I don't understand the numbers... by TubeTechnology

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I don't understand the numbers...

POSTED BY: TUBETECHNOLOGY
UPDATED: Thursday, October 6, 2005 19:51
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Thursday, October 6, 2005 2:21 PM

Hello Browncoats!

Can you help me with some math? Here's the problem: it doesn't add up.

$10.1M weekend gross / $8 average ticket price =

1.26M people purchased tickets...

Firefly Fans.net has somewhere near 3M Browncoats. Let's just say for argument's sake that 3.3M is too high, and there are only around half as many as we thought... say 1.6M.

Where are all the Browncoats????

With a conservative estimate, some 300,000 fans were AWOL on opening weekend. And I keep seeing stories about repeated viewings, bringing family and friends, etc. Something is way off, and I can't figure it out...

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 2:25 PM

GIANTEVILHEAD

If I remember correctly, according to exit polls, 44% of the people who saw the movie over the weekend were Firefly fans, although this number might be slightly inflated due to multiple viewings, 88% rated the movie as very good or excellent, 51% of the viewers were over the age of 30, and 39% of the viewers were women.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 2:31 PM

SOUPCATCHER

The 3 million refers to visits and does not really translate to 3 million individuals. There are somewhere north of 11,000 people registered as users on fireflyfans.net (and at least half of the people who register an account don't log back on again). Now this doesn't take into account the people who come to this site and don't register (since all the content is open to everyone) but I think it's a safe bet that it's not in the millions.

Probably a more reliable indicator is the number of people who've registered over at the UB (which I think just topped 60,000). And that is spread all over the world.

A shorter answer is that it's pretty hard to estimate the size of the online firefly fan base but I'd guess it's in the tens of thousands worldwide rather than the millions.

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 2:38 PM

GIANTEVILHEAD

Well, 500,000 Firefly DVD's were sold in the US.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 2:46 PM

TUBETECHNOLOGY

I suppose that the international component of the fan base accounts for some of it... could the majority of fans be from outside the US?

Actually, half a million DVD sales does indeed equate to around 1 million fans if you figure an average of two fans per copy (household).

Huh.

I thought it was much higher than that.

(Feels alone, naked.)

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 2:59 PM

SOUPCATCHER

Well, it wouldn't surprise me if the number of people who are fans of Firefly in the US number in the millions. I was just pointing up the difficulty of using online numbers to try to come up with some size for the fan base. They really only represent a fraction of the fans.

Better numbers to use would be the people who saw the last episode when it aired on Fox (in other words, people who made it through the entire run) which was a little under 3 million people. And then figure that the number has grown since that point in time as many people became fans after the release of the boxed set. Using the number of DVDs sold would be okay except we don't have an accurate number on that and I would hope that many more people have watched the DVDs than actually purchased them. You could also look at the number of people who watched the Firefly re-runs on the SciFi channel (which hovered just a little above a million) but not everyone in the country gets that channel.

* edited to add: Basically, I'm agreeing with your point that the number of fans who showed up for opening weekend (based on the exit polling and the number of tickets sold) seems to be a lot less than the number of people who enjoy the show but disagreeing with how you arrived at the number of fans (ni modo - we're getting to the same place).

* edited one more time to add: I am concerned by the percentage of women versus men and I think that points to a marketing campaign that went after the wrong demographic (it looked like Universal was going for the 13-30 male audience). Anecdotal experience leads me to believe that the percentage of women Firefly fans is higher than 40% and it wouldn't surprise me if they made up more than half of the Firefly fanbase. Plus I think the core group probably skews towards the 22 and up age range. So in one respect the exit polling is promising (less than half those who attended were previously fans) and in another respect not so much. I think Universal might have had more success going after the 22-45 demographic and focusing less on the teenage boys. But that's all water under the bridge. The important thing in my mind is that there are a lot more fans of Firefly out there who probably have no idea about the angst we're suffering over the box office numbers since they're not online. Hell, they might not even know the movie is out.

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 4:07 PM

TUBETECHNOLOGY

Funny you should mention - my wife just visited some friends in Chicago today. She asked if they had seen Serenity yet (knowing that it's a group that would enjoy it) and the blank stares said it all. "Serenity, is that the FireFly movie?"

Hopefully, that means there's a ton of folks out there gearing up to see it this weekend.

I think I'll hold my breath for the weekend (except of course, for when I'm actually in the theater seeing it again)...

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 5:31 PM

DAVCO

I saw Serenity twice last weekend (Fri & Sat afternoon) and one thing immediately jumped out at me both times. There were almost no young'uns in the theater, and by young I mean 25 & under (except for one 21 year old hottie...and she was with us). Similarly, the number of 45 & up present (i.e. the majority) also surprised me. He he...I'm not 'customed to being one of the young'uns...

I aim to...well, hit somethin. I'm a lousy shot.

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 6:14 PM

SIGGGY

Same result in Australia,

Why no young ones? I'm sure they need to spread the word as it is right up their ally. Normal schoolground talk from the children that have been should spread the word. Big brothers and sisters should get talking! Not very suitable for little ones though.

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Thursday, October 6, 2005 7:51 PM

THEPYRO

No young ones? I know in our theater too, i saw alot of families, older father and mother with real little kids....I'm happy to say that im 16 years old...i went with my sis...19...her ex...22....his bro (the one that introduced me to Firefly, thank you allan :)) who is also only 18....his two friends in their 20s....but last weekend (when we saw it) there were to many new movies that came out that other younger kids went to see. i tell everyone at scool about it....heres a reg. convo.
Me "SO, i went to go see a movie this weekend....."
Then "oh did you see..blah..." <- what ever goes there, i just know its not Serenity.
Me "Have you ever hear of Firefly or Serenity?"
Them "No", i know its sickening
Me "GO WATCH IT NOW!, and then go buy the DVDs of Firefly."
Them "ok ok, is it really that good?"
Me "F YES IT IS, you love it."
Them "alright ill try it"

So all in all i really think and hope that this weekend will be a real booster, i've been telling eveyone and their brother about it. And of course they all say ill go see it, but they really aren't going to.....it makes me sad....so i tell 'em if they don't go, im going to shoot 'em, lol jk jk, i dont really, but i want to....i just hope they're true to their word and go. BTW talking about kids going and seeing it, anyone on this site from Colorado, Pueblo or so?

The Pyro

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