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The fast overnights for Monday night are in and Chuck stayed steady while the rest of NBC’s Monday night shows fell for the second week in a row. Approximately 5.37 million viewers tuned in to watch Nicole Richie & Stone Cold Steve Austin return. Chuck scored a 1.9 in the 18-49 demo (last week that overnight 1.9 rating was later adjusted up to a 2.0) while The Event fell to a 2.4 and Chase dropped to a 1.7. Not good for the two new shows, but once again proving Chuck‘s stability with minimal promotion.
We’ll update with more information as it comes in.
Sorry to hear about “The Event” and “Chase” dropping, but that’s definitely good news that Chuck’s holding steady with little to no promotion. Hopefully at some point, NBC will take note of this and put more promotional effort into it for “Chuck.” 🙂
This is great news. I hope the final numbers adjust up just like last week. Steady shows should be also attractive to marketing. So, I still have my fingers, toes and any other junction that you can cross to the pick up 6 or 9!
If this is how Chuck does while not being promoted..I wonder what would happen if they started spending a little money on advertising and stuff…. Maybe this steadiness in the ratings while everything else on NBC’s lineup drops… will give us the back 9 or at least a back 6?
In TV land, the lead-in is holy. Leno’s primetime was yanked by the network when it proved too weak a lead-in for the 11pm newscasts of many afiliates. So putting some promotional muscle behind a proven item like “Chuck” is a no-brainer. Get the “Chuck” ratings up and then sit back and watch it work its lead-in magic for “The Event” and “Chase”.
Except that never really worked out for Heroes did it? I can’t recall anymore. Chuck’s numbers are Chuck’s numbers I hope we’ve proved the bottom is 1.9ish with minimal promotion and the top is 3.0ish with lots of promotion. You have to bear in mind that over S3 Chuck went from 3.0 to 1.9 I can’t see NBC chucking(!) too many promotional dollars its way unless The Chase, Undercovers really really start to bomb.
We are on the same page here, more or less. A no-holds barred promtion of “Chuck” would have benefitted “Heroes” much as it would “The Event” and “Chase”. Sadly, their anaemic “Chuck” promotion has in the past, and continues to this day, to spell disaster for the shows for which “Chuck” is the lead-in.
I think that it’s amazing that Chase & the Event got tons of ads & Chuck got about nothing–& Chuck keeps viewers–and the other two….Just think what would happen if Chuck actually got an ad 10% as much as the other two! Chase & The Event promos are just getting plain annoying and repetitive.
Chuck is an established show now… and has it fans. It makes sense to promote the new as they dont have a solid following yet
Chuck with more advertising will properly not pull in to many new viewers maybe raise the show to a 2.1, because chuck is now in season 4. Shows that are already 4 seasons in dont bring in to many causal viewers. Hence the reason why chucks rating remain pretty stable.
First, where Chuck stood after last week:
Tied for 9th for the week with Parenthood, up from sole possession of 11th the week before. This with one more show to compete against (Law & Order LA). Looked a lot better VS the average 18-49 share on NBC as well, going from -21% to -12% for Mon-Fri, and -27% to -18% for Mon-Thurs. The only other show on NBC to stay steady last week was 30 Rock.
Now this week we see The Event and Chase tumble, to Chuck’s within-margin-of-error-sized drop. Chuck is looking better to NBC every week.
But dose of reality time – 1.9 is not a solid number and is by no means a safe number. Chuck is also still noticeably below NBC’s weeknight average. NBC has enough shows in the pipe that they COULD replace close to half of their lineup come the winter.
Things could still go either way, but it’s still early in the season. If the downward trend for other NBC shows continues, I’d say Chuck has average to good chances for a back 6 or 9 episodes, and poor to fair for a 5th season.
“I’d say Chuck has average to good chances for a back 6 or 9 episodes, and poor to fair for a 5th season.”
My thoughts exactly. A back order is looking good, but not a 5th season.
If Undercovers underperforms on Wednesday, I’ll feel a lot better about Chuck’s future. I can’t see why NBC would cancel Chuck and keep a show that’s doing so poorly, especially given all the advertising and the Abrams label.
Beating Undercovers isn’t enough, as they could easily decide to cancel both shows. The success (or lack thereof) of Undercovers has no more or less bearing on Chuck’s chances than any other show on NBC does.
Alan Sepinwall at HitFix.com says, “The way most of the new product on all the networks are doing, a “Chuck” season five seems like slightly less of a longshot than it did two weeks ago.”
Thanks for that info, Donovan!
