SFWire posted the ratings

They confirm what we already knew, the first airing got a 1.7

What we didn't know:

The second airing, got a 0.9

The third airing is unknown (yet?).

What is interesting, and kind of sad actually, that the repeat of Thirdspace, got a 0.9 as well

'Rangers' beat out 'The 5th Element' by a 0.1, but then 'The 5th Element' didn't cost Sci-Fi nearly as much.

Keep your fingers crossed people ...


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"I walk, i shop, i sneeze. I'll be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out ... and i don't sleep on a bed of bones."

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TriggerHappy:
the repeat of Thirdspace, got a 0.9 as well <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I knew it !!! there's definitely a strong link between Thirdspace and Ranger !


eerr...



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"You are all in violation of security ordinance 22V3A. That means get the hell out of here!
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- Zack

Questions:

How many of those who watched the first airing also watched the second? How many of those who didn't watch the second airing didn't watch it because of...

1. Not the advertised time.
2. They had already watched it.

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"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn

see post below

[This message has been edited by StarStuff (edited February 11, 2002).]

We watched the first showing. We didn't watch the second one because we had recorded the first one and here on the east coast the second showing went off at 1 a.m. (a little late if you're going to church in the morning).

We also watched the third showing (5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon EST) and recorded it again for family members who can't get the Sci Fi channel. The only way I knew of those additional times was because of this bulletin board. While these two additional times were listed in the newspaper TV section they were not advertised . . . at least not that I saw.

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God be between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.

[This message has been edited by StarStuff (edited February 11, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by StarStuff (edited February 11, 2002).]

I imagine that the 0.9 rating was for the 2nd (11 PM est) airing of Rangers. This could be interesting depending on what part of the country contributed to this rating. If the Nielsen geographical break down shows that the 0.9 came mostly from the eastern feed then that could be a nice thing (Although the football game did not finish until 11:40 PM est, thanks to overtime). I certainly can't imagine the sunday 5 PM showing opposite the Ram-Packer garnering a 0.9 .

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lennier:
Questions:

How many of those who watched the first airing also watched the second? How many of those who didn't watch the second airing didn't watch it because of...

1. Not the advertised time.
2. They had already watched it.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I watched all three (because I was babysitting the VCRs to cut a few commercials incase it ran long[1]), but then again I don't count Nielsen-wise, and I'm what would be considered a "hardcore B5 fan."


[1] I was taking NO chances. If I hadn't, they'd probably have added more commercials to runs 2 & 3, just to fake me out.

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

Crusade (reruns) starting 03/26/2002 at 1PM EST on the Sci-Fi Channel

http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/

What's really interesting also is that both "Fifth Element" and "Stargate" also ran against football games also and were only a little behind Rangers.

They may have benefited from familiarity, but Fifth Element was on the week prior (getting a 1.7 then too against football) and Stargate has been shown a little bit more than once since it was released.

Neither was advertised as heavily as B5LR.

It's interesting.

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Actually its not very interesting.

This was the cable premiere of "5th Element" and was advertised as such. I rarely watch SFC and even I knew about that. Furthermore it was up against a wildcard game that garnered only about a 14.0 rating (as opposed to the Patriot game that got a 29.0 Source USA Today. This 14.0 rating is slightly better than MNF). The Patriot game was a divisional playoff with a cinderella team played in the snow. If I was not a B5 fan I would have been watching it. In fact as soon as Rangers ended I tuned in to the game to catch the end of the 4th quarter and overtime. As far as Stargate is concerned, The Bear Eagle game was prett much over by 7 PM the time in which Stargate began so again not very interesting.

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Why didn't anyone say that the first showing of Rangers was no. 1 in SFC's top ten for that week? Even the second showing made the top ten!

It's certainly made me more hopeful!

Tammy

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http://community.webtv.net/gkarfan/TammysStation

I dont know why this is suprising. They got owned by a football game plain and simple. The second showing getting a .9 isnt that suprising either since the game was in full swing, and frankly the second half of the game was by far the best. I guess seeing West coast ratings by show would be neat to see, but probably not that relevant.

