?" I don't remember Passions' big pre-Olympics cliffhanger.

Since Beijing is a bigger time-difference problem than Athens was, maybe that's why they decided to air as much as possible?

[Errol]

Since Nielsen uses a small amount of the population to determine viewership for all programs, let's say that out of the 5,000 people watching TV for Nielsen, 20 are watching Y&R until I don't know, April! Take out 4 viewers who probably got jobs or just do not have the time for Y&R anymore, there is your massive decline in viewership year-over-year and week-to-week for Y&R.

Stupid, right? That's the mind of Nielsen Media Research

[Errol]

DAYS was not on, correct! Additionally, ABC had these god forsaken "Wide World of Soaps" interstitial's airing during commercial breaks between shows. They were hosted by Bob Guiney. They had actors in their "locker" rooms half-naked and "interviews" at a "SoapCenter" like desk. It was so ridiculous, but in retrospect...so much better than what ABC does now.

[Sylph]

Well, Errol, that's an over-simplification and not true. We've discussed the mathematics (statistics) behind Nielsen several topics back (Jess, MarkH, Carolynsomething...) and we've concluded, I think, that in the end it's not so bad.

Nielsen is brimming with mathematicians, lots of them with PhDs and post-doctoral theses, so I don't think they would make such a rookie mistake.

[Errol]

Of course it is very simplistic and not correct, lol. Though, it is true that they do have turnarounds with their sample and those who watch Y&R or any other soap more might not find themselves in the next sample, which could also play a role in declining viewership.

[MarkH]

No, we just can't say this!

It all hinges on the representativity of the Neilsen sample. If the Neilsen sample TRULY represents the population of viewers, then the loss of those 4 viewers really could represent THOUSANDS of lost households.

The valid critique point concerns the representativity. To my knowledge, Neilsen does a fairly good job with this.

There is a second dimension where Neilsen has been slower to be effective, and that is to count viewers outside of the traditional household context. Here, too, they have made good faith efforts in what is a very significant measurement challenge.

However, part of the reason that I think we're not seeing good counts of out-of-house viewing has to do with the advertisers. They reason (correctly) that real time watching in relatively undistracted environments is most likely to give them the ad-content-retention levels they want. Thus, even if Days could increase its viewership counts by including dorms and bars and what have you, the advertisers may not be interested....because in those congregate settings you talk, you don't watch commercials.

To that end, I really think the future is online. CBS.com is doing this in a brilliant way, because you CANNOT skip or fast forward the ads. You can fast forward the show, but you'll see ALL the ads you're skipping.

As a result, they are able to embed fewer ads (usually only about four per episode). With forced viewership of ads, in an intimate way (folks are usually sitting less than two feet from the screen...that is the definition of undistracted), and in an uncluttered landscape (few ads), with contextual support (the frame around the stream usually contains still banner ads for the same show)...you've got a pretty captive audience. (Unless, like me, you check your email during the commercials ).

Yesterday's Y&R was also brilliant with the product placement. Ana and Devon talked, in a very natural way, about a forthcoming film with Ice Cube that I'd never heard of. It seemed quite natural in the dialog. Today, on Y&R, they ran an ad for the same film. Suddenly, I realized yesterday had been a product placement. Well done! They should all be so organic!

[TMOTVSoaps]

Weekly Ratings Analysis

Let me start off by saying that this is a very good week for soaps because DAYS rose when it had to. DAYS is representing the genre right now that when you have a good lead in people will watch it or leave it on that channel. The Olympics seem to have hurt soaps that came on before 2pm. As stated always the problem with soaps is consistency and they are still continuing this up and down trend. Only OLTL and a couple of others are stabilizing.

I’m going to bring this up every week until October because I feel this is what’s making the difference in soaps averaging a 2.1-2.3s to 1.8-1.9s. The end of the week is still a problem for soaps as you see on Thursdays and Fridays that the numbers are super low. This is a problem b/c networks are not putting the emphasize on cliffhanger Fridays like Y&R did a few weeks back with Sudden Impact. They start doing that again then I guarantee you numbers go back up.

