Hey just wondering how many people actually watch the L word and their ratings on showtime..is their a site to go to and see if its the most populist show on showtime?

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Mod edit to add ratings summary table. (ht)

[quote=Aleisha]Hey just wondering how many people actually watch the L word and their ratings on showtime..is their a site to go to and see if its the most populist show on showtime?

I think i read somewhere that they average about 1 million per episode...but for some reason i swore it would have been more than that???? Who knows but good question! It has to be a pretty significant number for them to have renewed them for another season.

Yeah its got to be a good number for it to get renewed but thats cool, thanks.

It's not like i really know, but i just felt like shouting you out...hate to see a lonely post

I would love to help the ratings as best I could, but I don't have Showtime . I have to go over to my friend's house to watch it. I can't wait until it comes out on DVD.

Form thefutoncritic.com:

The Futon Critic reports 936,000 total viewers watched the two-episode opener of Showtime's "The L Word," which averaged a 0.5 national rating among adults 18-49.



That's just the first ep though so it's probably risen.

Here in Australia we recently had a growth of 64,000 viewers to 411,000 due to the recent advertising controvery.

YAY!

Oz

yay! To bad it doesn't have 'enough' veiwers to be in Entertainment Weekly...you need I think 2 mill or more or something. It will one day!

Sadly, it never will.

They don't release ratings for shows like TLW. The first episode was the only time ratings were released. Nielsen says [the shows] don't release these numbers. This would explain why none of the shows are ever on the top 50 cable ratings. They don't seem to divulge this information.

Ratings are really only useful as far as advertising dollars are concerned. Since premium cable networks don't depend on advertising for their survival, they aren't as motivated by ratings as other networks, furthermore there is no need for them to release these numbers to gain revenue.

~Slicey

Anybody want to place any bets? I am saying that the S2 will be at least 10% higher in ratings then S1..........and will be every proceeding season!!!!

lol okay..I just realized I just said what Gargy said but in a bit different form. So I agree Gargy.

Ah, but I said at least 10%!

lol yeah...I edited my post.

i don't think ratings will necessarily reflect accurately the actual number of people watching a show like "the l word", cos, well, it's the kind of show you gather in groups to watch. so you should prob multiply that number by 5, or 8, or 15! heh. that IS bad news for a cable provider, although dvd sales should be good, especially internationally.

Ok i must say that although there is showtime in lebanon but there is only one person that watch the show and thats me sadly yeh only me and i dont even watch it on show time and i think in all the Arab world there like one fan and thats me this is just so sad

Ugh. I just got these ratings numbers and they're really, really bad.

I hope this is only because there were so many pre-screenings and viewings around the country that more people watched it out in groups than in at home.

Here's the news from USA Today.com

•L is for low-rated. The second-season premiere of Showtime's lesbian drama, The L Word, sank to 515,000 viewers, down by nearly half from the 936,000 who tuned in for last January's opener. Women outnumbered men 2-1.

I'll feel much better if the ratings are up closer to one million again this Sunday. *crosses fingers*

~Slicey

Doubt it since it's gonna be airing opposite the oscars. I wouldn't be worried though since the numbers are still within it's average last season (which was around a little less than 600K according to the other article in the articles thread) and it's double what Huff got the entire season.

I don't think it would be fair to compare last season's premiere to this season's.

repost from the articles thread:



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Feb23.html

Thanks acid, I forgot about the Oscars.
I'd still like this show to achieve #s closer to QAF.

~S.

Just wondering how do the powers that be get these ratings? I don't remember anyone calling me to ask if I watch the show. I have digital cable... I'm in Western Canada... the show is on Monday nights on Movie Central (which I subscribe to). I just don't understand how these ratings can be accurate. And, the numbers that people gave in the last few posts, is that for the USA... or the world? Can anybody explain this rating mumbo jumbo to me? Please?!

Those ratings aren't accurate. I don't know about cable, but ratings are usually controlled by Nielsen and you only count as a viewer if you have a Nielsen box that keeps track on what you watching.

Ratings for Lap Dance

second episode reating isn't too bad considering it aired against the oscar and that they aired the episode 3 times in succession.

It's just under the average viewing numbers which are around 600 thou give ot take.

Wow

I hope that rating will increase

cami wrote:



me too!

but what is the position of the show with the rest of Showtime?

I was convinced for all the media boom about the show, that the veiwers and fans are going to be more than S1. I don't understand 'cause even in my country (we don't have showtime), in my province, small one, I bought the DVD's and lended them to my friends (and they to others, who are going to buy it too) and now we are a little group of poeple that follow the show. And I think this process is around the world, for a tv program that is not available for everybody I think is really good.

Inciso: Que raro se me hace leerte en ingles niña

I don´t know if the rating of TLW is better or worse than the other shows of SHOWTIME

but, like you and me a lot of people watch the show without any influence in that rating so we can´t do a lot :'(

It's still the highest rated show on Showtime and it's doing better than HBO on Sunday nights. There is nothing to worry about.

Thank you very much Manu! Just wondering... why do they do it then... if only a select few have the box? That's pretty silly.

That's not exactly true Manu.

I worked in sports and entertainment marketing for a little while, so I'll try to explain this for everyone. The ratings that you see apply only to the original aring of an episode and only to the U.S. Because it's impossible for anyone or anything to ever get an exact calculation of viewers, Nielsen Ratings are used. Nielsen households are selected to represent a cross section of American households. There are hundreds of thousands of Nielsen households and the reason you may not know of any is because they are asked not to reveal that they are part of the Nielsen Research Panel. If a household is revealed as being a part of the Nielsen Research Panel, they are removed from the Panel.

