It’s funny how demographics can impact the success of a TV series. ABC’s The River debuted last night(Feb. 7th, 2012). It has a “found-footage” style and comes from Oren Peli, who is known for his Paranormal Activity film. I suspect that film was mostly attended by young moviegoers. Older viewers tend to like traditional formats. See any CBS series for what I mean.
So, it was a surprise to me that The River didn't skew any younger than most of the other scifi/fantasy shows that have debuted this season. As a result, The River was a ratings disappointment. It got a 2.5 for Adults 18-49, which isn't that much higher than Grimm debuted at. Grimm's on Friday.
I took a look at a sampling of TV debuts this year. All are loosely in the scifi/fantasy genre, except for Smash, which I threw in for the hell of it. My analysis. My rules.
The biggest ratings success in the genre this season has been Once Upon a Time, but its demographics reveal how much this was driven by “chick appeal”. It’s demographic footprint is more like Smash than any of the other shows here.
The highest rated show of the season for Men 18-34 was Alcatraz. Extend the age to Men 18-49 and it was Terra Nova. Terra Nova had the strongest skew to men.
Alcatraz had the most evenly distributed demographics—appeal to old and young, male and female.
Grimm had a surprisingly good debut on Friday coming out of a weak Chuck lead-in. Its gains over Chuck were more for females than males. It’s based on fairy tales, like Once Upon a Time, but has a male protagonist and is darker. So, it’s not quite as female as the “Once” is.
I wonder why The River didn't get more sampling from Men 18-34 in particular. It had the same rating as Grimm for that demo. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
I know most of ABC's programs skew very female. It's also possible that more men don't see their promos because they don't have football.
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