Talk:Nielsen Ratings/Season Three

Season 3 Premiere

• I'm surprised at the ratings. I would have expected them to be through the roof. Either they're not terribly accurate or perhaps ratings tend to reflect interest in the show prior to the show airing... in which case I'd expect them to be excellent next week. I thought the episode was the best 2 hours of Heroes I've ever seen. The plots, the cinematography, the music... all A+ in my opinion. (Admin 19:40, 23 September 2008 (EDT))
  • I was surprised by the ratings, but not terribly so. The show has been off the air since December last year, so it will take time to rebuild the audience even with a strong fan base. That said, the clip show was not that great (I'll elaborate on that below) and due to that we probably lost audience to the other networks. Even so, the ratings were not the worst they've ever been and I think that means there's room for much improvement in the ratings over the coming weeks assuming the plots, cinematography, etc. remain as strong.--MiamiVolts (talk) 20:08, 23 September 2008 (EDT)
    • Hey I'm from the uk and I wondered is it up agaist any other shows atm? I am sad to see the show slipping.--Skywalkerrbf 12:40, 30 September 2008 (EDT)
      • We got beat this week by Dancing with the Stars on ABC and Two and a Half Men/Worst Week on CBS, but a slow start is what happened in Season One too. Hopefully, by mid-season, the ratings will begin rising up again.--MiamiVolts (talk) 12:51, 30 September 2008 (EDT)
        • At least its nice for me to see that 2 uk shows (Dancing with the Stars and Worst Week are adaptations of uk shows) are doing well state side. --Skywalkerrbf 12:58, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Season Three Clip Show Ratings & Review

This has been mentioned before, but I think the Season Three Clip Show deserves its own page... the ratings were so poor I'm not sure NBC will try it again, but if they do I hope they realize their mistakes... Lost has done them more or less successfully, but this Heroes clip show wasn't much of a review of the show as the first few minutes it felt to me like it was just the actors saying hello, and it seemed to contain spoiler content even before the review portions began... also, it looked to be entirely filmed at the premiere party and it was at the same location as the upfronts, so at first I wasn't sure if NBC was airing the clip show or the premiere party (it turned out to be both). Lastly, but most of all, it was said during the clip show that you could get into Heroes without having any background on what happened before, but the whole point of the clip show should be the history (much of the season one and two lore wasn't mentioned, imho). Overall, the clip show felt very much like it was promoting its stars as much as (or more so than) the show itself, and I think that's what did it in. And that lower ratings lead-in may have contributed to lower ratings for the episodes themselves.--MiamiVolts (talk) 20:08, 23 September 2008 (EDT)

• Where did that name "Season Three Clip Show" come from? Did you see it somewhere officially? Tivo tells me it was called "Countdown to the Premiere". (Admin 20:10, 23 September 2008 (EDT))
  • Zap2It called it the Clip Show in their posting, and it was also called that by TV Guide. TV Guide also mentions the show is subtitled as "HEROES: COUNTDOWN TO THE PREMIERE" so I guess both names work.--MiamiVolts (talk) 20:14, 23 September 2008 (EDT)
    • Let's go with "Heroes: Countdown to the Premiere" then. Tivo and tv.yahoo.com both agree, too. (Admin 20:16, 23 September 2008 (EDT))

Worst ratings ever for I Am Become Death

According to Zap2It.com, Monday's (10/6/08) episode got the worst ratings Heroes has ever seen for a new episode (not counting clip shows), and the records we've been keeping seem to confirm that. If anyone's interested, it got a 5.0 Fast Nationals Rating compared to 8.7 for CBS's Two & A Half Men and 12.7 for ABC's Dancing with the Stars. It was still in 3rd place on the network, but looks like we lost quite a bit of viewers last night. I guess they were tuning in to find out what happened with Misty May. Personally, I consider last night's episode one of the best Heroes episodes (though perhaps killing off a kid was a little over the top) and I'm hoping things will change when the stories begin to converge later in the season. I wouldn't mind a little more levity... Matt's, Hiro's and Ando's segments were a bit more dramatic than humorous last night, but I'm not sure how much more the writers could have done with that and still move the story along.--MiamiVolts (talk) 16:45, 7 October 2008 (EDT)

• If it drops another 0.5 million then we will be at half the top views Heroes has ever had. I hate to say it but if things don't get better soon then this could be the start of the end. The show has got better but the ratings are well slipping. I really think that if it doesn't pick up a hell of a lot soon then its guna fail, I will say it now, the day they stop the graphic novels will be the beginning of the end.--Skywalkerrbf 17:00, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
  • I don't know exactly what metrics the network uses, but I've never trusted Nielsen ratings anyway. Viewing habits change over time especially with the prevalence of DVRs now and I don't know how well Nielsen captures that kind of information. To be honest, if something else I wanted to watch at all came on at the same time as Heroes, I'd watch IT live, record Heroes, and then watch Heroes later when I could fast forward through the commercials and enjoy the continuity more. In fact, I didn't start watching Heroes last night until 9:30pm so I could fast forward through the commercials and enjoy the episode even more. I'd say a much better measurement of the shows popularity would be this site itself where you can see first hand the increases in traffic we get with each season. I don't think the show has anything to worry about... as long as those making the decisions get good information. :) (Admin 17:08, 7 October 2008 (EDT))
    • Perhaps Nielsen TV data is losing its relevance, but advertisers still seem to pay attention to it and NBC Universal still touts their TV ratings (and not internet/DVR ratings) in press releases at UMV. The good news is that advertisers have most likely booked far in advance due to NBC's now far-reaching schedule, so Heroes will perhaps have extra time to play catch up on the TV ratings. Another thing to watch is NBC's other big promotion shows, such as Knight Rider, which got 4.6 fast nationals last week so we're still ahead there. And as you stated, Admin, internet data statistics is equally important now and I would like to see the stats Nielson has been taking on it, but unfortunately they've not been made public yet. This wiki is likely a good indicator, but its stats are probably not considered by advertisers since it's not associated with NBC... Unless, of course, you're personally contacting the sponsors and telling them? ;)--MiamiVolts (talk) 17:42, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
      • No, I'm not. :) I know our stats don't really help them, I'm just looking at the popularity of the show in general. If I use the site statistics to gauge overall interest in the show and the site statistics are much higher than last season, then to me it means Heroes could be that much more popular as a show... and if that's the case then there may be other metrics (say iTunes and DVD sales) that help support that theory even if the Nielsen Ratings don't reflect it necessarily. (Admin 18:33, 7 October 2008 (EDT))
        • Ah, okay then. BTW, I'm not saying that NBC and Nielson isn't sharing the internet data and other metrics (such as iTunes and DVD sales) with the advertisers. I'm saying they're not sharing it with the public. TV ratings are the only public guage of interest that we know advertisers look at.--MiamiVolts (talk) 19:10, 7 October 2008 (EDT)