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may indeed bite
Excepting 'Survivor' the genre's running out of gas
By Kevin Downey
If it seemed like just weeks ago that whatever reality shows the networks rolled out ended up with enormous ratings and sparked discussions of a broadcast TV revival, it’s because, with few exceptions, they did.
But the big ratings came to a screeching halt right along with the end of the summer.
None of the major network reality shows, all of which premiered in the past few weeks with plenty of hype and impressive debut ratings, managed to rank higher than No. 43 among adults 18-49 last week.
It seems logical to pin some of the blame for a dramatic ratings slide on a war-wary population uninterested in watching the musings of angst-ridden beauties.
But the outlook for the reality genre is that as they proliferate, few shows, aside from "Survivor," will generate big numbers outside of the repeat-heavy summer, when they exist virtually unto themselves.
"My feeling is that the ratings drop is more a function of the program content not being very good," says Susan McClellan, national TV and radio analyst at Empower MediaMarketing.
"Whenever you have something new, there will be some sampling because people are interested in finding out what it’s all about. But I think when people get into these shows, they realize they’re not all they thought they would be."
The relative weakness of CBS’s "Amazing Race" and NBC’s "Lost" was put into perspective last week when they went up against the first week of the fall season’s fresh sitcoms and dramas.
"Amazing’s" 3.6, adult 18-49, rating was 28 percent lower than its premiere rating from September 5.
"Lost" only tied for No. 69 and had a 2.6 rating, which was 37 percent lower than its September 5th premiere.
Perhaps the most glaring example of an inability to compete was ABC’s second season premiere of "The Mole."
The show ranked No. 79 with a 2.2 rating. Fox’s "Dark Angel" beat it by more than a full rating point. And even CBS’s "Ellen," which is already considered a bomb, beat it by a tenth of a rating point.
Fox premiered its latest reality show, "Love Cruise," last week as well.
Its regularly scheduled episode tied with "Amazing Race" at No. 50 in the 18-49 demo. But its total audience of 6.35 million was just over one-third the size of Fox’s "Temptation Island," which was a breakout last season.
Despite the gloomy numbers, the reality genre is definitely not finished.
It’s just evolving into one in which "Survivor" remains the standard-bearer and the others, well, either fade away or bump along with respectable numbers until something better comes along.
"This wearing out of reality will impact ‘Survivor’ too," says Sam Armando, assistant media director for national TV research at Starcom Worldwide.
"It will be successful, but the lessening interest in reality, because the shows are all over the place now, will take a toll.
"I think ‘Survivor’ will still be a force on Thursdays and erode some of ‘Friends'’ young adult audience. But I don’t think we’ll see the 30 audience-share of ‘Survivor I’ or ‘II.’"
Reality shows, however, do have at least two things that make them appealing to the networks.
They tend to pull in younger viewers for starters.
"CBS’s Wednesday movie last year averaged a 2.0 adult 18-34 rating, but ‘Amazing Race’ did a 3.4 last week," says Armando.
"So the household share might not look good, but if their main goal is to get younger, then that is how they will start measuring these shows."
And reality shows can boost sagging summer ratings.
The finale of CBS’s "Big Brother 2," for example, did well. That is, it did well because network coverage of the terrorist attacks pushed the premiere of "Friends" back a week. The two shows had originally been scheduled to go head-to-head.
"Big Brother 2’s" 6.0, adult 18-49, rating was its highest this season and its second best ever. The show ranked No. 5 in the demo for the week ending September 23.
October 4, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.
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