The fall should be interesting as I expect to see some numbers really go up.

Call me crazy, but if anybody wants to bet me on this, do so. I believe one of the ABC Soaps will reach a 3.0 before next spring and Y&R will reach a 4.5 in November. The ABC soap might just be OLTL, but GH does have more casual fans so it might be the one. All of that good writing for OLTL is going to pay off for that show big time in the future. AMC is on the way up too, but its going to be a while.

Without further or do let me break down each soap.

All My Children

Well AMC got hurt by the Olympics a little bit, but it doesn’t matter because starting on Wednesday will start a whole new era on AMC when their writer Charles Pratt takes over. The show will finally matter again starting on Wednesday. Pratt’s writing should really take shape around October or November as he’s going to be spending the month of September wrapping up old s/ls and starting new ones. I will say this every week until AMC changes their camera and I bet you numbers go over 2.3. Every time I watch Night Shift, I keep saying to myself that AMC needs to go to HD.

As the World Turns

The stunt job didn’t help this show and quite frankly I’m disappointed in ATWT’s ratings more than anybody else’s. I thought that would help, but it looks like people were more interested in DOOL at that time period. This show is very balanced right now, but they’ve got to get over the Martha Byrne hurdle and I feel the fall might do that for them as Y&R is rising from the ashes and ready to average 4s again to help out the rest of the CBS lineup.

Bold and the Beautiful

The Katie and Nick stuff hurt this show a lot and it shows in their ratings as they’ve had one of their worst weeks ever. This next week help it out. There is a Who Done It? Storyline going on this show and that will help B&B big time in the next few weeks and it was done very well these last two episodes as tempers flared among each character. I’m more interested in seeing how B&B will do during the week of August 25-29 and seeing how this s/l plays out.

Days of Our Lives

This show passed a major test for their stay on NBC. Although the 2.4 won’t last once the Olympics are over this is still a positive because had DAYS only gotten a 1.9 that would’ve been bad news for the show. The show hasn’t reached 3 million viewers since February. With the show getting a new head writer this should help out big time. Personally I think Stefano on the show is always a positive, but the noir stuff is horrible and embarrassing to the show. It is a stunt job though and if it helps the ratings rise to a 2.5 I will admit I’m wrong. Thank you so much DAYS for getting this rating as you have given networks the confidence that soaps are still able to rise.

General Hospital

GH is doing better than I expected with hovering around 3 million viewers last week the only thing that killed it was the Friday number. Anytime an ABC Soaps gets a 2.3 that’s a huge positive. This show is missing something and it’s the identity factor. Once this show can get back on track and please all of their audiences then they can back to mid 2s or even upper 2s. GH needs to put their young actors to good use as they’ve got a good roster.

Guiding Light

If it wasn't for that horrible production format and odd timeslots then this show would be right up there with ATWT. GL is stabilizing, but I wonder if being in the 1s is good for them. It might be picking up again with this Grady storyline next week. GL should’ve kept on with the Remy/Ava/Bill baby storyline as this show is losing steam.

One Life to Live

OLTL is really dominating that Girls 12-17 for the eighth week in a row and that’s an amazing story no doubt about it. If I were Disney/ABC I would start making better use of expanding on that demo by doing more to get more new soap viewers maybe even expanding the characters of Starr, Cole, and Langston to High School Musical. Who knows? OLTL has really good positioning for the future.

The Young and the Restless

Y&R getting 3.7 and a huge 3.9 early in the week against the Olympics surprised me. I’m very interested to see how Y&R ends up getting bigger and better this upcoming October and November. I haven’t had a chance to see Y&R on a daily basis, but when I have seen it I have been impressed. This Victor storyline looks like its going to really pickup in the coming weeks along with the Michael’s dad storyline.

All in all a pretty okay week, but it could’ve been better for more than half the soaps. DAYS was the story this week and they’re big number. That’s something you can’t take away from them. With these being the final numbers the pre-emptions were added out so DAYS indeed did get a 2.4. I’m interested in seeing how noir does next week and B&B with the Who Done It? Storyline.