The ratings are in and they’re not good news for “Caprica.”
The pilot episode drew only 1.6 million viewers to SyFy Friday evening according to the Hollywood Reporter.
That’s lower than episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” or “Stargate: Universe” averaged in the same time slot. It’s also a million viewers off the premiere of “SG:U” last fall.
SyFy isn’t worried yet. As we reported on this week’s Slice of SciFi, the pilot has been heavily marketed in other outlets, including a DVD release and being available in cable on-demand systems and to watch via streaming video at no charge for the past couple of weeks. The network estimates that 2 million people saw the pilot via non-traditional media and is banking on them tuning in for the second installment this week.
When will the networks realize that so many of us use the DVR crack pushed on use to record the show and watch it later! Chuh! ALSO, Verizon had the pilot episode available On Demand for the whole month before the network premier! Double-Chuh!
Most of the people that really wanted to see it saw it on DVD. I know I did.
That show has been out for a year. Who (the real fans of the show) has NOT seen it yet?
The next episode is going to be the real test.
Hey, do they include DVD sales in those ratings? 'cause if they're not, they should.
Gee, I wonder why the rating were so low? There wasn't something else on every major network at that time was there, that may have garnered everyones attention, was there? Oh yeah! I know! A little thing raising funds for something that occurred somewhere in the world?
I completely agree-- NEXT week is the real test. My mother (she's almost 70) saw Caprica months ago. Real fans had no reason to tune in on Friday, so the 1.6 million may actually be good news!
MichaelL: Did anyone really sit through that whole thing? I didn't watch any of it. I donated last week and didn't see any reason to sit through a telethon. BORING.
On Friday night I was watching Fringe, CSI and the Mentalist on my DVR from Thursday night.
I did a count and of the DirecTV channels I receive at least 28 of them were running the telethon. Was that really necessary?
"That show has been out for a year. Who (the real fans of the show) has NOT seen it yet?"
I hadn't. I figured that if they were going to just show it on TV, I might as well wait for it.
Why are these people (network executives) so freaking dense. They insist on working from a model that was created before the internet, DVD's, DVR's and probably VHS. When are they going to learn that the old model is obsolete and something new is needed. I'm getting sick and tired of shows getting cancelled because enough people didn't buy enough stuff. It really comes down to money and not actually how many people are watching.
I'm a huge fan of BSG, but the existential stuff was a bit annoying towards the end. From what I've seen, it much more of that... I can't do it. I can deal with a healthy mix of the action, character development and mysticism.... but not JUST the hokey allegories.
I loved the premier. I had seen it off iTunes, and watched it again the other night. I've recommended it to many of my "non-scifi" friends. I think this show is going to hold all the same standards that BSG did, which is nothing but good news.
As for the "dense" network people... Their revenue is directly tied to the ratings. Higher ratings = higher 30 second spots. So yes, it's important to them.
I just hope that if the ratings tank, they keep making this show and selling it online.
Jay, I don't have anything against them making money because I like money to but they only seem to be interested in making the quick buck. In the long run if they acted more like a small business owner they would invest for the long term. But they don't care about the long term where more profits could be had. Again they only seem interested in grabbing what they can now which ultimately makes them less money. I guess this a point lost on most people today, oh well.