Stargate Universe has rebounded a bit in viewership since the mid-season finale last December. After peaking with 1.6 million viewers (“Live + Same Day”) tuning in for “Divided,” the spring season has gone up and down a bit with the sort of weekly variance one would expect.
“Human” did set a new low for the show, with 1.313 million viewers on Friday. But SGU rebounded significantly the next week, with 1.587 million for “Lost.”
Last week also marked the first time that SGU‘s lead-out series, Merlin, beat it in the Friday night ratings — though Stargate won in the coveted Adults 18 to 49-year-old demographic.
Here’s the full chart of the season so far, starting with the fall:
| EPISODE (air date) | VIEWERS (million) | CHANGE |
| Air, Part 1 (Oct. 2) | 2.346 | |
| Air, Part 2 (Oct. 2) | 2.346 | |
| Air, Part 3 (Oct. 9) | 2.447 (season high) | + 3% |
| Darkness (Oct. 16) | 2.099 | – 14% |
| Light (Oct. 23) | 2.015 | – 4% |
| Water (Oct. 30) | 1.974 | – 2% |
| Earth (Nov. 6) | 1.626 | – 18% |
| Time (Nov. 13) | 1.802 | + 11% |
| Life (Nov. 20) | 1.891 | + 5% |
| Justice (Dec. 2) | 1.340 | – 29% |
For the second half of the season, so far:
| EPISODE (air date) | VIEWERS (million) | CHANGE |
| Space (Apr. 2) | 1.486 | + 11% |
| Divided (Apr. 9) | 1.600 | + 8% |
| Faith (Apr. 16) | 1.422 | – 11% |
| Human (Apr. 23) | 1.313 (season low) | – 8% |
| Lost (Apr. 30) | 1.587 | + 21% |
| Sabotage (May 7) | 1.391 | – 12% |
None of these numbers include DVR-delayed “Live + 7” data. Until that data is in, we won’t know just how much of its fall audience the show has lost in 2010 and how much shifted to viewing a recorded episode later in the week. For the first half of the season, those numbers added nearly 47 percent to SGU’s viewership, putting it in fifth place in Nielsen’s list of the shows which gain the most from DVR-delayed viewing (as a percentage of their premiere night audience) (story).
For the first half of the season, the series averaged 2.57 million viewers per week, with DVR data factored in (story).
The lower ratings for the second half of the season aren’t entirely unexpected, as any new series typically garners higher numbers for its premiere and tapers off from there to settle into its weekly average.
The numbers may also partially explain Syfy’s decision to give SGU a shot at the more watched and more competitive Tuesday night, starting with the Season Two premiere in October (story). (The network’s highest-rated original dramas, Warehouse 13 and Eureka, air on Tuesdays during the summer months.)
With the notable exception of last Friday, Universe has stayed on top for Syfy’s Friday night shows in 2010, drawing more viewers than either Caprica or Merlin.
Just four hours remain for SGU‘s freshman year. Don’t miss this week’s new episode, “Pain,” Friday night at 9 p.m. (8 Central) on Syfy!
Source: TVbytheNumbers and PIFeedback.com
I hate to repeat it, but we were told this was supposed to just keep getting better. SGA fanbase + new audience = ? With only a couple of episodes left in the season how are they going to be able to grow those numbers?
“Life” harmed SGU,
-29% in “Justice” :(
Glad to see they are going to be trying another night. Friday just didn’t seem like a good night. I don’t think Warehouse 13 is better than SGU or Caprica…so hopefully the change of nights will help. Tuesdays may be a good night, but I also wonder if the ratings of Warehouse 13 and Eureka aren’t as high as they are because they are on Tuesdays during the summer. I’d be curious to see how well Warehouse 13 and Eureka fared during another part of the year, and how well SGU and Caprica would do over the summer.
While I don’t mind Warehouse 13… it has the feel of a comedic drama than anything. The only thing it’s missing is a laugh track.
SGU, while not exactly like SG1 and SGA (which incidentally is a *good* thing), is more gritty and about emotions and acting more than witty one-liners. But the public is fickle and collectively dumb, so tv shows have to cater to that. Hence every single dumb reality tv show on american channels.
