American Television Question

[eldargal]

No, it isn't 'why does American television suck', because it doesn't.

I have a question regarding audience numbers for US television programs. Some shows that are considered great successes (Homeland, Mad Men) get audiences between 1-3 million. Some shows that are considered moderately successful (Castle) get 10-12 million. My question is, why is the disparity so vast? I understand demographic and timeslot differences and whatnot but I'm just not sure how they can account for such a big difference in audience figures, and how thingamie that made Mad Men can afford to pay the creator many millions for a new series plus production costs which are quite high for costume dramas. So why does 2-3 million people watching Mad Men make it a hugely successful money spinner but ten million watching Castle make it moderately succesful?

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Because reasons...


I'm so helpful.

[White Tiger88]

No, it isn't 'why does American television suck', because it doesn't.

I have a question regarding audience numbers for US television programs. Some shows that are considered great successes (Homeland, Mad Men) get audiences between 1-3 million. Some shows that are considered moderately successful (Castle) get 10-12 million. My question is, why is the disparity so vast? I understand demographic and timeslot differences and whatnot but I'm just not sure how they can account for such a big difference in audience figures, and how thingamie that made Mad Men can afford to pay the creator many millions for a new series plus production costs which are quite high for costume dramas. So why does 2-3 million people watching Mad Men make it a hugely successful money spinner but ten million watching Castle make it moderately succesful?

Because Cocaine is a hell of a Drug. Also who ever pays off the critics gets the reviews

I find British Tv much better then American however, Shows like Merlin are just great!

[Wolfshade]

It could be owing to things like the profit per episode, or the amount of ad revenue generated by a particular programme, for instance advertising holiday's in california wouldn't work too well in a programme about shooting in california.

[Psychosplodge]

It could be based on potential audience, Not sure how US tv works, but if the various networks are geographicly limited then somewhere broadcasting to a smaller potential audience won't need as many viewers as a nationally broadcast program to be considered successful...

[Up The Walls!]

Unless I'm very much mistaken, a lot of these 'huge success but tiny viewer figures' shows are HBO shows, which is an anomalous channel since it's pay-to-view and lacks adverts. Since its profits are much more direct (you buy the channel, you don't pay the advertisers who pay you a tiny slice) then it can make as much money off two million viewers as NBC or whatever can off eight. Generally you can tell which shows are HBO over here because the episodes are actually an hour long.

The good thing about this, of course, is that because of how it works HBO is generally much less swift ti wield the axe on its shows. So it's more able to show 'unorthodox' things like The Wire which started out as a relatively standard police procedural and went all over Baltimore, or Game of Thrones, which would be so very cancelled on any other channel. It's very, very good, but who on earth do you advertise to in the breaks*?


*Which, annoyingly, is why there's so little science fiction on these days. The target demographic for sci-fi's now so varied that any potential advertising suitor's likely to only attract a quarter of the audience at most.

[eldargal]

Homeland is Showtime and Mad Men is AMC, I didn't mention other big HBO things like Rome and Boardwalk Empire (amongst many others).

[Up The Walls!]

Ah. Showtime at least is the same thing, a pay-to-view thingy. Not sure about AMC.

[eldargal]

Well taht would help explain it.

[Sean_OBrien]

Yep - the demos are weighted depending on their particular channel type.

The big 4 (CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox Broadcast) are all free for all channels. Anyone with a TV and a set of rabbit ears can watch them. Because almost all of their revenue is from simple advertising they have a higher bar for viewership in order to keep them around from season to season.

After that you have the various basic cable channels. Channels like AMC and the CW (though CW is available as broadcast in some markets) make up a large portion of their income from license rights to the service providers. The exact rates will vary some, but for example the Fox News Channel recently signed a new contract with Time Warner Cable for $1 per subscriber. Since the subscription fees paid by the provider offset the costs of production, they are at a lower bar. There are also fewer potential viewers in general on the cable services (not by a whole lot - especially with the various Dish providers...but still). They also gain a fair amount of advertising revenue as well - IIRC the breakdown ends up being around 25/75 on average (license fee to advertising income).

Finally you get to the premium channels. Showtime, Cinemax, HBO and channels like them make almost all their money through subscription fees. Since the potential market is much smaller (only those who are paying extra for it) the number of viewers who watch the show is strong in relation to that market segment. They also have a bit more leeway in creation as they are not subject to the same pressures from advertisers and what not.