Cavemen - ABC Trailer...everything that is wrong with Disney.

[Lilolvr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6GuL7f0zIw

Anyone want to take bets on how long this stays on the air?

That's what they said about the Simpsons 20 years ago. "No one wants to watch a cartoon in prime time".

 

[EUROPACL]

That's what they said about the Simpsons 20 years ago. "No one wants to watch a cartoon in prime time".

So your guess is 20 years? I'm going to go with less than 6 shows....before they replace it with Cat Grooming with the Stars.

 

[Johnacon]

Sounds like a bunch of you woke up on the wrong side of the rock!

 

[Wick]

Sounds like a bunch of you woke up on the wrong side of the rock!

LMAO

 

[EUROPACL]

LMAO

Sounds like a bunch of you woke up on the wrong side of the rock!

Oh boy a new game...I'm betting once a show that "joke" will be used....wait a second you're not working on this show are you? That would be cheating.

 

[Squirlz]

I would admire and give points if and when Disney stops trying to put crap like this on TV and stops treating its customers like complete and utter idiots. Based on this thread I don't have any hopes that will change or that they are far off.

But the idiot audience is where the money is. I mean, look at American Idol.

 

[Wick]

Oh boy a new game...I'm betting once a show that "joke" will be used....wait a second you're not working on this show are you? That would be cheating.

No sir!
The irony in all this is that the commercials themselves are funny/amusing/entertaining-- at least to a majority of viewers (if they weren't, they wouldn't be as popular are they have become). It seems Geico hired a decently creative marketing firm, as the newer commercials are equally entertaining. Anyone see them yet? The Flintstones spoof is pretty good.

 

[perdidochas]

I could see this as a one time, made for tv movie on the Fox network, but that's about it. I can't believe Disney/ABC actually is making this as a series. This thing isn't going to be the next Seinfeld or Frasier and won't have that long of a shelf life. I give it 4 episodes at most and then it will fade away like AfterMASH, SuperTrain, or the Jackie Mason show. This is a dumb move on Disney's part, a waste of money, and I would have loved been in that meeting and to hear the pitch on this series.

or it could be like ALF that somehow ran for 3 yrs.

 

[DC7800]

But the idiot audience is where the money is. I mean, look at American Idol.

There is no doubt that American audiences are many times more intelligent than Hollywood gives them credit for. While it does sometimes appear that the dumber, more idiotic, the show (many "reality' shows of the past few years) - the bigger success it is, I don't think (hope...) that is literally true.

From the list of ABC's primetime lineup, I can pick maybe two shows that I'd watch. That's it, and I'm not particularly excited about those.

 

[Another Voice]

But the idiot audience is where the money is. I mean, look at American Idol.

No, it's the audience that they have left.

The trend in network television for more twenty years is the loss of veiwers. People are going to cable, to pay-per-view, to local stations, to home video, to the Internet, to reading a book. This summer the networks pulled in the lowest number of viewers since the invention of the modern rating system. And there were some nights that attracted the fewest veiwers since the days of black and white broadcasting.

It's not that the audience wants stupid programs, it's that most of the audience has left the network and now they are left with a small and strange demographic.

It's a race to the bottom. Networks have to cut the cost of their programs faster than their audience shirnks. This has resulted in bad, poorly made shows that drive even more people away. So, the network must cut more on the next show...and so on.

 

[G8RFAN]

From the list of ABC's primetime lineup, I can pick maybe two shows that I'd watch. That's it, and I'm not particularly excited about those.

I just realized that I haven't seen any of them. Not one episode. Maybe 5 minutes of Boston Legal and George Lopez while channel surfing but that's it. Of course, I don't think the other networks airtime gets that much more of my attention either except for the local news.

 

[disneyskeptic]

Someone posting something negative about Disney? There is hope for this board after all.

 

[YoHo]

clearly you're new here.

 

[Wick]

This summer the networks pulled in the lowest number of viewers since the invention of the modern rating system. And there were some nights that attracted the fewest veiwers since the days of black and white broadcasting.

Just outta curiosity, you got a source on that? I find that really hard to believe. Granted, ratings aren't what they could be if we had some more quality programming. But I just don't see how it's gotten so bad to the point that records were broken. Especially the part about attracting less viewers since black and white broadcasting-- if you consider the astronomical increase in TV sets per household in America since the 50s (along with other factors like the dramatic increase in population), I estimate that you would have to have more than half of Americans with TV sets not watch it for one night.

 

[buckylarue]

Not QUITE as dismal as stated, but here's the AP article on last week's ratings for the big 4 networks and what records were broken:

Quiet Week for Television Networks

By DAVID BAUDER – September 5, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) — With many viewers apparently outside enjoying summer's last hurrah, the broadcast television networks hit a negative ratings trifecta only a few weeks before the start of the fall season.

NBC and Fox had their lowest ratings among young viewers since at least 1987, when Nielsen Media Research began precise people meter measurements. ABC tied its record-low rating among those same 18-to-49-year-old viewers, bottoming out at the same level it hit two other weeks this summer.

All three networks chase that youthful demographic almost exclusively.

The average of 4.2 million viewers of all ages who tuned in to NBC in prime time last week was the network's lowest in decades. The other networks' weekly averages turned out to be the third-lowest for ABC, fourth-lowest for Fox and ninth-lowest for CBS, according to Nielsen.

Judging by a schedule clogged with even more reruns than usual, it's obvious the broadcasters didn't put much emphasis on the week. They're more worried about the fall season, which begins the last week of September. But last week's troubles meant fewer viewers were available to watch network promos for their new series.

The only program to deliver more than 10 million viewers last week was a rerun of "Two and a Half Men" on CBS.

