This is disgusting. A season finale of 'The Simpsons' getting a piddly 6.1 million viewers? Time to put this show to pasture, or at least move it to a different night. Just because it's always been on Sundays at 8 doesn't mean it absolutely must stay there (same thing w/ ER). You're NEVER going to win a ratings race w/ decrepit, creatively-tired shows like 'The Simpsons' and 'King Of The Hill'. They're running on fumes from 7-8 airing reruns. Time for a REAL shake up!!!! So pathetic.
--- Are you kidding? Failure IS Success to David. FOX and The Simpsons are doing just fine in his book. I'm sure it's winning something in its time slot to validate it still being there for another 5 years.
On Mon, 19 May 2008 12:23:46 -0700 (PDT), Taylor wrote:
I don't think FOX will ever cancel it. It'll probably end when Matt Groening says so or one of the main voice actors dies, or maybe not even then. But it probably won't be FOX deciding it.
Its strength isn't reflected in the ratings. It's one of the most popular shows in males under 18 and at the start of the season it was getting $315,000 per ad (fourth-highest number on tv). It also makes a lot from merchandising and foreign sales.
It used to air Thursdays at 8 but Sundays are probably best for young audiences.
And a re-run of Family Guy had more viewers. Its one thing when new FG episodes beat it, but when its a repeat beating the season finale? Simpsons just lost their crown. Didn't American Dad also do better numbers than Simpsons a few times this season?
Note also that it was the conclusion of a two part story. Hell, I watched it, and I don't watch Family Guy.
(I caught part one while on a business trip last year that had me in a hotel with lousy TV for a month. I watched some things I normally don't watch, and caught part one of that story, and have been wanting part two ever since, for completeness).
If you were to take all the Simpsons episodes ever, and divide them into three groups: good, average, and bad, then a typical episode from the "bad" list would still be orders of magnitude better than a typical *new* FOX show.
When deciding whether or not the Simpsons should be put out to pasture, it needs to be judged against what might replace it, not against what it once was.
Does anyone have those ratings in a percentage rather than in an absolute amount? Here in the Netherlands the most important thing when looking at ratings is the market share: The percentage of people who were watching TV at that time.
To me that's much more useful.
To compare I've got the ratings of The Simpsons in The Netherlands last week. Keep in mind that the population of The Netherlands is only 16,4 million.
Last week's episode was Papa Don't Leech, it aired on Friday the 16th at 8 and had a market-share of 5% or 261,000 viewers.
The season 16 rerun aired just before that episode had a market share of 3.1% or 136,000 viewers. Both these episodes were aired on Veronica, a country-wide, generally available broacaster.
Comedy Central (cable/satellite-only) are currently doing reruns of season 1, every night at 8.30. Ratings vary from 40,000 to 200,000 viewers, but most of the time it has about 130,000.
Also good to compare. The relatively new episodes of Family Guy, aired every sunday at 8.30 on Comedy Central here have about 50.000 viewers.
See where it says "2.9/9 in 18-49"? The "2.9" is the percentage of all TV viewers in that demo who were watching that show; the "9" is what you're asking for, the percentage of those in that demo watching TV at the time who were watching that show.
Anytime you see that format, that's what it means...if it doesn't specify "in 18-49" or whatever, then it's probably for all households.
And perpetually stoned, suggesting they should have higher animation viewers than less cool countries. Gawd, I love that country. Even at a raw herring once. ONCE!
How many of FG's interminable references to American pop culture from the time of the creator's childhood do foreign audiences even get?
I've never been stoned and still I'm the biggest Simpsons-fan I know.
Are you sure?
Never did that either. I guess I'm not a real Dutchman then, still I lived here all my life.
(..)
Well because American pop culture really is international pop culture (every western country is a little America today, like it or not) I think most people get it. I do anyway.
For Nielsen & Arbitron (US, anyway), Rating = Share x HUT (households using (watching) TV), so the rating does reflect people who were watching at the time.
So the Rating is the product of 2 percentages, which I was taught long before I got involved in TV ratings was not a meaningful number.
Am I the only one that thinks the show should have ended when the movie was released? That would have been the perfect time to say The Simpsons is done.