As Seen on Chucktv.net: Chuck vs. The Ratings- Numbers, Demos, Trends, and Charts

What It All Means and Why Chuck Is Well Positioned for Season 4 

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Ever since the second season there has been a strong fascination about Chuck’s ratings. What do the ratings mean? Are the ratings good enough for another season? Is it time for fans to worry? Time to start up another “Save Chuck” campaign? Short answer: Chuck is doing okay in the ratings. Last nights drop to a 2.2 (still preliminary) is worrisome, but remember it’s still early in the season. Yes Chuck is on the bubble once again, but it’s still a relatively strong performer for NBC.

It’s important to remember that the demographics 18-49 are the most important number to focus on and that’s what I’ll be referring to. Why? That’s what advertisers use to set their ad rates for the upcoming season, thus networks follow suit. Viewership numbers are not entirely useless, but it doesn’t matter much to advertisers. If you want to read more about the ratings and what the numbers mean, head over to TVByTheNumbers.com.

Current Ratings

There has been some concern about the recent ratings drop. The charts below show the ratings, in demos and viewership, for season 3 to date.

Now the charts don’t look too good, right? In fact, the charts make it look worse than it really is. What we should be focusing on is episodes 3.03 onward. Why? The first two episodes of Chuck aired on a Sunday, a night with totally different competition and viewership. And as with any premiere episodes, ratings will tend to be inflated, so to speak. It’s only natural for shows in their second outings to drop. This is not unique to Chuck, but quite common amongst the majority of TV shows.

Another important thing to remember is that since NBC scheduled the Sunday premiere event, Nielsen (who provides the ratings) does not add those numbers to the season average since those were “specials”. Only episodes not deemed “specials” (i.e. aired in its regular time-slot) will be counted in the averages. So the averages will not include the first 2 episodes.

Having said that, are the ratings from 3.03 onward ominous? Not necessarily. To date, Chuck is averaging 2.44 in the demos. That makes Chuck the 3rd highest scripted show on NBC, behind The Office and 30 Rock, and the highest rated hour-long scripted programming. It’s amazing that a show, once on the verge of cancellation, has become one of NBC’s few bright spots.

Note: It’s likely that Chuck will not be the highest rated hour-long program post-Olympics with Parenthood after the The Biggest Loser (NBC’s most-watched program), getting a significant lead-in to boost/inflate its numbers. Also, Law & Order: SVU will be moving back to 10pm, its rightful place and most likely will have better ratings. This should not affect Chuck in terms of renewal.

Comparing Season 2 & Season 3

Some may argue “but look at the trajectory of the ratings. It’s going down, not stabilizing”. This is where looking at past ratings will help put things into perspective.

It’s important to remember that Chuck’s current crop of competition- The Bachelor/Dancing with the Stars, CBS comedies, and House - was only the same post-Super Bowl of last year. Chuck had the courtesy of going up against Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles in fall 2008, a far weaker show compared to House. So, for an apples-to-apples comparison, lets take a look at how Chuck did during the last half of season 2 (2.13-2.22).

From episode 2.13 up to the season 2 finale, Chuck averaged a 2.26 in the demo. Going up against The Bachelor (three episodes), Chuck averaged 2.33. When Dancing with the Stars debuted, Chuck averaged 2.23. The drop you see from 2.15 to 2.16 was due to the debut of DWTS. Every show that night saw drops in their ratings. So that begs the question: Will Chuck face a similar drop in ratings? Most likely, but it’s nothing to be alarmed at. What we can look forward to is that DWTS should not be debuting as strongly as last season. If their fall performance was any indication, DWTS should be weaker this season. Plus, as indicated in the chart, Chuck regained its entire demo that it lost initially to DWTS.

So comparing the ratings, Chuck is currently averaging 2.44 compared to 2.26 during the last half of last season. In terms of viewership, the show gained 770,000 more viewers. Amazingly, Chuck is on par with the first half of the second season when it was up against weaker competition (2.53 vs. 2.5) (6.68 vs. 6.88 million viewers) More importantly, there’s a trend in the ratings that can be seen in all three season of Chuck.