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'I don't believe in the no-win scenario' - JTK

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by westtim:
Actually its not very interesting.

This was the cable premiere of "5th Element" and was advertised as such. I rarely watch SFC and even I knew about that. Furthermore it was up against a wildcard game that garnered only about a 14.0 rating (as opposed to the Patriot game that got a 29.0 Source USA Today. This 14.0 rating is slightly better than MNF). The Patriot game was a divisional playoff with a cinderella team played in the snow. If I was not a B5 fan I would have been watching it. In fact as soon as Rangers ended I tuned in to the game to catch the end of the 4th quarter and overtime. As far as Stargate is concerned, The Bear Eagle game was prett much over by 7 PM the time in which Stargate began so again not very interesting.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought the Fifth Element showing was the "Sci Fi Channel" premiere, not the cable premiere. Regardless, it's been shown before.

While I agree the football rating the week before was lower, the rating of the Eagles vs. Bears game was only minutely less than the Patriots Game (17.1 vs. 17.4).

It's still interesting to me anyway that Fifth Element's third telecast on SciFi (it ran twice the week before) could garner a 1.6 against that game.

As for Stargate, the Eagles game telecast ran until 7:41PM. The rating it got from 7:00 to 7:41 was an 18.5--higher than its 17.1 average. I'm an Eagles fan. That game was every bit as exciting to its end as the Patriots game. The ratings it got in its last hour bare that out.

Then Stargate had to compete with the first hour of the Patriots game.

I know people get annoyed with my analytic nature, but I seriously doubt I ask any questions the SciFi Channel researchers and programmers are asking as they analyze the data.


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I don't get annoyed with your analytic nature because it is not very analytic. I do find alot of what is being done here akin to the proverbial apples and oranges. To analyse the Eagle/Bear game vs Stargate would require a quarter hour breakdown as well as demographics. This is information we do not have so it is senseless to guess at what it means. However I will say that it is not surprising that ratings for the game as well as everthing else would increase past 7 PM because we are entering primetime. And even so "Stargate" would have well over an hour to gather more audience. Perhaps some of that audience was for the Rangers as well. Either way without the complete ratings breakdown before us this is all guesswork not analytic work i.e. Madame Cleo vs. Richard Feynman.

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Hi all.
I'm 15 miles from Foxboro MA and I went to local watering hole to watch the game.
I will tell you no one was on the road, everyone was watching the game.
I also can understand why the East coast watched the game too. The Pats are hated in New York and they wanted to see my beloved Pats lose.
I Taped the 8PM showing and watched live the sunday 5PM.(loved it of course)
I believe the ratings would have been much higher if not for the football game and a 1.7 HAS to be considered excellent under the circumstances.


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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> The Pats are hated in New York and they wanted to see my beloved Pats lose. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh yeah? Well, I root for both New York and New England football teams. Figure that one out. Hah.

Go Pats!

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by westtim:
I don't get annoyed with your analytic nature because it is not very analytic. I do find alot of what is being done here akin to the proverbial apples and oranges. To analyse the Eagle/Bear game vs Stargate would require a quarter hour breakdown as well as demographics.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why? What type of insight would this give you?

Hasn't your own website come to the conclusion that the football game was the sole reason for B5LR's underperformance with even less data?

Even after you write prior to the game the following:

"we've put a lot of thought into our analysis and in the end we have concluded that the playoff game should not have a substantial effect on Rangers' ratings."

So, you are allowed to analyze and publish your opinions and about them and others aren't? How much analytics did you put into that? Did you have quarter hour ratings and demographics?

Tim's webpage

All I'm offering is an additional factor that could be considered--that other movies ran against the football also and we now know how they performed.

That's all I'm saying. Each person here can choose to draw a conclusion or not draw a conclusion from it. That's their choice.



