Three episodes of
Stargate SG-1's tenth season and three episodes of
Stargate Atlantis's third season have aired as of today, and we have ratings for two weeks. For those who haven't read GateWorld's news story on this yet, here's how they fared:
For perspective,
SG-1 started in the mid 1.x range when it moved to SCI FI four years ago, and steadily grew to a weekly average of over 2.0. It was SCI FI's first show ever to do that. Last year the average waned, but just a little considering the major cast and story changes, to a 1.8.
Atlantis premiered two years ago to a record 3.2 rating, then settled into a nice routine in the low 2.x. Last year's average was also down a little, to 1.9.
All TV shows, of course, live and die by the ratings. And no, that isn't usually very fair. SCI FI doesn't really care how many people worldwide are watching the show; they are a U.S. cable network, and what matters to networks here is what they can charge for advertising. Their long-term goal is obviously to improve the standing of their network, not to safeguard the success of
Stargate.
So people who watch the new seasons later in Canada, or the United Kingdom, or Germany or France or Italy or Australia, don't matter to SCI FI Channel, which is the network that determines whether the shows are renewed or cancelled. People who buy the DVDs don't matter a lick to SCI FI (though we matter very much to MGM/Sony, who own the show and make the money from sales). People who download don't matter. And people who TiVo the show and watch days later matter very, very little.
In short,
Stargate's worldwide popularity as a science fiction series will help the franchise's overall health, but ultimately it won't impact the renewal decision.
Yeah, the ratings are pretty bad so far. But they came up in week two, which is a good sign. I hope and expect them to continue to rise, up to about the 1.8 mark -- at or just below last season's weekly average.
Where did all those people go? Are they out playing in the sunshine? Going to movie theaters? Watching other networks? Are they just tired of the Stargate formula? Has
Battlestar Galactica been carrying
Stargate for a year? I'm sure there are a lot of contributing factors, and it is unhelpful to pin the blame on any one factor.
But the question ultimately on the minds of fans is:
Will the shows be cancelled? If their ratings continue to run so low, I do think there is a good chance of at least
SG-1 getting the axe next year. (But, as I said, I am expecting the season average to rise above the poor ratings of these first two episodes.) SCI FI has a good track record of cancelling great shows with solid fan bases (see also:
Farscape) -- even
after renewal, when no one sees a cancellation coming.
But when they make such decisions, they do it because they know they have something else on which to fall back.
But they have Battlestar Galactica and its new spin-off, you say? True enough. But take note of SCI FI's master plan: according to a
recent report, the cable network wants year-round original programming, so they may delay the second half of the
Stargate season to March, when
Galactica (which starts in October) has finished its 20-episode run. They have a
lot of new shows debuting this year, and a lot more in the cooker.
Eureka premiered with excellent ratings (3.2), but its second week the expected fall-off was very steep. New show
Who Wants to be a Superhero? premiered with a decent (for inexpensive, reality TV) 0.9 rating, while oddity
Garth Marenghis' Darkplace bowed with a "Gosh, ya think?" 0.4 and
The Amazing Screw-on Head, that animated series no one has ever heard of, earned a 0.2 rating for its premiere.
My point is that in order to cancel
Stargate SG-1, SCI FI needs a lot more than
Battlestar Galactica to fall back on if it wants year-round original programming.
Eureka has some promise, but so far the network's
only sustained hit show is Wednesday night reality show
Ghost Hunters. Unless the development slate starts churning out hits, SCI FI will hold on to
Stargate for as long as it can.
Yes, the ratings have started low. No worries -- they'll come up. The second half of the season is traditionally higher rated, in large part because --
suprise! -- it's not summertime. Yes, SCI FI -- fewer people watch TV in the summer. The network counter-programming strategy was made irrelevant about two years ago, when cable started taking the networks to town in the fall and networks started airing new shows in the summer. If you want better ratings for
Stargate, I'd suggest you air it when your viewer base is indoors.
Born to be a Stargate fan, Darren started GateWorld in 1999. In addition to personal and freelance
Web work he is also a writer, a graduate student in theology, a husband and a father of two. He is a big fan
of genre hits like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, LOST, and Battlestar Galactica.
