Community thread

[tm1232]

30 Rock ended up at 1.6 last night... more evidence that that is just an insanely tough spot for a show to air in, and it's not likely anything would work for NBC there. This can only be good news.

It proves that it wasn't Community's fault.
Also the Firm finished in 8th Place last night,

Community has a small fan base, but its loyal.

It can be better than 8th Place....even at 10 oclock

[Monty]

Eighth place! I realize this isn't 1970 and the world of "the big three networks", but that still doesn't even seem possible.

I think with ratings like these, it's more likely that NBC ditches its entire Thursday night lineup and give up on all the sitcoms than that they put together a night of shows I really enjoy but that get uniformly bad ratings.

[tm1232]

Eighth place! I realize this isn't 1970 and the world of "the big three networks", but that still doesn't even seem possible.

I think with ratings like these, it's more likely that NBC ditches its entire Thursday night lineup and give up on all the sitcoms than that they put together a night of shows I really enjoy but that get uniformly bad ratings.

quoted from The Av Club: "Among the series that beat The Firm last night, besides the No. 1-ranked Jersey Shore: Univision’s Rosa De Guadalupe, A&E’s Beyond Scared Straight, and a rerun of The Big Bang Theory on TBS."


yeesh

[Hoov]

I know there was an AV Club article on this very subject, but there's such a weird disconnect between what the internet watches and the actual TV ratings. It's hard to be that mad at NBC for making some of their bad decisions because I don't know how the fuck regular people decide what TV they want to watch.

Seriously there's so much good TV coming out of America at the moment, much better than in the UK, and yet all the good shows seem to have happened by accident, and most people don't actually know about them.

[slothborn]

I know there was an AV Club article on this very subject, but there's such a weird disconnect between what the internet watches and the actual TV ratings.

I always wonder about that. I know Conan is getting slammed for having really low ratings, but I canceled my cable a while back and watch his show through his website or app. Heck, even before I canceled half the time I would watch it on his app since it's easy to flip through segments that way. Obviously with no cable, that's true of everything I watch now. I buy/watch it all legally (except for some Ferguson episodes on YouTube), but none of it would show up in the Nielsen ratings, right? I bet a lot of the better shows have that Internet problem since the broader stuff people just flip through and catch whenever it's on TV.

[Hoov]

Well I just get them from torrents or filesharing sites as there isn't any other way for me to actually watch them. (Although I can't watch the additional content NBC puts up on things like Parks and Rec, because they're region blocked and wouldn't usually be included in the torrents.)

Presumably SUPA consider this stolen property, even though they're not actually offering any legal way for overseas viewers to watch them, and they generally aren't being shown on television over here. So I have to import a lot of Region 1 DVD's to support the show, the costs aren't usually that much more than I'd pay here thankfully. But I can't always lend them out to people, as not everyone has a regionless DVD player.

I'm not quite clear on how much executives are taking things like Hulu into account, it's a similar deal here with things like BBC iplayer. I think network heads are starting to realize they need to pay attention to these things, but it's still in a transitional phase.

[slothborn]

Yeah, the regions on DVDs are such a pain. It's not so bad now that I don't have a TV anyway, but when I did, I'd get annoyed that I have to buy British shows from amazon.co.uk (for shows that aren't available here) and watch them with VLC Player on my computer because my DVD player wasn't region-free. That, plus HBO and Showtime refusing to put their shows on iTunes/Amazon, and all the DRM garbage make it so much harder to just buy shows. Who knows, but I feel like if they started treating their customers less like thieves there would actually be a lot less pirating.

[beewcar]

Is it not about time that special features become available for streaming? Netflix, Hulu and the like really need to get on that...but I guess that would totally eliminate the purpose of buying DVDs/blu-rays

[slothborn]

Yeah! Totally agree about the special features. That's the only real problem with having given up cable. Before I'd watch the shows on cable, then buy the DVDs for the audio commentary, etc. But now that I'm buying each episode on Amazon as it comes out, it's hard to justify buying the DVD later. It's a real pain now that half the time movies from Netflix are the bare bones copies without any extras.

[thecomedian]

Both Wednesday sitcoms hit series lows: Whitney (1.4/4) (down 13% from last week) and Are You There, Chelsea? (1.4/4) (down 18%) . To compare, both ABC sitcoms were reruns when these two aired: The Middle (1.5/4) and Suburgatory (1.4/4).

[Umlaut]

Isn't it true that nowadays basically everyone's numbers suck except for Big Reality Competitions and CBS programming? Even American Idol is getting much worse numbers this season than they've ever had before.

[Mindyjoy]

The Nielsen ratings system is completely antiquated, yes. But until a new system is developed the networks will live and die by it.

Still, the Whitney/Chelsea numbers are staggering. Losing to repeats of shows that aren't that popular, yikes.

[BillBrasky]

I think the idea of "appointment" television is just becoming antiquated in this day and age. I still enjoy sitting down on Thursday nights and watching the shows live, but I know I'm pretty much in the minority on that one. The audience for NBC's Thursday night shows (upper income bracket, younger-skewing, more educated) is also the very audience who are more likely to watch shows online or through torrents. So it's a Catch-22, networks and advertisers want to court this audience, but they are the ones least likely to watch the show live and sit through commercials.

The reason reality competitions and American Idol-type shows still do well is those are shows that you pretty much have to watch live, the excitement in watching them lies in the competition aspect and being able to vote on the people week to week. If you fall behind on watching them, catching up on them online isn't much fun. Same goes for big sporting events, awards shows, Presidential debates, etc. It's still possible for shows like this to get big numbers, but with scripted TV most people today would rather watch shows at their own pace and when it's most convenient for them.

[Umlaut]

Except for all the elderly who don't know how to work their DV-Rs and basically just leave their TVs set on CBS.

[simpgeek]

Or pets whose owners have died.

[Popinjay-Z]

Last night I dreamed about half of a new episode of Community. My jokes and general plotting were terrible. For some reason Annie wore a fedora the whole time. The only thing moderately amusing was when the group all watched a Community-esque show together at Abed's house. Everyone hated it except Britta, who loved it and did a goofy dance.

Clearly, my subconscious mind cannot do this alone. So save Community, NBC.

[beewcar]

I'm ready for some meta-"we almost sorta got canceled" humor in the 2nd half of this season. Maybe some Arrested Development references?

[Recury]

$10 shirt available for the next 20 hours

[jkwall]

[kevin]

did you guys see this before the superbowl? your favorite shows! your least favorite shows! but maybe most importantly, the inclusion of community in nbc's "brotherhood of men." how you gonna cancel that shit now, bro. it's in writing/show tune.

btw, nbc, let fallon lead all songs. misstep!

cc: the office thread, parks and rec thread, snl thread, nightmare fodder.