Topic: Amazing Race Season 15 ratings

[Caelestor]

Keep in mind that most TV series have 22-25 episode seasons, so TAR's (hopefully) 24 isn't too bad.

[georgiapeach]

No suffering here!! This week I am PRAYING for a late start, or I won't see it on time!

[theschnauzers]

Number of episodes for a full TV season.  The norm these days appears to be about 22 or 23; but many scripted shows are adopting 13 episodes a year as is the case with some cable series (or even the BBC) or even 10 episodes a year based on the cable model. New series are usually started with 9 episodes, and then get 4 more, and then get 9 beyond that depending on the ratings performance.

Many current scripted shows to only air after the NFL season ends are 13.  The only scripted series I can think of that has 24 episodes is "24," which is due to that series unique semi-real time storytelling approach. I doubt a new series could get such an arrangement now.

The best way to see this is to look at a show's listings page at The Futon Critic. I keep track of my favorite shows at that site, and what I've described is based on what I've found in the past few years using TFC.

In all honesty, I'm expecting TAR 16 will likely be 11 episodes and 11 legs, not as a punishment, but because of the problems with starting a TAR 16 airing at any point in February, or even the Oscars on March 7. However, TAR 14 did air against the Oscars -- ratings were that season's worst, IIRC, and I suspect CBS will not want to waste a TAR episode like that again, especially since the numbers for the later half of TAR 14, and so far in TAR 15 have beeb close to or above 11 million; and TAR is now less than a million viewers behind Survivor. I can remember the days when TAR's audience was half or less of Survivor's.

I haven't yet figured out which week CBS will want the air the probable Cold Case series finale in May, since it looks as if this will be CC's last season, baring a ratings miracle once Three Rivers is out of the way.  

[Caelestor]

In all honesty, I'm expecting TAR 16 will likely be 11 episodes and 11 legs, not as a punishment, but because of the problems with starting a TAR 16 airing at any point in February, or even the Oscars on March 7. However, TAR 14 did air against the Olympics -- ratings were that season's worst, IIRC, and I suspect CBS will not want to waste a TAR episode like that again, especially since the numbers for the later half of TAR 14, and so far in TAR 15 have beeb close to or above 11 million; and TAR is now less than a million viewers behind Survivor. I can remember the days when TAR's audience was half or less of Survivor's.

I haven't yet figured out which week CBS will want the air the probable Cold Case series finale in May, since it looks as if this will be CC's last season, baring a ratings miracle once Three Rivers is out of the way.  

There were no Olympics this year. You mean the Oscars? I do agree a March 14 start date is highly likely, due to the Olympics and the March 7 Oscars. Otherwise, CBS will take their chances with a 2/14 start date, and skip 2/28 and/or 3/7.

[Seattlite]

I would think that CBS will make sure that the Survivor finale has a Sunday sweeps slot and maybe TAR will overshoot the sweeps this year.  It is sure sounding crowded.

[theschnauzers]

I meant to say "the Oscars" -- post corrected.

[Caelestor]

Preliminary Ratings:
TAR had the least ratings in its hour (though viewer wise is still pretty good). ABC was surprisingly good, up double digits from last week. Still beats the rest of CBS' Sunday line-up  

8:00
CBS   Amazing Race   3.2   8   12.24
8:30   
CBS   Amazing Race   3.2   8   11.049
Avg
CBS   Amazing Race  3.2  8    11.64

[theschnauzers]

The site I'm looking at doesn't allow linking or qouting its report of fast national numbers, and there's nothing yet from CBS about last night's fast national preliminary numbers, but let's just say that the total audience was around last week's total audience of 11.6 million, and the preliminary demo stayed above 3, even though CBS had the lowest network averges for the night, FOX had a significant NFL overrun, and NBC had a competitve NFL game.

I'm starting to think this season's overall average audience is going to end up over 11 million. While the first four or five eps averaged 10.5 million, it's been over 11 million since then, and now its staying over 11.5 million.

[theschnauzers]

This just came out earlier this evening.

CBS is trying an experiment this coming Sunday and is going to swap the time slots for Cold Case and Three Rivers. So CC airs at 9:00pm ET next Sunday. For now, it's a one week experiment.