“The lower ratings for the second half of the season aren’t entirely unexpected, as any new series typically garners higher numbers for its premiere and tapers off from there to settle into its weekly average.” WHAT??? SGU’s second half got less viewers than Stargate Atlantis in its 5. season! It isn’t “typically” that a new series lose so many viewers so fast. SGA’s season 5 average is 1.6 million viewers live + same day. The second half of season 5 got even 1.7 million viewers live + SD. The live + SD average for the second half of season 1… Read more »
Soo can someone explain to me if this is good or bad? lol. Im no good at this stuff. This tells how many people are watching destiny every week? How do they count that, do our tellies transmit back to them? Anyway it looks pretty good if its millions watching lol
It’s truly unfortunate, since the 2nd half of the season has been incredibly strong. Loving the direction of the show!
Truly unfortunate. I think that many where turned off with the first half of the season and did not return. The second half has been really good.
@jeanette178 It is hard to imagine these ratings being spun as a good thing. SGU was promoted as a show that could bring in new viewers to the Stargate franchise. Now, it appears that SGU is going to have the lowest season average rating of any Stargate show ever on Sci-fi (or SyFy). This is definitely bad news for Universe and the Stargate franchise. While it may seem like a lot, a bare million viewers is not a good thing. Even on cable. Moreover, next season it is being bumped from the traditional home of science fiction, Friday night, so… Read more »
Darren, it seems you were right about the bump the show receives with the Live + 7 day numbers. I just read this on Joe M’s blog:
“Hmmm. Looking over these live+7 numbers. Human, the last episode charted, received a whopping 47% bump from time-shifted viewers, the biggest to date. That’s almost half our audience! I guess that’s what you get for having a techy fanbase.”
As much as I like SGU, they really need to get over this pretentious, moralizing, boring “drama” stuff. That drives the ratings down, as well as draining the life out of the show.
The Stargate franchise was rolling along beautifully and then it made a left turn and drove right off a cliff when SGA was cancelled and SGU was pushed off onto Stargate fans as new an improved. First, Stargate didn’t need much improvement and secondly, SGU turned out to be a complete disaster. Of course its ratings are down…. Where SG-1 and SGA had humor and human qualities which made you care about the characters, SGU has none of that. Back to the drawing board and either bring SGA back or give us a new Stargate that preserves the essence of… Read more »
Ouch! lol nothing to laugh about though. This is quite sad to see and not a good sign for this franchise to say the least. I hope the ratings do go up in season 2 after season 1 ends. Life really really killed this series almost 500,000 viewers stopped watching it. I haven’t had the pleasure/shame of watching the rest of the series because they cancelled the series here in Australia after 3 or 4 episodes can’t exactly remember. Anyway I look forward to watching it on DvD when the whole set comes out. It seems there is a massive… Read more »
The last two shows in the series were, in my opinion, the best so far.I’m surprised that the overall viewers declined for the live version telecast for the second of those last two. I would have thought anyone having seen the first of those would come back for the second. Perhaps the delayed ratings will show improvement overall for the second of the last two.
I’m fairly positive the THREE MONTH HIATUS might have a tiny bit to do with less viewership.
Half the “new audience” didn’t like SGU, the other half didn’t remember it. Us “veterans?” We’re mostly a mix of both.
News like this is hater fuel. These numbers have been, are and always will be flawed.
@ DarkElfa
You think tvbythenumbers.com is run by disgruntled Atlantis who are surreptitiously deflating Universe’s numbers to encourage anti-Universe sentiment? Oh my. That’s a theory that would make the birthers proud.
Still no sign of BSG writer’s excellence. Maybe ripping off the violin music and “darker grittier” shooting style it’s not enough? More adventure and action with great writing and bit of humor = strong ratings. And please use drameh when it’s needed, only. BTW: Episode with Rush and his adorable female friend in Wray’s body was just D’AWWWWWW. I hope to see her again, It’s a shame they didn’t get laid this time. It’s her only chance in lifetime, you know? Rush is just a douchebag. Have mercy for that girl! I love the fact she talked about ascension with… Read more »
The long hiatus likely has something to do with it. I really hate the holiday vacation time cop-out nonsense. If a show is good people will watch it regardless of the day.
If for example 24 aired on say Christmas or Thanksgiving, my entire family would be getting together to watch it and it’d be much more exciting than the millionth rendition of It’s a Wonderful Life or some cruddy Lions game.