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At no point did I say you are not allowed your opinion. However it is just that, an opinion. It is based on limited knowledge as is mine. However I am willing to admit that. Furthermore, our own website came to that conclusion based on comments of JMS that are included at that site. JMS has seen the ratings report in detail. Also our opinion which you quote from was issued before the airing of the movie/game so it is not possible to have the information such as a quarter hour breakdown. Believe it or not I was thinking that Rangers would get a 3.5 without the football game. I thought that we may lose anywhere from 0.5 to 0.7 with the game. However I did not fully account for the hit among the demographic. Everyone here knew that Rangers was going to get slammed by the game (even you did). The only question was to what degree. Well it turned out that a closely contested playoff game in the snow was capable of stealing a cable programs audience surprise surprise.
Do you disagree with that? Are you saying the game had no effect? Take a look at the top 25 cable programs for that week. Not one of them was a Saturday evening show/movie. I'm willing to guess that Rangers was the top cable program for that night (either that or something on the Lifetime network).

All you are offering is nonsense. Comparing the Ravens/Dolphins Blowout to the Patriot/Raider thriller is insane!! You do know that it was the highest rated football game in 5 years right? So you are going to compare the performance of "The Fifth Element" against Ravens/Dolphins and Rangers against Pats/Raiders to find a benchmarker. What you are not accounting for is that your standard has changed. All football games are not the same. Even the folks at SFC will know this. Try again.

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> If it wasn't for the football game, Rangers would have indeed gotten the kind of "spectacular" ratings that Sci-Fi couldn't ignore. But since it did go up against the football game and did get crushed by it on the east coast, we are in a tenuous position (seems like somehow that's always the position B5 programs are in). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've read statements like this ever since the ratings were first announced and I took them at face value ... now I'm not so sure. How on earth do you know that Rangers would have pulled in a 2.6 if not for the football game? What if there had been no football game and Rangers pulled in a 2.0 (which is what I thought it would get all along) Just because it did really good in San Diego or whatever doesn't tell you how it would have played in Atlanta or Boston. I agree with the point that the football game took away viewers, but I don't see how you can jump from that to "it would have gotten spectacular ratings." Isn't that just a guess on your part? The fact is we don't know what the ratings would have been like had there been no football game. Ironically, for those who want a series it may have been for the best that it DID AIR opposite a playoff game. Why? Because if there had been no football game and it fell short of 2.6, there would be no excuses -- it didn't meet the goal, ergo no series... case closed. Since there was a game, however, people can make the excuse that it would have done a 3.3 or yadda, yadda, yadda had it not been for the game.

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"Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday." -- Buffy Summers, "Once More With Feeling."

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by westtim:
At no point did I say you are not allowed your opinion. However it is just that, an opinion. It is based on limited knowledge as is mine. However I am willing to admit that.

<snip>

JMS has seen the ratings report in detail.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Folks should not assume that those who post here don't have access to more information than B5LR (or even any other web site) has posted. It would be incorrect in some number of cases.

As for JMS, what leads you to believe he has seen ratings information of a detailed nature . What does that mean, anyhow? By time? By demo? Otherwise?

In addition, was the data given to him the actual report of just a number from a SCI-FI Executive or other source. Have you asked him?

I know hadn't seen such detailed information for Crusade during its' TNT tenure. Remember that an Executive Producer does not have direct access to Nielsen Ratings.


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[This message has been edited by ala (edited February 11, 2002).]

If the ratings reports from JMS and the actors are accurate they reveal an odd pattern in the ratings. Essentially Rangers fails in the east and succeeds in the west.
So why is that? Could it be that there is something about the West coast and Rangers that works well together? Perhaps the majority of B5 fans are located in San Diego, LA and San Francisco. Maybe people in the east shun anything science fiction oriented. Or perhaps it was the football game. Has anyone heard of Occams razor?

To have the kind of disparity we are seeing in west and east coast ratings forces one to conclude one of two things.
1.) There is something unusual about west coasters when compared to the rest of us.
2.) The highest rated football game (with an hour headstart) in 5 years effected the ratings significantly.

Now I know some people joke about Californians but I think if one has a cerebrum that is still functioning then one may conclude that it was the later.

Actually I'd be interested in seeing the LA, San Diego and San Fran ratings for "Fifth Element" and "Stargate". Something tells me these programs did not break 3.0 in the west. But hey I'm just guessing.

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