Wednesday, September 23, 2009

TV Ratings : Heroes versus House - House Wins?

Here's an article from TVOverMind.com regarding the TV ratings last Monday night.

Oh, my. Whether you loved or hated the Heroes season premiere creatively, the numbers say that nobody really cared whether Heroes could achieve 'redemption.' The fourth season of NBC's ailing franchise was D.O.A., dragging the peacock to a fourth place finish. Wow, season 4… fourth place… is there a numerologist in the house? Wouldn't matter, because no matter how you dice those numbers nothing good can come of it. I'll be charitable and say that the Heroes premiere was far from the cluster-frak of last season, but it was still bursting at the seams with trite MacGuffins, puzzling story choices, and a self-referential moment that was just… weird. (Kring's Crossing Jordan was a great series, having characters mention it in Heroes was difficult to process – it was as if they were recalling the good old days.)

Heroes started the night with 6.3 million viewers in its first hour, but slipped down to 5.8 million in its second. Given the history of the show, that continue will show as attrition sets in – and the numbers are pretty consistent with where Heroes left off last season meaning this decline is terminal. Let the "Save Heroes" campaigns begin.

House, on the other hand, brought the heat and actually grew from its first hour to its second, a trend that isn't so common on two-hour episodes. House came withing 400,000 viewers of reality juggernaut Dancing With the Stars, which is showing some wear as well. Here is how things worked out for the evening:

8:00 pm

ABC -"Dancing with the Stars" season premiere (17.4 million viewers, 11.0/17 households)
FOX – "House" season premiere (15.8 million, 9.2/14)
CBS – "How I Met Your Mother" season premiere (9.2 million, 5.7/9)/"Accidentally on Purpose" series premiere (9 million, 5.7/8)
NBC – "Heroes" season premiere (6.3 million, 3.9/6)
The CW – "One Tree Hill" (2.5 million, 1.7/2)

9:00

ABC - "Dancing with the Stars" (17.6 million, 11.3/17)
FOX – "House" (17.2 million (9.8/14)
CBS – "Two and a Half Men" season premiere (13.6 million, 8.5/12)/"The Big Bang Theory" season premiere (12.8 million, 7.8/11)
NBC - "Heroes" (5.8 million, 3.4/5)
The CW: "Gossip Girl" (2.1 million, 1.4/2)

10:00

CBS – "CSI: Miami" season premiere (13.8 million, 8.7/14)
ABC – "Castle" season premiere (9.4 million, 6.2/10)
NBC – "The Jay Leno Show" (5.7 million, 3.8/6)

Putting it up against House's slot was really a terrible decision. Anyway, hopefully the rating for heroes will increase next week.. Heroes fans speak up! Let's bring the ratings back!

6 comments:

Mark said...

To me those were really good episodes and I liked all the characters new storylines.
Unfortuneatly i think it is the end of the line for the show.
I knew that it wouldn't survive long.
Hopefully it will pick up some ratings but I expect that it wont and we'll be seeing 1.0 million viewers by episode 4.
Still, the writing is really good stuff.
So is Knepper.
Glad they won an emmy recently, at least they go out with a bang (if they go out that is.)

Drew said...

This sucks, because the premiere was a huge improvement on anything in season 3.

Anonymous said...

Dunno about the States, but Heroes actually didn't have to be up against House. It was on one channel from 7-9 MST and then on another channel from 9-11 (House was only on from 9-11).

Anonymous said...

That's in Canada, by the way.

Mark said...

(another Mark)

I agree that this season's writing is an improvement over last season.

I prefer watching both Heroes and House online. I wonder how many others do so, and how that affects the ratings.

Tim said...

Hero's lost it's edge after the first season *maybe the second*. I love the show, and yes the writing is better this year but so what?

Until they man up and start knocking off main characters *cough* syler *cough* the show will bring nothing new to the sci fi landscape.

How many times does he have to die/come back when, as the writers have proven, there are other types of antagonist which the show (Samuel).

I had once read that the creators envisioned a show in which main characters would die off at a decent pace to keep things fresh. Then the suits saw how fans loved Hiro and Peter, they saw how strong a villain they had in syler and they instantly created the ultimate let down.

What could have been a 8-10 season show will be lucky to make it 6.