Netflix’s Latest Two Genre Entries Pull Modest Viewership
The streaming services don’t like to share their viewership numbers, but the personal meters that Nielsen families are carrying now give an estimate on the audience size and that company is more than happy to publish those stats. For Netflix’s Altered Carbon, Nielsen indicates that it averaged 1.2 million viewers after three days and 2.5 million after seven days. And viewership dropped by episode with the last having the lowest average thus far. The Cloverfield Paradox, which Netflix gave a surprise release after the Super Bowl, averaged 2.8 million viewers after three days and five million after seven. That was notably lower than the eleven million that last December’s Bright had after three days, though that one had more star power and was released on a Friday giving people the chance to watch it over the weekend. And while these numbers might look lite for both Altered Carbon and The Cloverfield Paradox, the streaming services use a different formula to determine success. Viewership factors in, but also their estimate of how many people signed up for the service to watch one or more of their originals. The Cloverfield Paradox almost certainly gave Netflix a spike in subscribers, and Altered Carbon likely brought in its fair share as well. I would not consider that latter show in danger of cancellation at the moment, even though its viewership numbers are lower than what we have seen for many of Netflix’s other originals. The streaming services typically give their shows at least two seasons to prove themselves, though we have seen them diverge from that some recently. If fans of the show are concerned, they might want to take to the social nets to support it.
The CW Will Program Six Nights a Week Starting Next Season
The fifth place network has put a heavy focus on development the last couple of years and currently has nine pilots it is considering for the 2018-19 season. It looked like that may squeeze some of the current shows out if the network wanted to get its new entries on the schedule, but The CW announced this week that it would return to programming six nights a week, adding Sunday back to its slate. It has been seven years since the net had six nights of programming and that didn’t work out too well before. But it has some high-profile pilots in the works like its reboots of Charmed and Roswell as well as a Supernatural spin-off, and one more more of those could lead off Sunday nights (Charmed aired on that night back when it was on The WB). The network could also move one of its Arrow-verse shows like The Flash, its current ratings leader, to Sundays to carry over existing viewers. Or they could also put some of their lower-rated veteran shows on that night just to ease into the new schedule. We won’t know until the May Upfronts how the network will strategize the new night, but the expanded slate means low-rated shows like iZombie and The 100 could stick around beyond the current season (more on that in an upcoming post).
Ratings Results of Interest: Beyond Improves
Most of the broadcast network shows were in repeats or preempted this week rather than air new episodes against Olympics coverage, but the cable channels maintained their regular slate. On Thursday, Freeform’s Beyond jumped up to a 0.14 rating based on same day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 377K total viewers. That is double last week’s rating and we will have to see if that is just a blip or if viewers have discovered it is back for its second season and are tuning in. On Wednesday, Syfy’s Channel Zero improved just slightly to a 0.10 rating with 330K total viewers. Those numbers are pretty low, though, and you might wonder if the network wants to back out of the promised fourth season. The Magicians held steady with last week and still looks like a lock for renewal.
On Tuesday, Black Lightning slipped to a 0.5 rating with 1.8 million total viewers, but that’s not bad considering it had only a repeat of The Flash as its lead-in and went up against Olympics coverage. On Monday, Legends of Tomorrow returned from its Winter break and posted a 0.5 rating with 1.5 million total viewers. That is about even with its Fall numbers and pretty close to what Supergirl has been pulling in the same timeslot.
Be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for the latest ratings results as well as breaking news. Ratings source: ShowBuzzDaily.
