News

Every week day, I let you know what’s happening in the world of television from around the world

News

Studio 60’s ratings falling ever further

18 October 2006 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Sarah PaulsonIt might be from Aaron Sorkin. It might have a star-studded cast. It might have characters constantly going on about how, if you write a quality show, the US public will watch it. But Studio 60 really isn’t doing at all well in the ratings. Currently, it’s about third or fourth in its time slot, with ratings dropping 15% from last week’s episode to 7.8 million (or in ratings talk, 3.1/8 in 18-49, 7.8 million viewers overall).

It’s up against the jaw-droppingly stupid CSI: Miami (is it possible for David Caruso to have had Botox for his acting muscles?) so it’s undergoing a real-world empirical test of its own philosophy. Unfortunately, its theories are wrong: when the US public are presented with glossy, sexy, exciting but stupid versus well-written, wordy, intelligent but preachy drama, they’ll plump for the Caruso-bot every time, it seems.

No word from NBC about what’s going to happen to Studio 60, although there are various words being muttered about the quality of the viewers being just as important as the quantity: Studio 60 is delivering the same kind of people as The West Wing, who are generally smarter, richer, etc than the CSI: Miami crowd (ie everyone else). All the same, keep your fingers crossed and don’t be surprised if Studio 60 becomes Studio 13 episodes only.

News

BBC4 to celebrate Halloween with Dennis Wheatley

16 October 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

The Haunted Airman

Not content with scaring us last Christmas with a whole load of ghost stories, BBC4 has decided Halloween could do with some subtle chills as well. So they’ve adapted Dennis Wheatley’s The Haunting of Toby Jugg as The Haunted Airman, ready to give us all the shudders on All Hallow’s Eve.

It is, however, worth noting that Julian Sands is going to be in it, so maybe it won’t be that terrifying after all. Except in other ways.

Take a trip to the web site to view some video clips, if you will.

Robin Hood losing viewers

16 October 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

I haven’t watched the second episode of Robin Hood yet. In that, I’m not alone, according to the ratings: the Hood has lost 1.5 million viewers since its first episode, dropping from 8.2 million to 6.7 million.

Now, I didn’t hate the first episode, and I thought kids would probably enjoy it. Others disagreed. However, I do think it worth pointing out that a drop like that really isn’t unprecedented, with both good shows and bad, and happens with most shows between their first and second episodes. In fact, it happened between the first and second episodes of the first new series of Doctor Who: that started with 9.9 million viewers in week one and had 7.3 million viewers for the second episode. Yet no one declares that a massive flop.

So, given it’s already been picked up at Mipcom by a huge number of countries, I wouldn’t write off Robin yet, no matter how pants it may (or may not) be.