Nielsen household's television viewing is monitored by a device which records information such as; what is being viewed and who is viewing it. Through research, Nielsen has concluded that for every Nielsen viewer there is a certain number of non-Nielsen viewers watching. So what they do is multiply the number of Nielsen viewers by the magic number that they use, and that's how they come up with the ratings.

All ratings in the U.S. are calculated by Nielsen. They've devised the most reliable system that all shows and networks in the U.S. use. And although it's impossible for those numbers to ever be exact, they can always be used to compare to other shows and networks because they are all being applied to the same formula. Therefore ratings are not used in the hopes of getting a caculation of the exact number of people viewing, but rather used as a gauge of competitive standing.

That may be more than you wanted to know, but I'm a bit of a business nerd.

God, that's really interesting Jay, thanks.

No problem. Thanks for letting me geek it up in here.

That's exactly what I tried to explain in one sentence, Jay

I was just trying to clear it up because you said that "you only count as a viewer if you have a Nielsen box" and that part wasn't true. I didn't want people to think that the numbers only represent Nielsen homes because if it did, the ratings would be far lower.

Thank you for the info Jay ... I still don't think it's fair though!

It's fair. It's just not exact. That would be impossible.

Yes, I know. What I meant by that is that the ratings are controlled by Nielsen households, and even by using their magic number, you only get approximate results. But that's not their goal. Their goal, as you said, is to have a notion of what the numbers are so it can be used as a gauge of competitive standing. I'm sure people are pretty up to date with how the ratings system works, now. You explained it better than I ever could. Obviously.

Hehe. I was just trying to make it really clear in hopes of there being less questions about the ratings. There was nothing wrong with your explanation.

Querida co-presidenta , ya la caché que usted también hace sus pininos en inglés .

yea, you're right I think the most of the people have any influence in that rating .

Hey Jay,

I read, (not sure where?) that Nielson homes that are chosen don't necessarily represent the ethnic/diverse make-up of the U.S. and that is why it might be harder for shows with "gay" themes like QAF or the L word to get high ratings. Ideas or thoughts on this?

thanks--Just curious if that was an issue that is discussed in the media/entertainment industry.

I've heard people outside of business express concern about the diversity of Nielsen because some of them don't really know how it works and because technically they shouldn't know who is a Nielsen household. But people in business are very confident in Nielsen, as they should be, because it's one of the most segmented, detailed and reliable research companies on the planet.

Because Nielsen aims to be as close to accurate as logically possible, they keep the diversity of the Nielsen households in proportion to the percentage of the population being measured. So if hispanics make up 12% of the U.S. televison household population, then hispanics will make up 12% of Nielsen housholds in the U.S., and so on.

Nielsen ratings exist because advertisers and programming directors use the information. Target marketing requires extremely detailed info, so Nielsen has to be just as detailed and that's why they keep their sample household's diversity segmented in proportion to the population it's being used to measure.

I'm starting to worry myself. I sound like a poster boy for Nielsen.

Cool. Thanks for the info. I'm glad to know it! All I can say is that this show is so good, I think more people are going to watch it and hopefully learn something about people who historically have been under represented in television.

a cualquier cosa se le llaman pinitos lo que yo hago mas bien es hacer de Tarzan. Pasate por el topic latino anda

guys, please try to post in english outside of the spanish thread. thanks.

Ok, ok, but i just answered something in spanish with something in spanish so i really don´t think that anybody is interesting in what i said (if you are very interesting i translate myself i promise )

i think alice and dana should just have sex!!!
it would b good 4 the rating and very good 4 me!

not really the L word but some ratings news:



With Fat Actress's surprisingly good numbers and our show's somewhat lower numbers for this season (i think it was around 500K right?),I'm suddenly worried for TLW. It's no longer showtime's highest rated show. I'd hate it if bob greenwhathisname decides to cancel this show like he did Dead like me. I don't think he's as fond of this show as the new shows since he wasn't the head of Showtime when they got picked up so it's not one of his "babies". Not to mention, our show was treated rather shabbily in the promotions department if you compare it to the media onslaught that they gave to Huff and Fat Actress.

damn. good thing we already have season 3 locked.

Acid, this article was posted 23 hours ago at variety.com, but since I don't subscribe I can't get the rest of the article. The little snippet I can see, says this:



I think our show is safe. *crosses fingers*

This thread never ceases to frighten me ever so slightly. @_@

It's sort of frustrating, since there's always sort of been this background chatter of "wouldn't it be cool if there was a show of entirely girl/girl?" and now...Seems not as many people care or like it as I thought they might. I suppose everyone's big fantasy of a show like this wasn't fulfilled...

Bleh, it's Kirstie Alley. I'm only interested in L. I think if Viacom puts as much effort into Season 2 as they have promoting Fat Actress, there'd be even more viewers.

the_archer Thanks for the piece of news. *sigh of relief*

I just wish Showtime would put more effort in promoting this show instead of the other clunkers on their line-up.

man, not to sound over-dramatic or anything, but this thread is a wake up call!
What am I going to do with myself when this show goes off the air?
Shall I venture out into the real world??

TV is evil. it gives me everything I need to put my life on hold.
hm, do I need to go back to school? Um, I don't know -it doesn't matter right now, this show is really good. I need to meet some new people. No you don't, you've got all the friends you need right here.

ok, thankfully, at least for now, that's a bit of an exaggeration. but you never know...