Futurama delivers strong ratings!

[#40 :]

I actually expected the show to drop a bit in its second week, for two reasons: The Fourth of July holiday was coming up, and people are often traveling or getting ready for the prerequisite activities; plus ALL shows almost always drop a bit from their premieres. I don't think this rating is anything to worry about. The show's holding really well.

[#41 :]

I, myself have heard about the high ratings it's getting!  That's excellent news!  It's a good sign of great things to come for the show we love!   

[#42 :]

That's great news!!
Wish I could support the ratings myself, but sadly I live in Norway :\

[#43 :]

Any word on last night's episode's ratings?

[#44 :]

This guy usually posts data: http://twitter.com/travisyanan . Nielsen seems to have had some problem with their data. He says it will take until Monday.

[#45 :]

I'd be interested to see what the ratings are.  I suspect, since Burn Notice & Royal Pains were reruns, that the ratings may have gone up.

[#46 :]

I'd be interested to see what the ratings are.  I suspect, since Burn Notice & Royal Pains were reruns, that the ratings may have gone up.

I've been looking for ratings numbers, SJ, but so far no dice. Neither of my usual sources - TVByTheNumbers and Mediaweek - have posted any. I'm thinking Nielsen encountered a glitch or something. I'll keep looking, though...

[#47 :]

Thursday cable finals

The First 48 (9pm)
- 1.681 million viewers
- 1.1/2 HH
- 0.6/2 A18-49

Bethenny Getting Married (10pm)
- 2.259 million viewers
- 1.6/3 HH
- 1.1/3 A18-49

Futurama (10pm)
- 2.013 million viewers
- 1.3/2 HH
- 1.0/3 A18-49

River Monsters (9pm)
- 1.211 million viewers
- 0.8/1 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49

LeBron James: The Decision (9pm, 74 minutes)
- 9.948 million viewers
- 6.1/11 HH
- 4.3/14 A18-49

TNA: Impact (9pm, 120 minutes)
- 1.450 million viewers
- 1.0/2 HH
- 0.4/1 A18-49

The OCD Project (10pm)
- 0.416 million viewers
- 0.3/1 HH
- 0.2/1 A18-49

[#48 :]

at least it's still around two million.

[#49 :]

at least it's still around two million.

Yeah, it's doing okay!

[#50 :]

Please stay above 2million to be renewed! Im guessing we will know by the end of this season if its been renewed for 8 and 9?

[#51 :]

If by 8 and 9 you mean production season 7, then I imagine so, yes.

[#52 :]

I just went and looked at the numbers for Ugly Americans, and they're fairly similar.  That show has been renewed for the fall.  I recognize that there's a difference between the two shows (futurama is more expensive to produce, for one), but it seems like a good sign.

[#53 :]

I just went and looked at the numbers for Ugly Americans, and they're fairly similar.  That show has been renewed for the fall.  I recognize that there's a difference between the two shows (futurama is more expensive to produce, for one), but it seems like a good sign.

How many episodes in is it then? Futurama's been sinking by every episode this season, although for four episodes that's not to say much.

[#54 :]

Futurama is yummy!

I want that for my birthday. I'm not budging on this one! You're all invited!

[#55 :]

I just went and looked at the numbers for Ugly Americans, and they're fairly similar.  That show has been renewed for the fall.  I recognize that there's a difference between the two shows (futurama is more expensive to produce, for one), but it seems like a good sign.

How many episodes in is it then? Futurama's been sinking by every episode this season, although for four episodes that's not to say much.

They only did half a dozen or so.  UA seems to be following the south park format of six or seven episodes in the spring and then the same thing six months later in the fall

[#56 :]

I just went and looked at the numbers for Ugly Americans, and they're fairly similar.  That show has been renewed for the fall.  I recognize that there's a difference between the two shows (futurama is more expensive to produce, for one), but it seems like a good sign.

But theyre would be no way Comedy Central would be paying the full cost, probably only half. Alot of Futurama's Revenue comes from international sales, syndication and of Course DVD sales which FOX would have the rights too. Im no expert on the subject but id image thats what is happening?

[#57 :]

The new ratings of Futurama are scaring me.

...What? I'm allowed to make posts without contributing anything intelligent.

[#58 :]

Maybe you should explain what scares you.

[#59 :]

the show did really well this week, ratings-wise.  The only shows on cable that did better were Burn Notice and Royal Pains

link

Futurama was up 1/10th of a ratings point with adults 18-49 vs. last week and back to the level of its premiere and picked up nearly 200,000 viewers versus last week.

[#60 :]

Yay, Futurama going up! And this episode being the best of the season yet, it deserves it.

[#61 :]

Back to the level of its premiere? That's utterly fantastic news! I mean, I don't live in America, but as far as I'm aware it isn't getting the great promotion that the premiere got anymore, is it? Does that suggest that the show is building up a loyal following? I sure hope so!

[#62 :]

that's great. i think burn notice and royal pains have stayed as the only ones ahead, though.

is the production team still working, or are they done now? they said a month or two ago that they were working on the script for the third last episode ever, so they must still be animating the last few episodes or something. hopefully we will now in the next couple of months if comedy central wants to renew.

[#63 :]

A writer and Mauriche LaMarche talked about doing their last table read the other day on their Twitter feeds so they're definitely still animating shows which means the writers are still there to do re-writes.

[#64 :]

the show did really well this week, ratings-wise.  The only shows on cable that did better were Burn Notice and Royal Pains

Futurama did really well.  It's running up against the top 2 rated shows on cable back-to-back, and it's pulling good ratings.  This is very encouraging.

