You Agree. CBS is Killing Jericho.
A visual representation of what’s happening to Jericho on Tues night.
According to our blog stats, yesterday’s post “Enough Already. Blame Jericho’s Failure on CBS” got your attention. I’ve been reading your comments and, it seems that, for the most part, you agree that Jericho’s failure is more attributable to a poor time-slot, following a failing show, and near non-existent marketing. This as opposed to blaming the writers or the viewers (as in the ones that got the show back on the air).
Yesterday, in the course of going about the things that I get paid to do (ie. not this), I thought of Jericho’s situation in slightly a different way that really clarifies the insanity at CBS.
As some of you have seen, it looks like Jericho is going to be cancelled at the end of the season. No surprise there. Folks associated with CBS apparently say, though, (because this article is all rumor, mind you) that there’s still a chance that the show won’t be cancelled if the fans “come back.”
Someone’s drinking the kool-aid if they think that, because the problem is precisely not a problem of fans “coming back.” The fans are already there, roughly 5 million of them. The problem is that CBS has failed to attract new viewers.
So, here’s the idea that brought it in to focus for me. In order for this show to be saved, we know that they need more than the 7 million or so that watched the premiere (because folks told us that 7million was mediocre, remember?). So, let’s arbitrarily set a number, say 9 million viewers, that would get CBS’s attention enough to give the show another chance at a third season.
This means that CBS would expect approximately 3-4 million additional viewers to tune in to Jericho at 10pm EST than tuned in for Big Brother, their primetime lead-in show, in the previous hour. On a Tuesday night.
I’m sorry, that’s just crazy.
It will be interesting to see what CBS does with BB since it is Les Moonves wife’s show.
You are so right! Thank you. This is what CBS needs to see. In their face with this. The viewers are here. Count us CBS! Not with Nielsen’s either.
Sometimes distinguishing the difference between funny and tragic is so difficult. Nice job finding that middle.
What’s really crazy to me is that Jericho probably has that many fans and then some. The sad part is that those people aren’t counted by the ratings because they are not Nielsen families and/or do not Jericho at 10 p.m. because Jericho viewers. Its so much easier to set the DVR to record all new episodes than to schedule any TV show on the calendar.
Best,
Rich
I keep hammering this home: It doesn’t matter if 15 million people watch this show if none of those 15 million viewers are NIELSEN viewers. It is only the NIELSEN viewers who count to CBS and the other Nets.
We are here - the fans and we want to be counted. We did everything asked of us and more. CBS dropped the ball.