For the week, CBS dominated with 6.8 million viewers (4.5 rating, 8 share). Fox had 4.4 million viewers (2.8, 5), ABC had 4.3 million (2.9, 5), NBC had 4.2 million (2.8, 5), the CW had 1.8 million (1.2, 2), My Network TV had 920,000 (0.7, 1) and ION had 590,000 (0.4, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.2 million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 950,000 (0.5, 1), TeleFutura had 680,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca had 190,000 (0.1, 0).

Brian Williams of NBC's "Nightly News" took advantage of Charles Gibson's vacation on ABC to climb atop the evening news ratings. NBC averaged 7.8 million viewers last week (5.3 rating, 11 share), ABC's World News" had 7.6 million viewers (5.1, 11) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.9 million (4.1, 9).

A ratings point represents 1,130,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Aug. 27-Sept 2, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 10.31 million; "The Power of Ten" (Tuesday), CBS, 9.89 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 9.09 million; "CSI: NY," CBS, 8.9 million; "Criminal Minds," 8.46 million; "The Power of Ten" (Wednesday), CBS, 8.34 million; "Big Brother 8" (Tuesday), CBS, 8.14 million; "House," Fox, 7.95 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 7.77 million; "Rules of Engagement," CBS, 7.62 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned by General Electric Co. Telemundo is owned by General Electric. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.

 

[EUROPACL]

Just outta curiosity, you got a source on that? I find that really hard to believe. Granted, ratings aren't what they could be if we had some more quality programming. But I just don't see how it's gotten so bad to the point that records were broken. Especially the part about attracting less viewers since black and white broadcasting-- if you consider the astronomical increase in TV sets per household in America since the 50s (along with other factors like the dramatic increase in population), I estimate that you would have to have more than half of Americans with TV sets not watch it for one night.

Why do people keep questioning AV on these things? I've never seen someone that has to "backup" everything they say as many times as AV and he is the one that works in the biz.

 

[Another Voice]

I don’t mind providing back-up at all. This is the internet; nothing should be taken at face value.

Television ratings are fun things. The "lowest rating ever" was a comment from a friend at NBC. Their 1.1 for a Stanley Cup was the lowest recorded rating for a program ever for NBC - sports, entertainment, whatever. http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs2007/news/story?id=2894490
(The episode of 'West Wing' mentioned in the article actually scored a couple hundredths of a point higher, but ratings are traditionally rounded to a single decimal point.)

The article that buckylarue posted has a good explanation of the differences between rating points and share.

Rating information is controlled by the Nielson company and a subscription to a ratings book is a very expensive. They’ve also been very aggressive about wiping the internet of numbers. The only good historical information I’ve been able to find on the pipes of the Internets is the share.

I took a quick look at fifty years ago – 1957. The U.S. population in 1957 was 172 million people. Today, it’s some 300 million people – virtually doubled. The one estimate I found said that 1957 some 90% of all American households owned television sets (that was up from just 10% in 1953). The article is at http://www.loti.com/fifties_TV/you_are_there_history_comes_to_television.htm

According to the website (http://www.trivia-library.com/c/top-television-show-ratings-1957.htm), the top show in 1957 was ‘Gunsmoke’ with a 43.1 share. That means 43.1% of all households with televisions watched the show. The top rated show in 2007 was ‘American Idol’ with a share of 27. The highest rated series was ‘CSI’ with a share of 17. What’s interesting was that in 1957, a share of 27 wouldn’t even have landed you in the top ten.

I’ll continue to see if I can publish the actual number of viewers. If nothing else, these numbers show how fractured the television landscape has become. Networks used to be able to get well over a third of the country to watch them, now it takes a true miracle show like ‘Idol’ to not-even-come-close to that result.

FYI: The Top Ten for 1957 and their shares:

1. Gunsmoke CBS 43.1
2. The Danny Thomas Show CBS 35.3
3. Tales of Wells Fargo NBC 35.2
4. Have Gun Will Travel CBS 33.7
5. I've Got a Secret CBS 33.4
6. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp ABC 32.6
7. General Electric Theater CBS 31.5
8. The Restless Gun NBC 31.4
9. December Bride CBS 30.7
10. You Bet Your Life NBC 30.6

And for interest – in 1955:
1. The $64,000 Question CBS 47.5
2. I Love Lucy CBS 46.1
3. The Ed Sullivan Show CBS 39.5
4. Disneyland ABC 37.4
5. The Jack Benny Show CBS 37.2
6. December Bride CBS 37.0
7. You Bet Your Life NBC 35.4
8. Dragnet NBC 35.0
9. The Millionaire CBS 33.8
10. I've Got a Secret CBS 33.5


For 2007, the top rated ABC show was ‘Dancing with the Stars’ with a 12.7 rating and a 20 share; the top ABC series was ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ with a 10.3/16.

 

[YoHo]

Why do people keep questioning AV on these things? I've never seen someone that has to "backup" everything they say as many times as AV and he is the one that works in the biz.

If Hollywood is good at one thing, it's spin. Combine that with the fact that the average American literally can't conceive of the financial world in which Hollywood operates and it becomes obvious why it's so hard for people to believe. I mean come on, if you didn't have it spelled out for you, would you believe that a movie that made nearly $1 billion in the theater was a financial failure? I know it's true, because I've been watching it all play out and listening to AV and reading other sources.

 

[EUROPACL]

I know its the Interwebnet and all...but still after 7 years of post and in this case someone reading them for 5 years you would have to say to yourself "hey this guy knows what he is talking about...maybe I don't need to challenge him on everything." In this case its not as if the networks are going to go around yelling at the top of the lungs..."hey we can't get 10 million people to watch our shows".

 

[Uncleromulus]

All this is probably why I watch Turner Classic Movies---