I never use to pay attention to ratings. If I liked the show, I watched. Then Chuck Season 2 happened and there started my weekly ratings watch. Since Season 2, I watch Chuck on Mondays and then worry overnight about the numbers. Having said that, I’m amazed the numbers are better than the last few episodes of season 3 with fan promotion only. I’m enjoying the ride this year. Toward the end of season 2, I bet nobody would have thought we’d still be watching Chuck. The fact that the ratings have stayed steady for these 3 episodes has to mean something. Either way, I’m just enjoying every episode.
katm123, I never thought of it like that, and now that i do, dare I say it’s kind of hilarious. It all speaks to the fact that NBC is it’s own worst enemy. NBC has done many things for Chuck, but they keep failing to realize the one huge thing that would really give the show and the network a big boost: move Chuck to another night. They’re still unbelievably blind to that mistake. Anyway, yeah, that’s so true. The Event and Chase keep getting all the promotion and Chuck gets next to nothing and look at the results. Chuck stays steady and the other 2 drop. Funny. Maybe what NBC should do is start promoting Chuck some more and see how The Event and Chase do because of that. And I totally agree about the repetitiveness of the promos for Chase and The Event. They’re getting quite annoying also. I hate how NBC is promoting the Event like it’s the huge breakout show of the year or something (narrator comes on and says in an epic voice “The Event will start in 20 mins.” or something) That part is getting really annoying.
The most unbelievable part of this whole frustrating situation is the fact that NBC and all of the other networks are STILL relying on an outdated system to see how many viewers a show has. It’s already been proven that taking into account other forms of watching Chuck, it is actually doing BETTER than Neilson ratings show. More people are watching Chuck than are being counted. Most people that watched Chuck are NOT the people with Neilson boxes. It’s absolutely ridiculous!
The hard truth is this:
It’s unfair to bash NBC for not promoting Chuck, and certainly you can’t say they haven’t promoted Chuck in the past, because they have. This is a show in it’s fourth season, and a show NBC has tried to hang in there for. It’s lucky to have gotten this far. My guess is that at this point the feeling has to be, “It’s time for this little duckling to stand on it’s own.” You can’t expect NBC to keep pitching it. Sooner or later, if it’s not taking hold with audiences, they are going to give up hope. This is hardly a case of a network canning a show after 3 or 4 episodes, and let’s face it, that’s been done.
I think the mostly likely scenario is that because most of the new season shows are failing, Chuck will certainly air the episodes shot already, and for the same reason, if it doesn’t dip TOO badly, NBC is very likely to offer it a grace of a back six or nine as a swan song, for the fans– and probably knowing that promoting it as the end of the series will also provide an uptick in viewers.
But a season five? Look, I love Chuck, but if I was an executive, I’d have to say no.
P.S. I’d like to point out that the show squandered really strong ratings and promotion at the start of last season with what turned out to be a really weak first nine or ten episodes. I would put the blame at Chuck’s feet with that one, but you also have to keep in mind that the flip side of this is that NBC are forcing them to make this show on a very tight budget, and you could argue that is precisely WHY we haven’t seen the kind of greatness we saw in seasons one and, particularly, two.
Some people don’t switch channels once they settle in for a night of TV. Which means you need to promote the hell out of your lead-in show to get the maximum number of viewers at 8pm EST, and while the lead-in show is on, you promote the next show during breaks to discourage channel switching. If you put all your promo behind the 9pm slot, you are conceding the 8pm slot to another network. Once you’ve lost potential “Chuck” viewers to CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother”, those viewers will stay with CBS all night as it jumps from one 30-minute sitcom to the next. The fact that NBC has flogged “The Event” and “Chase” relentlessly is of little use at this point. It all begins with the 8pm lead-in.
I agree with Mike. If the show does not make season 5, then it can be put solely down to the dark places it went in early/mid season 3. I can see the reasons why they went that way to develop the story but speaking for myself, Monday night is about light hearted comedy with a bit of drama & action, not for sad shows that repeatedly rip your heart out week in week out.
If they want ratings on a Monday night then they need to bring back the laughs in a big way.
Mike you do not know nothing. We get kind of good news here and you got to be all negative. Thanks for that.
Nobody knows what NBC is thinking. I herd from several actually good sources that NBC is behind the show. Who know at this point if Chuck come back for a season 9 or not but right now it everyone guessing game.
On a side note; Does anyone have the figures for how the CHUCK dvd’s and BD’s do on sales compared to other shows? With all of us buying multiple sets, I would think favorably.
Good to read that the ratings are holding.
jus askin how are the other new shows doing as far as ratings
Not well. Expect Outlaw to be canceled soon, with Undercovers and Chase to follow.
well outlaw seemed to have a good concept just poorly executed