Good points, Darren. Well at least the ratings are now increasing.
Thanks for the info on the ratings. Learned a lot of stuff I didn't know :)
Hopefully SciFi will go on more than just ratings when deciding whether or not to cancel. Even if the ratings are lacking, I would hope that they would consider the popularity of the program and its worldwide appeal. Even with poor ratings, SG-1 and SGA are still good programming. It's one of the few things I tune into SciFi for. Is there a place to go to see what the ratings are for all the programs on SciFi? It is hard to imagine SG-1 or SGA anywhere below the average rating for series airing on SciFi.
Actually people who TiVo or DVR the show get recorded in with ratings via the cable company or satellite provider, so they don't matter "very, very little" considering that most of the network ratings are now done with the newer cable and satellite boxes.
Just because people who record the show to watch it later aren't watching it live (*gasp* maybe they have a life!) doesn't mean they don't matter the same as someone who watches it live.
In the UK the Sci-fi channel doesn't have BSG, Stargate or Eureka, and that channel is pretty much dead, no one watches it. I hope Stargate isn't cancled, but I won't be surprised if it did, 10 years!. If it is then I will protest outside Sky One's office and get them to renew it, you never know they might.
Other factors working against Stargate....
Dr Who doubled the ratings of the time slot it was put in. The good Doctor is going no where anytime soon and there is a demand for it. Also, Dr Who is the new kid on the block in terms of buzz and popularity. Pairing it with BSG is a good idea for SciFi and a new way to brand themselves.
The high ratings for Eureka don't help either.
Part of the decision to continue Stargate will come down to money. The cost factor has to be getting higher with the actors. Do you jettison all of the original cast and start over? Will that aliennate fans? Is part of the fun the chemistry between the actors?
Also, you have to ask--at what point can Stargate go out on top of its game? Has it passed that point? Do we see that point in the near future?
There are a lot of factors....
And as you said, SciFi did cancel Farscape....
It's "unhelpful" to examine why the franchise is in the situation it's in? That's rich. I hope that the folks at bridge are at least trying to figure out why the ratings have sunk to all time lows, even if it is unpleasant.
What is it with this place needing to not offend anyone and constantly fawning support for the shows no matter what? Acting like everything is just great is what went wrong in the first place. Perhaps too many fans weren't just bloviating and really were angry. This constant Jack who nonsense, the drastic diminishing of the Goauld in favor of the boring Ori, Vala's sluttiness, Mitchell literally stealing Carter's command away just cause he's got the correct anatomy between his legs, characters turning into pod people, etc, etc. Fans have been getting screwed over, plain and simple. The shows deserve low ratings right now.
Thanks, Darren, for your review so far.
By now you know that the third episodes of SG-1 and SGA both received a 1.5. Still not good, but hopefully the ratings will rise.
The second half of season 7 and 8 did do better than their respective first halves, but season 9's second half did decidely worse than its first half, with an average of 1.7.
I agree with the person above. TPTB need to at least consider that their "new direction" has lost a significant amount of viewers. Perhaps they will be able to pull some of them back over time. It is difficult to say.
Also the costs of making SG-1 are probably higher than SGA. So they may can SG-1 and give SGA one more season to perform better---this is if the ratings don't change very much.
Maybe episode 200 will pull in viewers, and then the ratings could stay steady from there.
Chocdoc
Anonymous #1,
My exact statement was: "It is unhelpful to pin the blame on any one factor." Of course Bridge, MGM, Sony, and SCI FI need to (and are) take a long, hard look at why this is happening.
But it's never going to have a simple answer. "Everyone is going to movie theaters instead" is an oversimplification, as is "The Ori are boring, that's why the ratings are low." Or "RDA left and it just took a year for people to realize that it had really happened."
Life is complicated shades of gray and swirly colors. And there is plenty of blame to go around.
Okay just to clarify one of the earlier comments the cable companies/ Neilson ratings do count DVR's but they don't count them as much as someone watching the show live because they assume that these customers fast forward through the commercials.