Ratings for “The Economist” Are In
I would like to know what people have to do on Thursday nights aside from watching Lost, because the ratings keep slipping from week to week against very little competition. Maybe last night’s slippage was just a case of people having other things to do on Valentine’s Day. But really, what’s better than sitting down with your loved one and watching Sayid plug a woman full of holes? That says romance to me.
Anyway, "The Economist" had 13.62 million viewers last night. This is down from 15.06 million for "Confirmed Dead," and 16.07 million for the season premiere. I don’t think the falling numbers have anything to do with the quality of the episodes, but are simply a product of lowered anticipation for some people after the premiere. Let’s hope next week’s installment gets a boost, as it won’t be falling on any sort of holiday.
That’s crazy. Last nights episode was amazing and the slip in ratings truly do not represent the quality of the show. Either you watch Lost or you WATCH Lost. I don’t get people that just miss episodes. Holiday or not.
Comment by steeeeve — February 15, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Ratings are a scam anyway. They don’t ACTUALLY know what everyone is watching. It’s based on a small sampling from given to us by Nielsen Media Research right?
Comment by Charlie Lesoine — February 15, 2008 @ 4:07 pm
Not to mention there are people who are unable to watch it the official way. I don’t get ABC in my area because it’s rural. So how does a poor graduate “fresh out of college” afford it? … easy, BitTorrent.
Comment by sk8rpro — February 15, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
its ture.. not everyone gets to watch it the official day.. i have a cousin who works at night, like many other people, so he is unable to watch them when they air.. btw thursday’s ep was awsome, and im so looking foward to eggtown (ep. 4)!
Comment by Elizabeth — February 15, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
I honestly wonder how many fans there really are. I many people tried to get back into it and give Lost another shot, but I think the story has evolved way past what they last saw/know, that they can’t get into it. I can only think there is now simply a core audience that will never realy grow…and most likely attrit.
Comment by downthehatch — February 16, 2008 @ 9:39 am
First of all, yes the ratings are a scam. The do it for the most part with random sampling. They pick random areas throughout the markets and talk to some of the same people for a period of a couple weeks to a couple months. They either call them and ask what they were watching or they have diaries that the people in the household keep track with. There are flaws with this system as well as people will forget to write in the diary, or lie about what or how much they watch. They claim that the random aspect makes a good indicator of viewers across the board. Secondly, Lost is very hard to understand if you haven’t seen it all through. ABC has been doing a good job of catching people up though.
Comment by Bill Dickson — February 16, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
I am firmly of the belief that more people watch premieres and finales live than other episodes. We live in an age of increased time-shifting and alternative means of viewing episodes. Between DVR, TIVO, online viewing, itunes downloads, and illegal downloads, I imagine the vast majority of the viewers ‘drop’ is made up. Lost really isn’t the sort of show that has casual ‘tune in one week but not the other’ viewers.
Comment by S. A. Bonasi — February 17, 2008 @ 7:07 am
I WATCH Lost in Barcelona every friday.
Comment by MA — February 17, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
It was Valentines night. Many people were out eating dinner or cooking a romantic dinners and not watching TV. I know I had to watch it on abc.com the next morning.
Comment by BlackrockBob — February 17, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
People have short attention spans. And loads of people can’t handle how complicated Lost is. I work with people that have watched it since the beginning, and seen every episode. But still every Friday morning I find myself explaining to them what everything meant. All the while I’m thinking “Did you even watch the same thing I did?” How can they not grasp it at all?
Comment by hms — February 18, 2008 @ 4:56 am
My guess is the ratings are slipping for 2 reasons one is short attention spans of most people these days they could barely keep up with Lost in the first place and the long off-season and the strike killed peoples interest. The other is the day and time Thursday nights people watch Smallville & Supernatural and 9pm is a little too late for most of america and when they switch it to 10pm in April it will get even worse. I swear ABC is trying to kill the show sometimes by thinking everyone has TIVO and DVR.
This of course doesn’t matter to me though as I will watch it on any day and at anytime they air. I just don’t think they should bank on everyone being that way.
Comment by seeweda — February 18, 2008 @ 9:09 am
what’s really going to kill lost is airing it on thursdays at 10PM.
Comment by sk8rpro — February 19, 2008 @ 1:32 am
there are SO many people that watch it online and shit.
so
ratings are such an unaccurate way of telling how many people watch the episode.
lost does kick ass.
Comment by zach — February 19, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
ive been watching LOST with groups of people for a couple seasons now. do those ratings count the 10 people watching 1 television? us twenty-somethings love to watch and drink and discuss together. ;D
Comment by karen — February 19, 2008 @ 1:56 pm