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Originally posted by MOJOECA:
The 2.7 is 55% down from FIREFLY's premeire (4.9).

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Originally posted by Ptrope:

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Originally posted by MOJOECA:
The 2.7 is 55% down from FIREFLY's premeire (4.9).

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Just to know we're on the same page, where are you getting your figures from, and are they both overnights? From thefutoncritic.com, the premiere's overnights were 4.3/7, which translates to only a 38% drop to 2.7/5. Not beautiful, but certainly not 55% (BTW, the numbers you quoted show that 2.7 is 55% of 4.9, not down from it. )

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Originally posted by Ptrope:
Still, even corrected to 2.7/5, there should be a huge message here for FOX: Firefly retains most of the viewers it gets. The trick is helping them find the show, something FOX was apparently unwilling to do. For example, composed before the show was canceled, the TV Guide for last week had no special promotion of the 2-hour special airing of the pilot; all it noted was the length of the show with the standard synopsis listing. The show has been amazingly level in the ratings, unlike Enterprise, which has lost 60% of its audience since its premiere; to advertisers, that should say, "You can count on at least this much audience," which surely has to make advertising on Firefly a better prospect than saying, "Well, next week, you may have 500,000 fewer potential customers watching your ads, but we won't know until it happens."

The level ratings from hour to hour also seem to indicate that Firefly and John Doe simply have different audiences, rather than any sort of qualitative analysis that viewers are, for some reason, avoiding Firefly only to come to FOX to watch Doe. I agree with Joss's comments that FOX was trying to promote the show, when they did, as if it were a typical sci-fi show, only with horses and six-shooters, when they should have been promoting the show as an adult drama that just happened to have a unique setting. I know from my expereince on a couple other boards that Firefly has lost a lot of sci-fi viewers who simply can't find a way to integrate "Western" with "Sci-Fi"; those are fairly typical responses from people who really weren't the target audience to begin with. "The Anti-Trek" is a simplistic and good-natured soundbite to describe the show, but it should also give an indication that maybe the Trek audience wasn't whom it was intended for in the first place.

Does anyone understand the functioning of the 'Hollywood' mind, or even have proof of its existence?

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Originally posted by Ptrope:
Thanks for the further clarifications, Brian. I'm sure you know more about the somewhat 'mystical' workings of the ratings systems, and the TV industry in general, than I do. I've still got a couple questions about the data you're presenting, though.

When I talk about viewer erosion, I'm talking about premiere-to-current, and I'm using overnights only because I have no final ratings for the most recent ENT handy. Sure, ENT has lost little this season, but that's after it plummeted in its first season; it's already shaken off much of its audience. Going by the first 9 episodes in comparison on both series (all that are available on your site for FF), ENT started out with 12.5 million viewers for "Broken Bow," and had 6.1 by its ninth ep, a drop of 52%; by comparison, as you said, Firefly has only dropped 34% in that same time. Going only by their performances this season is, I think, a bit misleading, since as I said, ENT has had time to level off after chasing out its audience and closing the barn door behind them.

I also disagree that FOX's greater coverage somehow means that Firefly's low ratings in comparison to ENT's somehow reflect poorly on FF, rather than the network. You're right that the two networks judge success by different standards, but you're eliminating the variable of time slot; how well does UPN's Friday 8:00 PM slot perform? And again, this totally unique show has maintained 66% of its audience, even under these circumstances, compared to a show which has the weight of an entire franchise behind it, and all those supposed built-in viewers, yet managed only to maintain 48% of the people it attracted; I will also argue that if it weren't for those built-in Trek die-hards (and I'm one; I watch the show hopefully, only because it's Trek, but I think it's far below FF in terms of quality and intelligence), ENT would have already been canceled, or at the very least would be looking up at Firefly in the series rankings. I still contend that Firefly is performing better, on percentages, than ENT has any hope to.

I do agree that many fans of other shows have larger axes to grind with FOX. The network simply doesn't seem to comprehend science fiction, and yet they insist on entering the genre every year, placing a new show into the death-slot, and then complaining that it doesn't get magical ratings and that it's expensive. Well ... yeah! It certainly doesn't reflect well on the network that they haven't been able to figure this simple fact out: sci-fi is a limited audience, straight out of the box, and the majority of sci-fi shows are more expensive, because they can't be shot on existing backlots or on very many locations. Audiences expect flashy visuals from sci-fi, whereas there's little CGI going into Law & Order or Friends, and these things cost; it's frankly a stupid excuse for any network to act as though this was a surprise, let alone one that continues to make the same mistakes, and the same excuses, year after year after year. FOX made a commitment to the show, without any blinders or subterfuge, so I really have little sympathy for their dismay. They have done little to promote the show (regardless of the ads in American Idol; I really don't think that millions of teeny-boppers were the target market for FF, any more than putting an ad for Emeril's series into the Superbowl would have gotten it many viewers, either). Promotion isn't just putting it into a popular show; it's picking your market, something FOX not only didn't know, but didn't apparently take the time to find out. They never do.

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Originally posted by outlander:
According to the neilson rating The Train Job got 4.0 which is the highest and War Stories got 2.4 which is the lowest.

http://home.insightbb.com/~wahoskem/firefly1.html

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