The following Sunday, November 29th, both are pre-empted for a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie.

I guess CBS is trying to see if TR can be saved; and they're trying to test a theory that more TAR viewers would stick around for Cold Case. I'm one of them.

The Futon Critic (link)
The Live Feed (link)

[mswood]

It will be difficult for the season average to get over 11 million (which would be freaking awesome as very view seasons of TAR have managed that task.

Most of the sites haven't really mentioned that yes parts of the country did in fact have an overrun, and as such we should get some shifting in the results from the Fast Nationals, lately thats all been good so we shall see.

And its about damn time that CBS switched its 9pm and 10 pm shows.

[Caelestor]

Currently, the season average is at 10.87 million viewers. Ratings have been steadily increasing since the HCMC leg.

To obtain a 11 million viewer average, the last 3 legs combined must have 34.13 million viewers. If TAR holds steady at 11.5ish, then it's actually possible.

[TARAsia Fan]

Next week, the Eastern half does have an overrun. Not sure if it will help. The last NFL doubleheader game CBS had actually was down from the year before so I'm a bit concerned about this Sunday's numbers. There's a weak Sunday Night Football game between Chicago and Philadelphia on NBC, but those are huge markets and they might take away from TAR.

[theschnauzers]

But one of the late afternoon CBS games is the Jets versus the Patriots and most of the eastern half of the US is getting that game; the western half is getting San Diego and Denver (inclluding stations that still take the east coast feed; and a few markets are getting the third game. That Jets-Pats games is going to appeal to a lot of the east coast feed viewers, and I suspect that will help CBS, unless that game somehow turns into a blow out. (Not likely.) So there's a potential for a huge audience for the overrun.

[TARAsia Fan]

I forgot Jets-Pats was moved to the late spot. Good catch by you!

Yeah, then with New York and Boston in the mix, the ratings should help. You're right.

[mswood]

Technically we have a 10.814 (when using data from 3 decimal points) for final numbers.

But, and I stress this, that truly isn't accurate (and while it is the official number) I actually use the ratings for every episode no matter when they air).

For example any airing outside the official 8pm start time (not counting sports overruns) isn't considered, episodes that air on the day off or before Christmas and New Years are excluded which did effect the official season average of season 12, for example), and TAR (or CBS) for some reason averages the ratings of a two hour episode for its' 8pm hour (and others shows don't unless they are filmed and produced as a two hour event).  This has effected several seasons.  

And I hate it.

So for this season the official ratings will only count episodes 1 and 2 as one episode.  Which I think is bull****.  Now I understand when they did for seasons 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 as each of those seasons featured a two hour opener that was all one episode edited to fill two hours.  Thus one episode.

This season we had two episodes that were produce as two episodes that due to a schedule conflict were aired as a two hour block, and as such in my mind to accurately reflect the ratings should count as two episodes.

Using that criteria we are currently averaging in finals (as this will change about noon tomorrow) a 10.673.

I do agree that it is possible for us to end at or over 11 million, but it is something that has been very rare for the show.

Season averages (based on all episodes aired)

Season 7:  12.559
Season 6:  11.337
Season 12:  11.198
Season 10:  11.148

Those four are the only seasons to exceed 11 million viewers

Season 5:  10.726
Season 8:  10.670
Season 13:  10.526
Season 14:  10.412
Season 2:  10.212
Season 11:  9.713
Season 1:  9.506
Season 3:  9.063
Season 9:  8.852
Season 4: 8.293 (missing data on one episode so this is the least accurate number I have).

What is interesting is that on average shows typically lose about 5% in viewers.  So we are really, really doing compared to the average tv show, far better as a long term program.

Of course the downside of this is that Demo's and not viewers are the key to a show.  ANd since moving to Sunday's are demo suck.  In fact to look at a very interesting comparison.  TAR 9 had very low ratings (most likely due to three factors- Family Edition pissing off viewers, its later time start, and then its two different day and time changes  mid season.  Yet only Season 10, and season 12 have barely beat it in the demos, and all since have far, far larger audiences.  This is due to CBS Sunday having the oldest audience (average age) of any night (well I don't know about Saturdays since no one programs originals there anymore) of the week and out of any network.