Chuck Ratings To Date

 

Note: In season 1, episodes 1.12 and 1.13 aired on a Thursday as a special “Chuck Sandwich” night. Chuck was off the air for 7 weeks and then brought back to finish its episodes during the writers strike.
It’s fascinating that in all three seasons of Chuck, the show has hit a bottom around episode 6. From there, it has slowly increased. Even in the second half of last season, Chuck ended on an uptrend after hitting bottom, yes, at the 6th episode of the second half of the season. Unfortunately, we don’t know if season 3 has seen a bottom yet, and we won’t know for at least a month.

Will season 3 continue the trend of Chuck increasing its ratings as the season progresses? According to past seasons, it should, barring a change in Chuck’s competition.

Chuck has endured a lot of headwinds. It survived the writers strike. It had to deal with FOX moving House opposite of Chuck. It had to deal with President Obama’s news conference, which effectively killed any momentum the show had from the 3D episode. For its premiere this season, Chuck had to deal with the 150th episode of The Simpsons, which FOX moved up to go up against Chuck. FOX also moved up House to compete against the second night of Chuck’s premiere event, then scheduled the premiere of 24 for the following week. Chuck had to go up against the 100th episode of How I Met Your Mother. And yet, the show just gave those shows the big middle finger. But it does make you wonder what Chuck’s ratings would’ve been had FOX not moved up their two big shows.

The Big Picture

Chuck is one of the few shows on ANY network, to hold its audience from last season. The long break and the new element of the show (Intersect 2.0) did not hurt the show as many had feared. Holding your audience from last season, even if it’s a small but very passionate base like Chuck’s, is a very good thing in the TV industry when year after year there’s less people watching broadcast television.
There are many things working in favor of Chuck moving forward:

1. Cancellation of The Jay Leno Show- The only reason Chuck was on the bubble last season was because of Jay Leno. When NBC effectively cut 5 hours of prime-time, it put a bunch of shows on the bubble that would otherwise be safe. Because NBC was in such dire straits last year, shows with 2.3+ demos would’ve been safe. Now with 5 more hours free, NBC has a bunch of holes in its schedule. NBC will try to plug those holes with new shows, and that’s evident with its big order of pilots. But don’t take that as a sign Chuck may soon be, um, “chucked”. On average, networks pick up 20-25% of their pilots. Not a very high percentage. For a network like NBC, having known shows with adequate ratings is much safer and the network could use those shows to grow new shows.
2. Impending cancellation of Trauma and/or Mercy – Neither show can even crack a 2.0 in demos. Both shows are likely gone, thus opening up more hours, making Chuck’s 2.44 look even better.
3. It’s on NBC- NBC is doing even worse this season. Leno failed epically. None of NBC’s new shows caught on. Former ratings giant LO:SVU got killed at the 9pm hour. Chuck is the only show to hold, even grow its audience.
4. Subway and Honda- Now I don’t really know what the financials are, but when you have a corporation that helped save the show (Subway) and another actively advertising on the show (Honda), it helps with negotiations come renewal time when you have corporations wanting to advertise on your show.

The season is still young and the ratings will fluctuate week after week. The ratings post-Olympics will be very important. If Chuck can hold to a 2.4-2.5 average in the demos, things look very good for a season 4. Chuck will have fairly smooth sailing until DWTS debuts on March 29th, bolstered by the promos NBC will air during the Olympics when it has a larger audience than its seen in years. Anything below a 2.4 average, it’s time to worry, but it’s definitely not the end of Chuck.

Another important thing to remember: Don’t focus on how Chuck does against the competition. It’ll probably stay in 4th place unless it goes up against repeats. Rather, focus on how Chuck does relative to other shows on NBC. That’s all that really matters at this point.

There will still be some hand-wringing about the ratings, and that’s fine. But it’s also important to remember that Chuck, at this point, is doing okay. Yes I’m a little bit worried, but it’s still early in the season. It’s more important how we do in March and April, especially April since that’s when NBC will make its decision on season 4. Having said that, I’m still cautiously optimistic for season 4.

Credit: All charts courtesy of snickrz.
Source for ratings info: pifeedback.com and TVByTheNumbers. If you want to follow ratings for Chuck or any other show, those two websites do a fabulous job reporting the numbers.