Viewers are tuning in for Stargate Universe … but the time slot? They don’t like it so much.
SGU ranked #5 in Nielsen’s list of the shows which gain the most from DVR (as a percentage of their premiere night audience), according to TV By the Numbers. The third Stargate series has been picking up an average of 46.9 percent more viewers in the seven days after the Friday night broadcast, thanks to time-shifted viewing.
The show is averaging 2.6 million viewers so far, when the DVR boost is factored in.
Leading the pack for 2009 is Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica, which saw a 59.4 percent increase in viewership due to DVR time-shifting. Four shows increased their audience by more than 50 percent, and six of the top 10 are in the sci-fi / fantasy genre (BSG, SGU, True Blood, Sanctuary, Heroes, and Terminator).
These numbers, of course, don’t account for those watching the show on Hulu, iTunes, Amazon.com
Friday night has been the standard for the Stargate franchise since SG-1 bowed on Showtime in 1997, and on Syfy in 2002. Though it is one of the least-watched nights of the week for television, Fridays have proven stable for genre programs … at least on cable.
When Syfy briefly tried moving Battlestar to Sunday nights, its numbers sank.
Syfy’s highest rated original dramas, though, don’t air on Friday nights at all. The summer series Warehouse 13 and Eureka have aired on Tuesdays — though during the summer, when competition from the major broadcast networks is lower.
Check out the full chart at TV By the Numbers. Stargate Universe returns to Syfy in April.
Are these the people watching DVR period or the people watching who don’t ff through the ads? Someone said those that ff aren’t included in the final ratings.
SGU is on Tuesday nights in the UK on Sky1, and it usually gets 1 million viewers, which is great in the UK considering the population of around 70m. In the UK, networks try to avoid friday/saturday nights because loads of people are out. Mabe the US should try mid-week?
My neighbor now has to watch my DVD-R I record from live tv or he has to watch it online. He had to get rid of Cable to afford other things.
DVRs are great and save time. Each Universe episode we have watched has only taken us about 15 minutes to get thru skipping past the non essential drama.
I always watch from download, since there is no stargate on tv in my country. The quality is always excellent and there’s no adds so it’s great. Ofcourse my viewing doesn’t add to the ratings.
@Imitation Tofu: DVRing period. I was Nielsened back in October and all they wanted to know was when the recorded show was watched and how long that took.
I DVR the show to FF over all the unnecessary hand wringing, yelling and non-action that fills 40-70% of each ep. At times it feels like SGU moves slower than a Dragonball Z marathon. :P
I don’t think I watch much of anything real-time anymore. It’s all DVR, Blu-ray or streaming HULU.
@mistergroenevingers – it’s silly it’s so difficult to see these shows if you’re not in the US or UK. I don’t download (mostly a technical issue not a goody 2 shoes one :-) I have no idea why companies ignores us. Would gladly pay to download.
in another life if i wasn’t on this god forsaken island, and poor, i’d dvr the hell out of universe too.
Quick question: Why is hulu, etc “less savory”? I can’t afford DVR and really most TV right now isn’t worth watching so it’s hard to justify the cost, but there are some shows that I enjoy but are in a darn inconvenient time. I caught up on all of Legend of the Seeker on hulu and a few SGU’s I missed I also watched on hulu. It’ll be a shame when hulu goes to a paid service that I’ve heard it will be doing next year.
Anyway, just thought I’d ask. Thanks.
By “less savory” I mean illegal downloading — Hulu, iTunes and Amazon are all perfectly savory. ;)
I think the recent news about Hulu going to a pay model has been blown out of proportion. It wasn’t an announcement that it’s happening — it was one head of one of the partner studios saying they ought to do it. Now it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they do go that way, but it’s not happening yet — and I’d be surprised if it happens in the next year.
I never even heard of Hulu before and I’ve read some comments from people talking about DVR which leads me to believe that that is some kind of on demand television broadcast via cable or a broadcast that is stored on a local harddrive hooked up to the tv set. I live in a pretty well developed country yet television here is seriously crap. There’s at least eigth commercial channels mostly airing BS tv that I don’t want to see. If one of them ever airs a stargate it will be a season I’ll have seen a few years back… Read more »
Darren, I see how I misinterpreted the way that was written. Thanks for clarifying! :)
I am glad they’re now taking into consideration DVR viewership in the ratings because IMO that is, at least in part, what hurt SG1 in the end.