[puddin]

Amazing stats mswood, you know your stuff that's for sure, very impressive 

[TARAsia Fan]

I love talking tv with mswood! 

[Caelestor]

Ah, but reality shows are in general cheaper (not sure how much travelling around the world costs though) and thus are not subject to the typical demo rules.

So, it's best to compare this relatively.

Not only is TAR a star compared to the rest of Sunday, but it has also gained in the demo since TAR 14. TAR 15 is consistently getting around 3.2s, which is a very good sign.

[Jobby]

Ah, but reality shows are in general cheaper (not sure how much travelling around the world costs though) and thus are not subject to the typical demo rules.

So, it's best to compare this relatively.

Not only is TAR a star compared to the rest of Sunday, but it has also gained in the demo since TAR 14. TAR 15 is consistently getting around 3.2s, which is a very good sign.

With the maintaining of audiences/viewers and 6.. or is it 7 emmy awards consecutive wins (they won so many and i lost count!).. i'm looking forward to TAR maintaining 20 seasons like Survivor.

[theschnauzers]

Neilsen must be having computer problems somewhere. Neither the overnights for Monday, nor the weekly numbers seem to be availoable. (I've checked several different sources and none of them have either posted in any form so far today.)

[TARAsia Fan]

Ratings are down until 4 p.m. Power outage at Nielsen.

[theschnauzers]

Since the beginning of the current season, Nielsen has been releasing live plus seven day viewer data a couple of weeks after the weekly live plus same day numbers come out.

While CBS has indicated that TAR has been in the Top 10 of its shows to increase in the 18-45 or 25-56 demo in some of those weeks, it hasn't had increases in total viewers of 1 million or more so TAR hasn't shown up in the CBS release on total viewers in prior weeks.

I just found the most recent numbers (for week 6 of the season) on Yahoo from Mediaweek. And it does show what TAR did that week.  Yes, the total increase  is still less than a million total viewers. Butlook what it does show as one of the top 30 shows in DVR/plus seven days  (link):

The Amazing Race (CBS): 11.21 to 12.09 million (+882,000) – 7.9 percent

If this has been what's been going on since the beginning of the season, then the total viewer numbers may have been over 11 million, and edging towards 12 million.

As an aside, Cold Case gained 1.11 million viewers (from 9.01 to 10.12 million) that week; Three Rivers isn't even mentioned.

[mswood]

For the last three years ratings sites, used to use DVR to compare live viewers to live plus seven.

This year almost everyone is comparing live same day to live plus 7.

This really limits what type of data we see for TAR.

As reality shows in general have a much higher use of DVR on the night that they air then scripted television shows.

And since no one reports live numbers for anything (and haven't for really at least a decade), I certainly understand the switch.

For example any time you see Fast Nationals or Final numbers reported, those are actually live same day (any showing up to a starting time of 2am that night).

Last year (in the fall cycle) TAR had the 2nd highest percentage of DVR use during the day it aired of all shows that air on network television. 

So most of are DVR use is already included in the Fast National and Final numbers.

[theschnauzers]

mswood, that part I was already aware of; what I'm referring to is the increase for the live plus 7 day numbers. There's been very little actual information on the "plus seven" aspect for TAR, but knowing that it boosts the actual number of viewers this season significantly is good to know. (I know of at least one viewer who I got hooked on TAR in season 9, and this fall, he recorded TAR to watch on Monday so he could watch Mad Men live.)

I wouldn't undervalue those additional 900,000 viewers TAR is getting by time shifting. I'll still take every viewer I can get, because it amplifies the long term growth in TAR's audience even as the networks mostly declince in total viewers, and DVR penetration rises by several per cent a year.

[mswood]

Finals are finally out, we lost a couple viewers but had a very nice demo performance.

60 Minutes
- 13.077 million viewers
- 8.4/14 HH
- 2.2/6 A18-49

The Amazing Race
- 11.388 million viewers
- 6.6/10 HH
- 3.4/8 A18-49

Three Rivers
- 8.187 million viewers
- 5.1/8 HH
- 1.8/4 A18-49

Cold Case
- 9.594 million viewers
- 6.1/10 HH
- 2.1/6 A18-49


Season average now 10.832 million viewers and a 3.3 in adults 18-49.