*stops rambling*
I wouldn’t worry about the ratings at the moment. First of all, the DVR ratings are very good and even if they don’t mean anything to Syfy, they know the numbers and will do something to make people watch it live (for example, sending the shows to Tuesday night). Will it help the show? Who knows… Secodly, we still got the second season. Syfy isn’t FOX, CBS or NBC that will just axe the show if it doesn’t do as good as expected. We will at least have two seasons but I think the third season will also go our… Read more »
The fact is SGU isn’t so much of a continuation of SG1 and SGA as it is a side-step in a new direction entirely. The fan base has changed, and it would seem, has declined somewhat. That happens with such drastic changes in format, and it’s certainly no surprise. It will be interesting to see if the live+7 data also reflects this.
Mathematically, a 47 percent boost from DVR would account for nearly one third of SGU’s audience (on Syfy), not half. But that’s still a huge number. It also doesn’t track iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, and (obviously) illegal downloads. @psw: The statement you quoted is meant to point out that nearly every series (for Syfy, Warehouse 13 is the only exception I know of, much to its credit) premieres very high — relative to its season average — because more money is spent on marketing and more people give it a try to see if they like it. The comparison of SGU… Read more »
@ Darren SGA started of course with MUCH MORE viewers than SGU. SGA’s worst Syfy HH rating was in its first season 1.7 and in its second season 1.5. SGU on the other hand already had once a 1.0 Syfy HH rating. SGU started with much less viewers than SGA, so it can’t afford the lost of many viewers. And it is not like SGU is only losing in the USA much viewers. Australia’s free TV channel TEN cancelled it after three weeks and in Germany and the UK the ratings are also getting more and more disappointing. I made… Read more »
psw, I guess, is one of those who run that other forum against SGU… Anyway, viewership doesn’t show the quality of the show, let’s just say Atlantis was more “accessible” to casual viewer or, in general, to a typical TV viewer than SGU. Of course, it seems that the numbers were affected by the fact that most of the Atlantis fans left the show too… I haven’t seen many new fans SGU attracted but it has gained some… and not from the category of people who would shout and insult others if their show is cancelled. SGA won’t return, we… Read more »
hiatus got nothing to do with it happens alot on american shows some have be 4-5 months and when they come back they nearly always get good viewing, sgu don’t because it not that good, space been the best epiosde so far, others had monents but in the end, they try to change something that was not broken and now made it alot worse, mean fan lose out as they be no more money too fund other series later on
Mallozzi: “Hmmm. Looking over these live+7 numbers. Human, the last episode charted, received a whopping 47% bump from time-shifted viewers, the biggest to date. That’s almost half our audience! I guess that’s what you get for having a techy fanbase.” Mallozzi is of course spinning the numbers. It is spinning because of various reasons: 1. Live + 7 days ratings are unimportant for Syfy. People who record series usually don’t watch the commercials. 2. It is much easier to get a high percentage increase with the + 7 numbers, when the live numbers are small. When a series gets for… Read more »
I’ve never been good at understanding these rating numbers as they have never really been in as big a spotlight before, at least that I’ve noticed.
So I like reading the comments on news bits like this, both the positive and negative sides to it because it really helps me get a better overall picture of things and also seems to bring out lots of interesting information as you all make your counter-points :)
Anyway… I have nothing valuable to contribute so carry on :D
@ lkrnpk “psw, I guess, is one of those who run that other forum against SGU…” Just because I am also active on another site, doesn’t mean that my facts and conclusions are wrong! Go, read the ratings thread in the Gateworld forum. You will notice that a lot of objective SGU fans agree with me, that the ratings of the second half of SGU’s first season aren’t good. As I already stated in my comment from May 14 @ 7:45 am, I made some overviews which compare the Syfy HH ratings of SGA and SGU, and the ratings of… Read more »
A couple of observations: 1. The show started with less viewers than SGA in its first season and ratings are down. Even slightly down means you are loosing viewers. A series with that kind of trend will have a hard time turning it around. 2. I watch the show just to see it get better. I am not a hater, but I just don’t like the tone and melodrama (this is not drama). I am “old school” scifi fan. Adventure, “drama”, aliens,coming together to solve stuff. Instead what I get is rivals, competing factions, over the top melodrama and very… Read more »
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here: been too disappointed in the odd pro-SGU at any cost regime; though I understand defending it the franchise has taken up a lot of our collective time over the years – it isn’t fun to hear something you feel connected to debased. I was amused this morning to read the spin (on both sides) regarding SGU. Full disclosure: I quit watching after the needlessly trite surgery on Rush including an attack, a mutiny, a doctor from Earth via the stones, who is then interrupted, and then Rush woke up, plus TJ finally… Read more »
I personally love this show!!!! Even if I dont consider it the best if all the stargate shows, I still root for this one to succeed! If they cancel this one, they are lessproeme to want to create another one.