Well There are two tv stations here, in Australia that are airing Stargate. Channel 10 is Airing Universe and Channel 7 Two is Airing the last season of Atlantis! Now you see why people don’t want to wait to watch it when it’s been out on dvd for 6 months give or take? And channel ten just started playing Universe with very little or no advertisement, to my knowledge, and i noticed they started playing it only after the mid season finale! So forgive me if i choose not to wait around and watch other boring crap that we have… Read more »
“Viewers are tuning in for Stargate Universe … but the time slot? They don’t like it so much.” WTF? I dont know where Darren is getting his theory, but the ratings and overwhelming negative reaction to this show, ESPECIALLY its so-called “cliffhanger”, clearly show that the viewers are NOT tuning into this show, and there is no way to capture the data on how those people use their recorded copy. Do they sit back and watch the commercials and drama? Do they take it off the DVR and store it later? THEY DONT, sorry. This place is one of exactly… Read more »
Kobe, I’m not sure where to begin. The tone of my articles and others on this site are generally positive, because I and our other writers are generally liking the show. I understand that many Stargate fans don’t, and that’s fine — but the implication that we are just shilling is insulting. Is it so hard to believe that other people might like the show? This story doesn’t do much to defend SGU beyond passing on the DVR-delayed ratings numbers from TV by the Numbers. That data shows that SGU is among the leaders in all of television for people… Read more »
I started watching the next day on Saturday… The time slot isn’t really that convenient for us..
Thank you for your response, Darren. Please dont misidentify me as a typical SGU-hating troll. I am a total Stargate fan, from the movie to Stargate Atlantis, and not so strangely, I did NOT particularly care for Battlestar Galactica (the new one). But the whining and complaining you are hearing from fans is about the same, right? “Waah, its not like SG-1 or SGA..waah” “Waah, its all drama and now has shaky cam like BSG…waah” Well, the numbers for SGU now include DVR because those numbers can be manipulated to distort viewership ratings. The constant comparing SGU to the last… Read more »
Kobe: I don’t think the statement that you quoted above is glowingly positive. It states the mathematical average of Nielsen ratings. 2.6 million is better than 2.5 million, but not as high as 2.7 million. Second, this story is primarily about passing along the ratings data provided in the network’s press release. Viewership decline isn’t really the issue, particularly when virtually every show on television drops off after its series premiere. We’ve also reported the decline on a nearly weekly basis over the fall months. Third, the downward trending numbers you give switch midway from Live+7 to Live+SD. That’s clearly… Read more »
“Third, the downward trending numbers you give switch midway from Live+7 to Live+SD. That’s clearly misleading.” DO THEY? Look again. I clearly post BOTH sets of numbers, Live +7 and also Live +SD…not misleading at all. “Fourth, Nielsen started measuring and reporting DVR viewership a couple of years ago, so there is Live+7 data for the last few years of Atlantis. That is what Syfy is comparing SGU’s Live+7 to, as they should.” REALLY? So if you adjusted your statement here which reads: “The show is averaging 2.6 million viewers so far, when the DVR boost is factored in.” What… Read more »
Kobe: You’re right, you posted the downtrend for each number set and I read over it too quickly. My apologies. To the best of my knowledge, Syfy is here comparing Live+7 SGU numbers to Live+7 SGA numbers. (SG-1 is not relevant, since Live+7 was not reported before the show ended.) The statement is not meant to “imply” anything other than the fact that 2.6 is the mathematical average of the Nielsen data. Syfy wishes it was higher, but of course they spin it to be as mind-blowingly wonderful as they can. But the statement “4 is the average of 3+4+5”… Read more »
Mkay…whatever. I have said my peace and you guys have not deleted it. Frankly, Im quite surprised at that. And thank you for taking the time to address my concerns as directly and honestly as you have. I hope that SGU give me something to come back to in Season 2. I think that season 1 may be a wash if its done in the same BSG-esque style that the first 10 have been done. Season 2 holds some promise since they havent started filming yet. Im willing to see. I DVR’d “justice” and have watched pretty much only the… Read more »
SGU is so very slow and boring I generally go to sleep and have to vatch it three of four time to figure out who is back stabbling who and who is pairing up with who, so a DVR is necessary to get through each episode, I guess it is so slow my interest is lost and I go to sleep.