TV Angel

The television industry is experimenting with the mix of variables considered in analyzing a show’s performance. Recent changes have the inclusion of time-shifted viewing and online viewing as additional metrics. But networks may be overlooking a valuable measurement of a show’s viewership: consistency. Case in point – Friday Night Lights (NBC).Friday Night Lights is one of those “best-shows-that-nobody’s-watching.” That is, of course, if you consider the 6 million viewers the show has averaged each season nobody. But take a closer look at the numbers, particularly for season two. The show pulled in more than 5 million viewers weekly, without fail, with a peak of 6.48 million viewers for the season two premiere. Those are 5 million viewers that NBC can take to the bank, i.e., their advertisers. Especially since those viewers are people of means, with a median household income of $65K, per a 2007 survey.

Compare Lights to another critical darling, ABC’s Pushing Daisies. Notwithstanding a ratings spike for episode eight of the series, Daisies consistently lost viewers each week, losing almost half of the 13 million premiere viewers by the last pre-strike episode, which had only 6.85 million viewers.

It has to be mentioned that Daisies has only aired nine episodes, compared to 37 episodes of Lights. Still, a definite trend is visible. I’m not suggesting that Pushing Daisies being cancelled because I think it’s a great show. But the numbers suggest declining viewer interest, whereas Lights delivered its core audience for every episode.

NBC’s Kevin Reilly was quoted as saying, “The passion of the people who watch is so disproportionate to the size of the audience.” Yet that passion has proven reliable, and that kind of reliability could become a useful metric for other shows.

As it stands currently, Lights has been saved by a deal between NBC and DirectTV which calls for the two companies to share the show’s production costs. Perhaps the deal means NBC has recognized that not every show is going to get American Idol ratings. Most shows will never even come close. But if a show has a lesser number of faithful viewers who tune in every week, you may not want to thank those viewers by pulling the plug.