Ratings Are Down for The Expanse Already
On Wednesday, Syfy’s The Expanse aired its second Season 3 episode and saw its ratings drop to a 0.15 score based on same day viewing with 500K total viewers. That’s a notable decline from its premiere the prior week which pulled a 0.21 score. James S.A. Corey (the pseudonym for the two authors that write the books) had the following to say about the show on Twitter:
So here's the thing, guys. SYFY does not own #TheExpanse . They pay to license the show and then make money off of advertising. So, people watching the show during broadcast is how they make their living. That's the only number that matters to them for renewal purposes.
— James S.A. Corey (@JamesSACorey) April 18, 2018
He went on to say about buying episodes on Amazon and iTunes:
Now, if you buy the show on iTunes or Google or Amazon or wherever, that helps the studio that produces the show and actually owns it, which in this case is Alcon. So buying the show does help us as it makes the show profitable for the studio. . . . But, for purposes of whether SYFY wants to keep licensing the show, the only number that matters is live viewership, and to a lesser extent L3 and L7 viewers on DVR.
So this show is in much the same situation as Dark Matter was. Syfy sees no long-term financial gain from it, so it needs to make money on the advertising from the live broadcasts. If the show is not pulling enough viewers at the Wednesday 9 PM EST timeslot, then advertisers will not be interested in buying commercial time. Digital viewing on the Syfy website may help because the network runs adds during those streams, but it does not make as much money from that. Since the majority of us are not Nielsen families, our viewing during the live broadcast is not counted. But if we watch the digital streams, those views will be counted, and if we live-tweet during the broadcast that helps as well to prove the show has a strong following. And if fans stay active on the social networks throughout the week, that will bring attention to the show, and hopefully attract more viewers.
The numbers for The Expanse are not quite at the point that I would put it On the Bubble yet, but if it slips much more I will rethink that. This show continues to get plenty of good buzz, which helps its status, but it needs viewers watching the live broadcasts and live-tweeting at that time as well.
Ratings Results of Interest: Supergirl is Back, Legion Drops Again
On Monday, The CW’s Supergirl returned from its hiatus now that Legends of Tomorrow has wrapped up its third season. It posted a 0.6 rating based on same day viewing in the demo with 1.9 million total viewers which was down slightly from where it was in January, but not bad for The CW these days. In the lead-out hour, iZombie improved slightly to 0.3 rating with 814K total viewers. Over on FOX, Lucifer slipped to a 0.7 rating with 3.2 million total viewers, but fans are lobbying hard for the network to give that one a fourth season.
On Tuesday, FX’s Legion slipped to a 0.16 rating with 380K total viewers, and it is definitely starting to look iffy for its network. Over on Freeform, Shadowhunters remained low at a 0.12 rating with 296K total viewers and that one will be getting moved to Bubble status pretty soon. On Wednesday, The CW’s The Originals returned for its fifth and final season and posted a 0.4 rating with 1.1 million total viewers which are decent enough numbers for that one while it is in its last season. Syfy’s Krypton slipped a bit to a 0.22 rating with 725K total viewers, but it is still on track for a second season renewal.
On Thursday, Freeform’s Siren improved again as it pulled 0.26 rating with 692K total viewers. That one is performing well for its network and looks likely to get a second season renewal at this point. Over on FOX, Gotham slipped to match a series low 0.6 rating with 2.2 million total viewers and its chances of a fifth season continue to wane.
Thank you for going in-depth on the situation with The Expanse. I followed James S.A. Corey’s conversation on Twitter closely and I try to dedicate some time each week to chatting about the series on there as well as promoting it (within reason) on my Facebook sci-fi/fantasy group. It’s never easy being a diehard fan of a show with low viewership numbers. This website’s commitment to broadcasting the logistics of these fraught scenarios really helps.
As per your suggestion, Johnny Jay, I’ll start making some noise on Twitter during the live airings every Wednesday night as well. I didn’t want to do that because I’d prefer to just… you know… watch the show, but I’ll do what must be done as a fan of good science fiction television. 😛
The numbers for The Expanse really surprise me. I had thought it was a very hot property, but that’s obviously not the case. It always comes down to the Nielsen families. For decades, they have had way too much weight, IMO. I understand digital viewers, I think it would be hard to get anymore reliable data than they provide.
This is the first time I’ve read where watching live doesn’t really matter unless you’ve got the Nielsen box. I had always thought it to be the case, but it’s nice to actually see it in print. It’s also good to see where the impact provided by social media is becoming more important to advertisers.
We know all too well that SyFy won’t hesitate to pull the plug on moderate performers. Heck, didn’t Dark Matter have the numbers and they still got the ax. It’s hard to imagine anyone beating their, “save the show”, social media campaign, which in the end didn’t make a bit of difference.
Not only is there a ton of ways to watch programming these days, it’s also getting difficult to decide which method benefits the show the most. It shouldn’t be this hard. The current TV advertising model seems like a paper tiger anyway. I guess viewing digitally is about the only way that guarantees that people actually watch the ads. Before long, advertisers are going to figure out that all that money they plow into TV isn’t necessarily helping their product. They just don’t know what else to do. Hopefully TV execs are preparing for the day when the Netflix method is the only game in town. Might not be a bad thing either, especially for a property like the Expanse.
I wouldn’t quite say that the effort by Dark Matter fans didn’t make a difference. What they did got some attention in the industry and Joseph Mallozzi continues to push for a final season of the show. A possible landing place is the Stargate Command streaming service that is currently all Stargate but which could expand to become a dedicated platform for sci fi. So there is still hope for that show.
I watched Legion last season. S2, E1 left me so confused as to what was supposed to be going on that I gave it up a little over half way through and deleted the timer. Can’t imagine what they were thinking.