Ratings and articles about ratings.
Here’s a longer guide to ratings, what they mean and why we shouldn’t panic about them as well as the articles.
During the save campaign a media outlet has reported that renewal will come down to ratings and Magnum P.I. gathering new viewers and better ratings. That statement is a bid of a double-edged sword.
The show has gathered new viewers, mainly seen on social media as new friends slide into the new warm and fuzzy blanket that is the comfort show called Magnum P.I. We also left some viewers behind on CBS, which is perfectly natural. CBS is known to be a ratings giant, in large part to the general audience CBS gathers that simply turns CBS on no matter what is on. Think background music that consist of explosions and gunshots. These viewers are the ones we haven’t managed to bring over to NBC and we weren’t going to be able to bring them over anyway.
But let’s look at some things in more detail.
What are ratings?
Ratings are a measuring system, by which networks gage the audiences interest in their shows. Based on ratings advertisers also decide what ads to place and potentially how much they pay for it, which is income for the networks. The sales demographic (18-49) is specifically interesting to those. Networks as well as the companies have access to far more data than the simple sales
Are our ratings bad?
Simply said, no. For a Sunday show on NBC in our timeslot our ratings are solid. Even the recent ‘drop’ in numbers is just a reflection of the competition currently on. Sundays are some of the weaker days in terms of ratings. At the moment Sundays generally don’t gather stellar ratings across the board. Every show and network suffers from this downturn (Hello streamer competition, anyone?)
Why did we suffer a drop in ratings in the recent weeks?
Simply said: Competition and natural viewing behavior.
March Madness is an event people watch live (as are Oscars, but March Madness much more so). These people record their shows instead of missing the game. March Madness also consistently ran overtime a little. People don’t just switch to other channels to catch half an episode. If they haven’t set a recording they will watch on Peacock.
It’s also somewhat natural for shows to lose a few viewers along the way. The reasons are as many as you can possibly imagine. Some lose interest, some have a different working schedule, lose access to NBC, aren’t in the right mindset to watch, have to go to the hospital, stubbed their toe, die (yeah, people annoyingly do that in which case their rating isn’t counted).
Where is everyone who saved the show and why aren’t they watching?
It’s a frequent complain and one that is perhaps the most stinging to the fans that have become active to try and save the show. It’s also an unfair question. A little over 14000 people signed the petition, only a fraction of those have donated to the fund, a handful have organized initiatives (billboard, anyone). You will have to subtract international viewers here, who have made up a large portion of that number. As you can see those specific fans are around – if they can. The international fans have no way of contributing to ratings other than social media engagement.
What ratings do we need to get renewed?
Impossible for us to tell. Ratings are only one factor in a large grid of data that NBC has access to and we don’t. We like having control, I know, but in this case we don’t have any.
Data we don’t have but that factors into renewal decisions:
Production cost (including rent for stages, compensation for cast, crew and so on)
How much money the ads actually make
How much money product placement in the show brings in
Number of people streaming
Contract requirements for the ads
Social media engagement (beyond the cold numbers) and the value they put into it
Projected ratings and expectations
To make it simple: A show that has high production cost and high ratings can still be canceled if the income the show brings doesn’t match the cost of producing it. Shows with lower ratings can still be renewed if there’s a solid profit.
Why do ratings look so different on a Sunday than a Friday?
Viewer behavior and circumstance. Friday is the beginning of the weekend, a lot more people have time to just kick back and watch TV, whereas Sundays people prepare for the new work week, maybe go to bed early. The reasons are endless, but it comes down to this: Sunday ratings and Friday ratings are wildly different overall. More people watch Friday in general, so our numbers would be higher there, too, but our Sunday ratings do reflect the higher ratings we would have on a Friday, translated to the circumstances on a Sunday.
We would have better ratings on a Friday, why doesn’t NBC put us back on a Friday?
It comes back to the data we don’t have. Yes, we performed well on a Friday, but NBC has analysts who thought it would be most beneficial to have Magnum P.I. on a Sunday. They had a reason to put it there. Also we would have likely experienced a rating drop on Fridays, too. Mainly because, as pointed out, the people who habitually watch CBS, wouldn’t watch NBC now.
CBS has a much higher rating than we do. Should we be worried?
No. NBC won’t make renewal decisions based on what CBS does. NBC makes decisions based on how their own shows do. Ultimately the shows that bring (and are projected to continue to bring) good profit, not ratings, are likely the ones that will be renewed. So don’t look to other networks, we’re not in direct competition with them for a timeslot at NBC, we’re in competition with other NBC shows. And among them we’re far from the worst performer. (And again, we have very little data in order to gage profitability)
Why are articles reporting so negatively about the shows ratings?
It’s simple journalism. Similar to shows, articles have a bit of a rating system behind them: Clicks. Highly clicked articles = more income.
Now as yourself which headline are you more likely to click and which article are you more likely to read through:
Magnum P.I. plummets to a new all-time low.
Or
Magnum P.I. has 0.5mil viewers less this week than last week.
You’re more likely to click the first one, because it tickles your emotions, in this case in a negative way. The same way the content does. This type of language grabs you more, which increases click rates and the chance that you read the entire thing through, which is what they want.
Ultimately they pick the language to manipulate you into a reaction, not because it reflects their opinion or the meaning of the ratings. The content is the same, though: The ratings dropped.
Matt, who almost writes daily articles about Magnum P.I., is a great example for it. I am sure we all remember when he had headlines during the save announcing statements by a star of the show only to click the article and realize it was just talking about a recent social media post by a cast member which we had already seen. The objective here is, like with every other website: Gather clicks. In this case by tickling your curiosity. It’s nothing more, nothing less.
The reason why the articles sound negative is simply to get you to react. They in no way reflect NBCs opinions, nor are they able to tap into more data than we do, which is the ratings. All they have is a bit of experience with previous shows, but when it comes down to that, they consistently point out that Mangum P.I.s ratings are a win for NBCs Sunday line-up.
Why aren’t streaming numbers released?
Internal decision, but maybe this quiets your mind: Procedurals like Magnum P.I. are known to have great streaming numbers. They’re one of the best performing genres on streaming platforms. One of the reasons for that is how easy one can get into the plot at any point due to the stories contained within an episode. Magnum P.I. and all the other procedurals are a show where you can watch an episode without context of previous seasons and still enjoy it due to the mystery of the day. From there maybe the serialized aspect makes viewers go back. Or they continue to watch. But our streaming numbers could very well be good.
Does the drop mean it looks bad for renewal?
No. Right now what you want to look at is context: Magnum P.I. brought NBC the strongest Sunday ratings in years. Our decline is happening within the context of a sport event/natural decline and NBC will have expected it. Other than that our ratings are stable.
We also consistently adjust upward from the preliminary ratings we get on a Monday to the final ones we get the week after. That means something.
Ultimately we will not be able to judge our renewal chances on the ratings alone, due to the multitude of factors (and there could be more) I already mentioned.
There is no point in getting overly worried about ratings. We can’t control them! No matter how much we want to.
What we can control is this: If we can watch it and have our view counted, do. Engaged with the official accounts on social media and enjoy the show. There’s really nothing more we can do.