[#65 :]

An important question, how are the ratings for the whole block containing futurama doing? Is it drawing in viewers early and keeping them after the new ep is over, or are people tuning in for the new episode then moving on?

[#66 :]

is there some place you can go to view all of the nielson ratings, or is it like the npd (who post tops 10 lists and stuff, but charge a lot of money to get to see everything)

[#67 :]

Is there issues with the ratings again, or are we just being lazy? :P

[#68 :]

they are delayed again. when they become available, they should be posted right here. http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/63310451/m/143103013

[#69 :]

Futurama is yummy!

i want that cake.

[#70 :]

Please stay above 2million to be renewed! Im guessing we will know by the end of this season if its been renewed for 8 and 9?

I dunno about no renewal.  There seems to be some well placed talk about the creation of the third last, the second last, and the final episodes of the series.  I know they've thought they were doing that before, only to be brought back by the Fox overlords, but the way the final episodes are being described, it sounds to me like maybe Groening and Cohen are wanting to end it on their terms and would not necessarily be trying for an extension of the series.

[#71 :]

Please stay above 2million to be renewed! Im guessing we will know by the end of this season if its been renewed for 8 and 9?

I dunno about no renewal.  There seems to be some well placed talk about the creation of the third last, the second last, and the final episodes of the series.  I know they've thought they were doing that before, only to be brought back by the Fox overlords, but the way the final episodes are being described, it sounds to me like maybe Groening and Cohen are wanting to end it on their terms and would not necessarily be trying for an extension of the series.

Really? I've got no quote to support me, but from what I recall it sounded a lot like "we'll just wait and see and hope". The last episode as described so far seems a lot less serious than previous ones, more like an experimental one that would end the series nicely in worst case but still wouldn't end it permanently in better cases.

[#72 :]

Regarding renewal, Matt Groening addressed that a little at Comic Con.  Here's his quote, when asked if they could continue should ratings dictate:

"We haven't exhausted the long list of ideas we wanted to do at the beginning of the show."

[#73 :]

I was just on CGEF, and here's what they said regarding ratings:

"Unfortunately the episode was down significantly on last week (1.92m) so make sure you spread the word for this week's episode!"

This is a little frustrating, as we've waited so long for Futurama to come back, and it does... only to be scheduled in the same time slot as the top 2 rated back-to-back shows on cable that have a lock on Thursday night.  Hopefully, we'll be able to hold at 2 Million viewers... 

[#74 :]

Week-to-week fluctuations in Nielsen ratings of this size are pretty meaningless.

According to sO's figures, 1 Nielsen box = about 20,000 viewers, so this means Futurama appears on about 100 Nielsen boxes every week (2 million viewers).  There are 25,000 live Nielsen boxes right now, according to Wikipedia.

With these figures, you'd expect the standard deviation to be about 10 Nielsen boxes per week, or 200,000 viewers.  This probably should be cut down a little bit, because TV viewers don't conform to a uniform Bernoulli distribution, but the general point that these rating fluctuations are mostly random noise still holds.

[#75 :]

This Nielsen system is a bit foreign to be (being a foreigner and all), but 25k boxes * 20k viewers/box = 500m viewers seems a bit high.

From Rebirth's numbers I arrive at around 6,500 viewers/box if I don't get the Nielsen system wrong: Rebirth had 2.923 m viewers and a 1.8/3 household rating. If 1 Nielsen household = 1 box and if 25,000 boxes exist, then 25,000 * 1.8% = 450 boxes were switched to Futurama. That would result in 2.923m / 450 = 6,495 viewers/box. With the numbers from other episodes, I arrive at around 5,000 viewers/box. No idea if some of the assumptions are wrong or if I'm misinterpreting one of the figures...

Still not a great sample size.

[#76 :]

the late philip j. fry last night got 2.046 million viewers, so it's still holding it's own.

[#77 :]

A bump from last week too, so not bad.

I hope a lot of people catch it on repeats, though....or through iTunes and other things (it's at #4 on iTunes right now, incidentally).  Basically because it was SUCH a good one and I hope maybe some more irregular viewers (or people who've only even caught the rare episode, maybe) see it and decide they should be tuning in more often.  It was the kind of episode I'd show to someone on the fence about the show, so I hope it helps draw in some future (haha, future) viewers.

[#78 :]

Glad to see we got 2+ million people to watch this episode.  I'm hoping that it'll get renewed for at least another 26 episodes (as long as they don't run out of ideas, that is)...

[#79 :]

This Nielsen system is a bit foreign to be (being a foreigner and all), but 25k boxes * 20k viewers/box = 500m viewers seems a bit high.

From Rebirth's numbers I arrive at around 6,500 viewers/box if I don't get the Nielsen system wrong: Rebirth had 2.923 m viewers and a 1.8/3 household rating. If 1 Nielsen household = 1 box and if 25,000 boxes exist, then 25,000 * 1.8% = 450 boxes were switched to Futurama. That would result in 2.923m / 450 = 6,495 viewers/box. With the numbers from other episodes, I arrive at around 5,000 viewers/box. No idea if some of the assumptions are wrong or if I'm misinterpreting one of the figures...

Still not a great sample size.

Well, I guess we're implicitly assuming that the average # of people per Futurama-watching household = average # of people in any household and that that stays constant, but that's not really a huge deal.  The true number of Nielsen boxes tuned in to Futurama is still only on the order of a couple hundred.  The standard deviation is approximately equal to the square root of the number of Nielsen boxes, so it's always going to be pretty big.

2.1 million +/- 200,000 seems a pretty accurate range for the Futurama viewership in the USA (discounting the season premiere, which was always going to be higher).  It's not steadily losing viewers as it did its first couple seasons on FOX.