SAMCRO Defeats Leno: FX Beats NBC, ABC in Ratings
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
That was the sound of broadcast network television getting run over, twice, by FX's biker drama, Sons of Anarchy, Tuesday night. For the first time, SoA defeated both NBC's Jay Leno Show and ABC's The Forgotten in the 18 to 49 ratings, which, as network programmers will tell you incessantly, is the only rating that matters when it comes to advertising money.
Since all 10 p.m. programming this year must be viewed within the prism of the Great Leno Experiment, what does this mean for Jay?
A mixed bag:
* On the one hand, it certainly would not look good for NBC to get beaten by basic cable on a regular basis. In the traditional ratings sense, Jay is getting his chin handed to him.
* On the other hand, Jay has company: The Forgotten, an original scripted drama of the kind Jay is replacing, lost out to SoA too. Which raises the valid but unprovable argument that a new NBC drama in the time slot would be getting beat too, but paying much more to do it. (As bad as Jay is doing, some nights he comes close to or beats ABC originals like Eastwick, whereas even NBC only hoped he could take second against reruns.)
* Bottom line: I've argued before that the premise behind the Leno show is that network TV is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from large-basic-cable-channel TV. From the vantage point of Leno and The Forgotten—splayed out on the highway with tire tracks across their back, it's sure looking like that.
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1
I think the argument should be phrased more as follows:
Network 10pm is dead. Whether DVRing of earlier shows, cable competition, or consumer preferences (going to sleep earlier?), 10pm has become a wasteland. -
ABC & NBC haven't developed a hit there in years - only Private Practice survives by mercy of its mothership lead-in.
Even CBS isn't doing well, as the CSI spinoffs continue to drop, Good Wife is down to high 2s, and even last year's hit The Mentalist struggles to get above low 3s in the hour. Oh, and Numbers has even lost to 20/20 once or twice.Under those conditions, why not pay far less for Leno and spend elsewhere? (This year is a wash for NBC development, but they already picked up JJ Abrams new spy show for next season).
Then again, no one knows how ABC is scheduling Spring yet. If Lost gets a 10pm slot, Happy Town is a hit, etc., the actual competition on two networks could drive Leno down. The year is still early.
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[...] "Sons of Anarchy" beats NBC and ABC [...]
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Is network TV dead in the 10 pm time slot, or is it just a failure to air quality shows? As good as cable show (especially FX's) are, casual TV viewers are not even aware of their existence. When people ask my what my favorite show are, and I respond with the likes of SOA, It's Always Sunny and Breaking Bad, people look at me like I'm speaking Russian. There are tens of millions of potential viewers who would love those shows and watch them on a network, if only they would air them.
I know that with many cable shows (especially SOA) there is a valid argument that the content makes them unsuitable for network. With a little change in some language, is SOA really any more shocking now than a show like NYPD was when it first aired? I really don't think so. I wonder when a network will get desperate enough to air a show like SOA in the 10 pm slot. It would certainly cause a lot of controversy, and the morality police would throw a fit, but played correctly that free publicity could really help a show.
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3.1
But NYPD Blue aired before Janet Jackson took her boob out during the Super Bowl and the world was forever changed.
I don't really care either way because I've long given up on network dramas and Tuesday nights are reserved for my second viewing of Mad Men.
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[...] Samcro thumps Leno Sons of Anarchy Beats Jay Leno, The Forgotten, in 18-to-49 Ratings - Tuned In - TIME.com [...]
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"The Forgotten, an original scripted drama of the kind Jay is replacing, lost out to SoA too. Which raises the valid but unprovable argument that a new NBC drama in the time slot would be getting beat too..."
This assumes that all scripted shows are fungible. They're not. Some are well written and entertaining. Others are not.
"The Forgotten" is a lackluster program. It's just not that entertaining. It's hard to believe that a well done program in that time slot wouldn't cream Leno.
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5.1
Fair enough, but people shouldn't assume the converse, either--that the dramas that Leno is theoretically pre-empting would necessarily be either high-quality or successful. The dramas NBC has premiered this season, Mercy and Trauma, have done terribly. Its 10 p.m. dramas last season, like My Own Worst Enemy, were bad creatively and commercially. (Kings, on the other hand, was a well-done program, but an absolute disaster in the ratings.) So, yes, theoretically, a successful drama might have done better at 10 p.m. than Leno. But there is slight evidence that any drama that *NBC* would actually have put on at 10 p.m. this season would have done better than Leno.
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Did you see Kurt Sutter's follow up to this blog post? Freaking awesome. Sutter's blog is my new favorite. You should also check out the newest post if you haven't.
http://sutterink.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-most-network-scripted-dramas-suck.html
- poniewozik Loved the season. Mrs Tuned In wd have put u on the main list RT @boredtodeath Thank u for incl us in Time's Top 10. We'll take hon mention. - 4 hours ago
- poniewozik @carr2n Virgin is the best, LAX-JFK - 5 hours ago
- poniewozik Did NPR interview abt multiscreen multitasking. After, automatically reached for iPhone in pocket. Like don draper wd have for cigarettes. - 6 hours ago
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