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With the new TV season upon us, Vulture wonders how much the rise in DVRs and binge-watching will affect the broadcast networks’ all-important fall launches, which can set a tone of success or failure that extends throughout the entire year.
An article today by Vulture, “On the Eve of a New Season, Network Execs Fear a Premiere Week Ratings Disaster,” notes that gloomy broadcast net execs are quietly preparing for the worst.
Fox’s premiere of “Sleepy Hollow” kicks off this year’s fall TV season, and while this signals the end to months of planning and promoting, network execs seem to be girding themselves for lower and lower ratings.
According to Vulture, this year’s ratings woes come after years of declining broadcast ratings, and signals a need for change in the broadcast TV model that networks have relied on for decades. And it’s not just ratings that might be declining. This year, critics also are looking apathetically at many of the networks’ new offerings.
Says Vulture: “The case for pessimism about premiere week isn’t grounded in any specific critique about the quality of this year’s new crop of shows, though it doesn’t help that the nearly 40 new shows about to debut are generally being greeted by critics with a collective ‘meh.’”
The article stresses that though critics may not be overwhelmed and ratings might be slow, the overall business model is really the core of the problem. “It’s the growing realization that the on-demand viewing mentality that has defined millennial viewing for years now is quickly spreading to older viewers.”
Read the entire article at Vulture.
Brief Take: Vulture points out a growing problem with broadcast TV seasons. When people are watching what they want to watch, when they want to watch, how important are ratings numbers right out of the gate, when most of the people watching on-demand won’t get to it yet? And beyond that, how do we compare ratings this year—when there is more binge-watching and cord cutting than ever—with last year and the year before?
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