Ten's Decision About Stargate Universe and Supernatural Defies Logic.

The more I see the ratings come through this week, the more I find it difficult to comprehend Ten’s decision to replace Stargate Universe and Supernatural with movies from Monday January 4, 2010. On Monday December 28, Stargate Universe took 486,000 while Supernatural was watched by 397,000. While the figures are low, they are VERY typical of what shows are attracting – especially on channel Ten – this time of year.

Here are some examples from this week* (and the figures for last week in brackets for comparison):

NCIS Rpt Tue 647,000 (n/a)
White Collar Tue 597,000 (753,000)
Malcolm in the Middle Wed 523,000  (572,000)
Malcolm in the Middle Mon 503,000 (608,000)
Stargate Universe Mon 487,000 (558,000)
The Cleveland Show Wed 491,000 (637,000)
Glee Ep2 Sun 472,000 (n/a)
Malcolm in the Middle Tue 448,000 (635,000)
Glee Ep1 Sun 444,000 (437,000)
Glee Ep3 Sun 441,000 (n/a)
The Office Tue 425,000 (481,000)
Rule of Engagement Mon n/a (476,000)
Supernatural Mon 394,000 (461,000)
Californication Wed 354,000 (416,000)

And looking by the time slot:
8:30 1st NCIS Rpt Tue. 2nd Stargate Mon. 3rd Cleveland Show & the Simpsons Wed.
9:30 1st White Collar Tue. 2nd Supernatural Mon. 3rd Californication Wed.

While we do not have all the information available to compare all shows and all time slots, it very clear looking at those listed here that Stargate Universe was in fact one of the top 5 shows on Ten in prime time at the moment, while Supernatural is doing better than Californication which also airs in a 9.30pm timeslot on Wednesday nights. Even White Collar – 9.30 Tuesdays – is down on its huge previous week result, but should  not be cause for concern.

Just about every other show on Ten in prime time is achieving figures between 350,000 to 500,000 with only Malcolm in the Middle on some nights, White Collar and NCIS repeats cracking the half million mark.

The trend between the two weeks is clear. All shows are down in ratings but that is a direct result of the much smaller TV audience in the week between Christmas and New Years. No decision should be made to axe shows on the basis of figures from this week. Stargate Universe and Supernatural should remain om Monday nights. Neither will get a million like the Mentalist on Nine (which has MUCH more mass appeal – hence the ratings) but old 90’s movies are probably going to do worse.

Based on the logic applied here to take off Stargate Universe and Supernatural, Tne should ALSO look at replacing just about every other show on the network with movies as they are all doing very bad.

And anyone who believes in the power of lead ins (I personally think lead ins these days play a very small roll in the ratings of shows) would clearly see that the lower ratings for shows on Ten after 8.30 could be blamed on what they have on beforehand. Rule of Engagement on Monday nights at 8pm does not even get 500,000. Nor does the Office on Tuesday.

Time for networks to think a little more before jumping to change their schedules. Had anyone at Ten analysed the data like I have here, they would either ONE change their entire schedule or TWO realise that these number are simply typical of free to air viewing trends for this time of year and leave things be for now.

Wonder if there is any chance of Ten reversing the decision?

* This week is week 1 of 2010 ratings, Sunday Dec 27 – Saturday Jan 2. Last week is week 52 of 2009 ratings, Sunday Dec 20 – Saturday Dec 26.

Ratings figures OzTam. More ratings data here.

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  • Marc

    Again the commercial channels show their scheduling can’t be trusted — how can they expect viewers to invest time in following a show, to suddenly see it ripped off the screen?

    I’d been foolishly thinking of dropping Pay TV, to trim some fat, but at least you know you can see a show through.

    It’s interesting that the networks don’t seem to realise that in stuffing around the audience they’re letting down their advertisers, and they don’t seem to realise that a lot of people are paying for reliability, whether it’s Foxtel/Austar, iTunes etc.

  • Andrew Barclay

    I rang Ten Perth about the sudden absence of SGU on Monday night(replaced with the 73,486th rereun of Denzel’s god-awful “The Seige”). Whe I was told it was gone because nobody was watching it, I had 2 responses;
    1) Don’t call me nobody and
    2) How can we warch it when every week the TV guide says it’s on an hour bloody later? It’s whole run so far has been advertised at 9:30pm, whereas it was on at 8:30 (thank god for the 10 website which has freee catch up capacity or I’d have missed most of what they aired)

    If I was advertising with them, I’d be annoyed that my ads aimed at (lets face it) blokes aged 19-45 were being shown during the right show but my demographic were waiting to tune in to the competitions ads during the next show.

