Merlin, NBC’s heavily-promoted effort to bring high fantasy to American prime-time, seemed to draw lack-luster ratings in last night’s two-hour premiere.
In the Nielsen overnight ratings, an imprecise number that is often adjusted significantly before “final” ratings are issued, the show drew 5.9 million viewers (a 1.5 share in the coveted 18-49 demo) in the first hour and 4.9 million viewers (a 1.3 18-49 share) in the second hour.
Of the five broadcast networks, the show came in second at both 8 PM (losing to a rerun of the The Simpsons), and 9 PM (losing to a rerun of Family Guy, which drew almost twice as many viewers).
Merlin’s relative failure with viewers may be particularly bad for the show’s prospects as all of its competition in both time-slots (except for a TV movie on the CW) was reruns.
NBC’s previous attempt at prime-time fantasy, Kings, which premiered in March on the same night, was considered an outright bomb, although it drew slightly more viewers than Merlin. Overall viewership is generally down in the summer months, and the network may take that into consideration when deciding Merlin’s fate.
Nielsen’s overnight ratings are more imprecise than “final” ratings issued later in the week. In addition to “live broadcast viewers” — those viewers who watch the program during the live broadcast — they include only partial DVR viewership. 24.4% of all U.S. households now include a DVR.
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Brent, thanks for the shout out, but to be clear, the fast affiliate overnight ratings that you linked to do include DVR viewing until 3am following the airdate (referred to as Live+Same Day or Live+SD). Live+SD typically captures about 50% of the total DVR viewing, but Live+7 DVR numbers for last night will not be available for two weeks.
Thanks, Bill. I’ll amend.
Also, let me complement you on your choice of WP Themes
Ha! I went to your site, and I thought, “Wait, did something go wrong?”
Aww, that’s disappointing. I hope it picks up.
(Excellent use of the pic of morose!Arthur. “Watch the show, people! See how sad you made Arthur?”)
Yeah, it was the perfect pic, wasn’t it? Thanks for uploading it.
To be honest, I’m not a fan of King Arthur. And there is Agatha Christie on Sunday nights too.
Maybe I’m biased as one working in advertising, but to be blunt, I wouldn’t have even known it was on if it wasn’t for this website. Then again, I’m not a huge TV watcher anyways though, so maybe they’re advertising where I’m not looking.
Definitely going to catch this when I can.
Brent, I can understand why the show didn’t score big with viewers. I thought both episodes were lackluster. If the rest if the episodes are cancelled, maybe they’ll be on the Sci-Fi Channel.
I liked the first ep quite a bit, though I thought the second one sucked.
I felt the same-Eve Myles made an excellent villain and I was sad to see her go at the end. She would have made a great recurring Nemesis, even a source of education for Arthur. The second episode had to bring the “sword” into the “Sword and Sorcery” and the actor playing Valiant was boring as all get out. As Paige pointed out though, I only heard about the series here and even then, only watched it after I had read Madeleine Mitchell’s review.
Heavily promoted? You’re joking! That’s my only complaint! If NBC promoted “Merlin” half as much as “The Great American Road Trip” it would be an extremely successful series in the US.
I speak as a journalist. It seemed like the network was pushing the show to media outlets, encouraging them to write about it. But others have complained about the lack of promotion, so clearly my experience was not typical.