It was surely one of the most intense, edge-of-your-seat episodes of Stargate Universe — but did viewers tune in for the show’s penultimate installment? The ratings are in.
SGU held close to the 1 million mark on Monday, with the penultimate episode “Blockade” dropping 9 percent to turn in an estimated viewership of 993,000 viewers (Live + Same Day). In the important demographic of adults 18 to 49, the show earned a 0.3 rating.
Sanctuary also shed viewers at 10 p.m., losing 3 percent of last week’s audience. The show’s second week on Monday nights earned 838,000 viewers for “Metamorphosis,” with a paltry 0.2 rating in the demo.
The series retained 84 percent of its lead-in audience from Stargate, better than last week’s 79 and change.
The show has already been renewed for Season Four, so Sanctuary fans can breathe easy about how it is performing on Monday nights this spring. But for comparison: Caprica‘s Tuesday night average in October was 822,500 viewers over four weeks, before Syfy cancelled it.
In the 9 p.m. hour on the big networks this week, ABC’s Dancing With the Stars conquered all with an average of 21.4 million viewers over two hours (9-10 p.m.). CBS aired a repeat of Two and a Half Men at 9 p.m. to almost 7.7 million viewers, followed by Mike & Molly with just under 8.2 million. NBC’s The Event drew 4.1 million, while on FOX an estimated 5.6 million tuned in for The Chicago Code.
And how did Urban Legends do on its first Friday night? As expected, considerably better. After premiering with a little over 400,000 viewers in the post-SGU slot now occupied by Sanctuary, the show turned in 1.307 million viewers when given the coveted post-wrestling spot. That’s a 211 percent improvement — but an 8 percent drop from what Sanctuary did in that time slot a week earlier.
WWE Smackdown turned in an astonishing 3.057 million over two hours (8-10 p.m.).
Only one episode of Stargate Universe remains! Tune in Monday, May 9 for “Gauntlet,” the SGU series finale. You can read more about the episode in GateWorld’s Season Two episode guide.
"T.J." actress Alaina Huffman reveals the other role she auditioned for, and why she fought…
Actor David Nykl looks back on Stargate Atlantis, being part of the fan community, and…
EXCLUSIVE: A classic Atlantis ship is now in the works from Master Replicas – one…
Fans in and around Vancouver, B.C. can attend a live recording of YVR Screen Scene…
Pre-orders go live this week for the next ship in Earth's fleet, set to ship…
Get ready for a cast reunion this spring in the U.K., with actors from across…
View Comments
Don't you mean the SGU series ending cliffhanger?
Wow SyFy, looks like you're learning the hard way what anyone with LOGIC could have told you two years ago!
Move a show around = disappearing audience.
Poor marketing = disappearing audience.
Great quality without awareness from the public = failed experiment BY THE CHANNEL, NOT THE SHOW!
Just sucks that the great shows like Caprica and Universe were the proverbial guinea pigs by the SyFy Channel.
Fact: Setting a Stargate series in the Fall/Spring tv-season, on the busiest night(s) of the week for network television, is NOT a good thing.
Putting the show on a Summer/Winter schedule is far less competitive. But I guess we'll never know if that would've fixed the ratings, will we?
sanctuary is the little fish in the big ocean now. not good.
Stargate was on Friday night for like 13 years. Why did they change that?
Agreed majorsal. Sanctuary was moved to a night with some very fierce competition. SGU and Sanctuary were up against Dancing with the Stars on ABC, House and Chicago Code on Fox, high-rated sitcoms on CBS, and Law and Order LA on NBC. On Tuesdays, it was against NCIS... next we'll see SyFy moving shows to Wednesday to compete with American Idol...
I think SyFy needs to accept smaller numbers in the fall than in the summer. In the summer it WILL get higher numbers because there are fewer new shows on, especially genre shows so genre fans especially will be looking for new shows to watch.
I think SyFy should accept 800,000-1 million viewers on Monday and Tuesday nights during primetime shows as the norm. Either that, or they should begin to take into account more DVR viewership on those nights. The Sanctuary audience IS still there, just not watching live. If SyFy does not accept this fact of fewer viewers on Mondays and Tuesdays during the fall/spring seasons over winter/summer then I guarantee that almost every show will fail.
This is so bloody frustrating. I have never been so upset at a network before over its mismanagement. And because of its mismanagment and incompetence, a great show was lost! FOX even renewed Fringe, DESPITE getting lower numbers! FOX of all networks! But SyFy could not renew its biggest franchise show (may not get as many viewers, but Stargate is still a big name for the network to have). Ugh, so frustrating!
Seriously how can they renew Sanctuary for another season with figures dropping to the same as SGU? They've given Sanctuary a chance, obviously up until season 4.. Why not for SGU
Really annoyed now, I like Sanctuary but SGU is a superior show in every sense!
SGU was great! Im waiting for comics :)
I was just starting to get back into the show. Hadn't seen any sad unending moments with sappy music for a while and the last episode even made me laugh. The writers caused the decay but I guess the channel poorly evaluated the scripts to come.