Ugh I mean less-prone … Stupid iPhone auto correction
Come on, V is failing both as a show and ratings wise. Maybe SGU is failing too but I don’t see how V is getting better… i watched the first episodes, then another one and abandoned it… Life made me almost leave SGU too but after that ep. it has improved a lot… You know how often I rewatch SGA seasons 3-5? I haven’t rewatched them at all. I’d like to watch Vegas and The Shrine from season 5 for some time and that’s it- certainly no “plague nr.5, Atlantis shutdown again”, “‘McKeller out of the blue and no chemistry”,… Read more »
I Watch SGU every friday and start it about 30 minutes late with my DVR so i don’t have to watch commercials. i don’t care when the show is on, I will watch it. But friday night at 9 is the WORST time slot. I mean seriously, for everyone that has a life and no DVR, there aren’t a lot of options. i don’t know why they don’t factor DVR ratings in. Clearly the people that record the show are interested enough to take the time to record it. So what, these people don’t matter to syfy? That is just… Read more »
Re: competition. I gave a good try at watching Caprica which had some very interesting parts but was spoiled for me by the 16 year old protagonist we just saw far too much of (sound familiar?) So I gave it up. I tried V a few times but also never really got into it, perhaps because I didn’t fancy the original premise either. SGU in Canada is spoiled by far too many annoying commercials and besides I largely disqualify myself due to the incessant unnecessary shakey-cam zooming. My theory is that good sci-fi as we knew it is just dead… Read more »
Perhaps SGU would have greater international ratings had it remained on “free tv”, that is the standard and ubiquitous free-to-air televelsion for Australia. But after only showing a total of 3 episodes, Season 1 and subsequent seasons were canned here, only to be watched by those who could afford payTV (Foxtel/Austar). This is me berating stupid Australian television, we have about 11 free channels, and not one could pick up the license to show SGU. If any of you American SG fans out there ever get the chance to come to Australia, we have none of your benefits, and out… Read more »
I rarely post here anymore because of the anti SGU crowd. I have to say that while I love SGU the ratings are not good. IMO the show is great but the so-called die hard SG fans can’t get over the fact that this show is different. I am an avid SG fan and have been from the beginning and SGU is just as good as SG-1 and SGA. Unfortunately not everyone agrees and I seriously doubt SGU will last beyond season 2. Which is a shame IMO because it would mean the end of Stargate for a while. SGU… Read more »
kellx: ” i am a die hard SG fan and my ratings don’t matter to you because i watch the show at my convenience?” No, you don’t matter to the network because you don’t watch the commercials (as you expressly stated and most DVR- viewers don’t). For TV networks, the only thing that matters is how many viewers watch the commercials as they are paid for by the advertising companies and bring in money. More viewers means more expensive commercial slots due to higher chances of people storming off and buying avertised products :o). The network gains nothing at all… Read more »
Last July at Comic Con I was excited about the cast and their comments at the panel discussion. Since then, nothing but disappointment. No real exploring of other worlds or cultures; inexpensive or non-existent special effects by keeping all of action on the same sound stage of the ship; soap opera and most action back on earth (again, much cheaper to shoot); basically the same story over and over again. Depressing action, characters and dialog. The last season of Atlantis was great, and the best of any Stargate seasons except the first years of SG1. What a disappointment. I am… Read more »
All the explanations of why SGU is not doing as well as expected are overlooking the obvious. The majority of SG-1 and SGA fans don’t like SGU, and without that fan base of course the ratings are low and will remain so. SGU is mediocre at best and will never reach the numbers the first two shows posted. Give us a new show in the tradition of the first two shows and the fan base will come back. Stick with SGU and the fan base will stay away. It’s really that simple.