Lies, Lies and Damn Statistics...
New Merlin on tonight, yay! Very excited about it. I thought last weekend's episode was really cracking, so good and I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that it keeps going in that direction. I like the tone, the writing, the style and the characters. Keep it going little show!!
I am a confession. I love ratings. I love trying to figure them about. I have a second confession. My knowledge of ratings is very limited. I don't have a numbers brain. All my research I've ever done was all mainly critical analysis. I did try with statistics and figures, but the look on my tutor's face suggested my talents lay elsewhere. I'm still not quite sure where that place is, but it certainly isn't in statistics.
That being said, I like to pay attention to the Merlin ratings. I know we've got season 5 commissioned so it doesn't really matter if it's just me and a cat watching, but it just interests me. I want to see it do as well as it deserves to. It is in a David v Goliath battle. It's up against the highest rated, most talked about show on television. Given all the press The X Factor gets, I'm surprised it isn't just me and a cat watching. I love that last season, they put it against that show and it did really well. Did it ever beat it or come really close in the ratings? No it didn't and it never will. But it definitely nipped at it's ankles a bit.
There was a link on the fab merlin_network to a breakdown of the ratings if anyone wanted to see. This isn't my chart, I am a stealing stealer who steals. This is the link: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6158/6212490436_acac975edb_o.jpg
This is fascinating to me, because it not only gives you the overnights, but breaks them down. All these shows will obviously have a higher rating once all the other things like recording etc are added up, but it's interesting to look at the bare bones ratings.
I did say last week that if Merlin got 6 million in the overnights, that would be amazing. It didn't quite get there, it got 5.23 mill so I'm not eccstatic, but I'm very happy with that, especially when you consider what the other programmes that night got. I don't know whether it was because last Saturday was unseasonly boiling hot and everyone was out enjoying the good weather, but all the overnights seemed a bit lower to me. Strictly Come Dancing got 7.5, Dr Who finale only got about 6 mill and that didn't have much of a competition for most of it. Even The X Factor didn't even hit 10 million, so it seemed low to me.
This week the weather is more autumnal and Merlin will have a bigger lead in audience from Strictly, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 6 mill this week. Although, I'm not really that confident as The X Factor live finals start this week and it seems to have more press than usual (if that was even possible).
Looking at that ratings table it's so interesting that Merlin is sometimes seen as a kids show, or more kindly put a 'family' show, yet a really high share of it's audience is 45+. More over 65's watched Merlin than watched The X Factor. It does have quite a low audience in the under 15's, but then the timeslot it is in now is quite late and I think a lot of the audience who are children would have it recorded for them. The place where Merlin gets slaughtered by The X Factor is 16-44, especially the 16-34 age range. I think that's probably obvious though and never going to change. Hopefully all these people are recording Merlin or watching it on the IPlayer though!
I'm going to have to leave my thoughts at that as I don't really understand the rest and don't think I should have a go at interpreting it! Does anyone know when the final figures come in, not just the overnights?
Anyway that was my little ratings break down. It's my mum's birthday today and I was supposed to be taking her out for lunch with my sister and nephews, but some relatives who live a few hours away phoned her the other day and told her they were coming down for lunch on Saturday. They didn't even think of asking my sister or me if we had anything planned and my mum is far to polite to tell them they couldn't come down as they didn't really ask, they just said they were coming. Not only did we have to rebook the restaurant for tomorrow, but now she's having to run around after relatives on her birthday which I know she didn't want to do. My sister and I are staying away from them as they are getting right on our goat recently.
I am a confession. I love ratings. I love trying to figure them about. I have a second confession. My knowledge of ratings is very limited. I don't have a numbers brain. All my research I've ever done was all mainly critical analysis. I did try with statistics and figures, but the look on my tutor's face suggested my talents lay elsewhere. I'm still not quite sure where that place is, but it certainly isn't in statistics.
That being said, I like to pay attention to the Merlin ratings. I know we've got season 5 commissioned so it doesn't really matter if it's just me and a cat watching, but it just interests me. I want to see it do as well as it deserves to. It is in a David v Goliath battle. It's up against the highest rated, most talked about show on television. Given all the press The X Factor gets, I'm surprised it isn't just me and a cat watching. I love that last season, they put it against that show and it did really well. Did it ever beat it or come really close in the ratings? No it didn't and it never will. But it definitely nipped at it's ankles a bit.
There was a link on the fab merlin_network to a breakdown of the ratings if anyone wanted to see. This isn't my chart, I am a stealing stealer who steals. This is the link: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6158/6212490436_acac975edb_o.jpg
This is fascinating to me, because it not only gives you the overnights, but breaks them down. All these shows will obviously have a higher rating once all the other things like recording etc are added up, but it's interesting to look at the bare bones ratings.
I did say last week that if Merlin got 6 million in the overnights, that would be amazing. It didn't quite get there, it got 5.23 mill so I'm not eccstatic, but I'm very happy with that, especially when you consider what the other programmes that night got. I don't know whether it was because last Saturday was unseasonly boiling hot and everyone was out enjoying the good weather, but all the overnights seemed a bit lower to me. Strictly Come Dancing got 7.5, Dr Who finale only got about 6 mill and that didn't have much of a competition for most of it. Even The X Factor didn't even hit 10 million, so it seemed low to me.
This week the weather is more autumnal and Merlin will have a bigger lead in audience from Strictly, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 6 mill this week. Although, I'm not really that confident as The X Factor live finals start this week and it seems to have more press than usual (if that was even possible).
Looking at that ratings table it's so interesting that Merlin is sometimes seen as a kids show, or more kindly put a 'family' show, yet a really high share of it's audience is 45+. More over 65's watched Merlin than watched The X Factor. It does have quite a low audience in the under 15's, but then the timeslot it is in now is quite late and I think a lot of the audience who are children would have it recorded for them. The place where Merlin gets slaughtered by The X Factor is 16-44, especially the 16-34 age range. I think that's probably obvious though and never going to change. Hopefully all these people are recording Merlin or watching it on the IPlayer though!
I'm going to have to leave my thoughts at that as I don't really understand the rest and don't think I should have a go at interpreting it! Does anyone know when the final figures come in, not just the overnights?
Anyway that was my little ratings break down. It's my mum's birthday today and I was supposed to be taking her out for lunch with my sister and nephews, but some relatives who live a few hours away phoned her the other day and told her they were coming down for lunch on Saturday. They didn't even think of asking my sister or me if we had anything planned and my mum is far to polite to tell them they couldn't come down as they didn't really ask, they just said they were coming. Not only did we have to rebook the restaurant for tomorrow, but now she's having to run around after relatives on her birthday which I know she didn't want to do. My sister and I are staying away from them as they are getting right on our goat recently.