    Stupid,stupid people and their random decisions – it’s Quantum Leap all over again – keep watching th late night slots.

    Some of us support free to air TV AND can’t afford pay TV

  • AndrewB

    And what makes this even worse is that timeshift data shows that 37,000 people wtached Stargate Universe later in the week, thereby incresing the shows’ ratings by 7%, and 41,000 watched Supernatural within 7 days later increasing that show’s ratings by over 10%.

  • Ron L

    When will the viewing public be treated as peopele with viewing preferences and decisions. The last episode of SGU aired the shorts for the next episode, then nothing but regurgitataed crap. The numbers show that it had a reasonable following considering the holiday break etc. If the management was so concerned about the impact that it would make why chose one of the worst ratings periods of the year, all one has to do is look at the cheap production adds run at this time to tell you that they have nop concept. Big budget advertisers don’t waste their money then because it is not sold to them based on available numbers rather thatn a drop in ratings. Channel 10 get with the times and your viewers follow shows to the end of a season especially ones that already have a proven track record in other media.

  • Harry

    As if crappy repeat movies will attract higher ratings. Sheesh. When I get busted for downloading TV shows I’m taking channel 10 with me.

  • rex

    Hi all

    Last Monday the 11th I along with several others created and contributed to posts on TENS contact us community forum.

    We expressed our thoughts regarding the apparent demise of Stargate and Supernatural. See my post below which I fortunately copied.

    Less than half an hour after my post TEN began locking Stargate related postings.

    Someone chose to comment on this locking action and asked for a TEN representative to to formally comment on whether Stargate had actually been axed. He went on to mention that the locking was a very poor response to our legitimate inquiries and concerns.

    Minutes later all Stargate posted topics including some Supernatural comments were totally removed from TENS forum site.

    It appears that censorship of public opinion is alive and well at TEN!!!!

    Instead of admitting they got it wrong they are sweeping any non-positive comments under the carpet.

    Does this mean that unless TEN has a change of heart we the public will not have access to Stargate Universe in Australia???

    Poor and unprofessional effort TEN management…..

    Quote from TEN forum Monday 11th Jan 2010
    Hi Ten programming

    Sci-fi & Sci-Fantasy have finally reached the main stream audience with recent movie successes such as Avatar, District 9 and Lord of the Rings.

    Thought Ten had recognised this fact and finally provided a compelling reason for me to devote some of my very limited viewing time to your channel. Even if it was perhaps to be only over the summer non-rating period…….

    I understand that the slow burn of SG Universe may have required your audience to think and would perhaps have been better suited in a later time slot.

    Your lack of understanding for this genre and choice to apparently axe the series without notice has left me with little reason to watch your network.

    Disappointed

  • seena

    Stargate: Universe airs its first one-hour episode tonight following its two-hour series movie premiere last Friday that unfortunately delivered poor-to-marginal ratings at best for the SyFy Channel. I think the network would have been better off airing the movie premiere Monday night of last week instead, followed by an encore rebroadcast where it had debuted on Friday, which most likely would have assured considerably better ratings for the show’s opening installment. The show will either sink or swim now based on the audience it manages to keep, and what the ratings for the opener indicate is that it pulled in numbers comparable to its predecessor, Stargate: Atlantis, which may well be enough to satisfy the network, at least for now.microsoft exams. security+ exam. ccie exam.The sad thing about the disappointing ratings for the premiere, however, is that overall it was a pretty solid and enjoyable pilot that should have been watched by more people, and it was a decidedly different entry to the Stargate universe that was originally launched on the Showtime network before migrating over to the SyFy Channel a few seasons later. I’ve never been much of a Stargate fan to be perfectly honest. I didn’t care for the big screen feature that starred Kurt Russell and James Spader. In fact, I didn’t like it at all, but I gave Stargate SG-1 a shot once they decided to turn it into a weekly series on premium cable. I hung in there for its first two seasons before simply tuning it out. I just couldn’t take it anymore, it just wasn’t for me. Once the series jumped to SFC however, and talks began to surface that they were interested in producing a spin-off, I started to pay a little more attention and decided to give Stargate: Atlantis a shot once it debuted. It wasn’t a particularly great show, sort of a poor man’s sci fi series, but since there was very little else, if not anything at all for a science fiction fan to tune into, I kept on watching, although SG-1 never managed to woo me back. I just wasn’t interested.

  • Elise

    Have given 10 so much of my viewing time over the last few years and am extremely disappointed at it’s decision to cut Supernatural. It’s not the first time and I am sure it won’t be the last…..I am getting more into Go and I will reconsider watching any new series that 10 chooses to screen for fear of getting hooked and then being disappointed!!!!!!!!!!!