Survey Says: Chuck Fan Survey 2.0 Results

With Chuck season 3 now part of the archives, we decided to take the pulse of the fandom and see where we stand now compared to when we surveyed fans a few weeks before season 3 premiered.

General Overview

2574 people took the survey, compared to 1507 in November 2009. This reflects that Chuck was on more people’s minds, having just concluded its third season. However, it is a slightly smaller percentage – 1% vs. 1.7% – of the average number visitors to ChuckTV.net during season 3, which was about 250,000/mo.

Of those 2574 people, 63.9% were male and 36.1% were female, virtually identical to the demographic makeup of November’s respondents. This correlates with NBC’s analysis the Chuck skews more male than female.

The age breakdown is also very similar, although the 18-24 group saw some growth this time around. For the 2.0 version of the survey, 35.5% of respondents are 18-24 (compared to 31% in November), 17.2% are 25-30, and 13.9% are under 18. That means 66.6% of survey respondents are age 30 or under. The rest of the breakdown is as follows: 9% are 31-35; 7.8% are 36.40; 6.7% are 41-45; 5% are 51-60; 3.8% are 46-50; and .06% are 61-70. No one over 71 responded to the survey.

We again note that because this is an online survey, on a fansite, the odds of reaching older viewers is much lower than reaching younger.

Not every person answered every question, but the bulk of respondents did complete the survey. In the case of Question 5, respondents only saw that question if they answered “Yes” on Question 4. Each question was restricted to one answer per respondent.

Note: screencaps will not be posted this time. We quickly hit the limit of respondents allowed on our free PollDaddy account, so within the first 24 hours we changed to a paid account with SurveyMonkey. Although the percentage breakdowns between the two were very similar, we wanted to be sure to include ALL responses, so we manually combined the results and calculated new percentages. Scans of our math, showing our work, may be posted later, but in the interest of time, are not currently available.

Question 1: Which element of Chuck is the main reason you watch?

Debates raged during season 3, and before, about which element of Chuck was most important to fans. Question 1 of our survey forces fans to choose only one element as the main reason they watch the show. Last November this question was easily won by the Chuck/Sarah relationship with 41% of respondents naming that the most important element to them. Not this time. Questioning fans post-season 3 revealed that 36.6% see Team Bartowski as the most important element, closely followed by the Chuck/Sarah relationship with 35.8% of the vote.

Meanwhile, The Comedy garnered just 11% and The Hero’s Journey fell to 8.5%. Both of these categories had 15% of the vote last time. Least important with a single vote? Ellie and Awesome.

Question 2: Rank the various elements of Chuck by MOST favorite to LEAST favorite.

The tough questions continued as we forced fans to rank the elements. This time we were able to restrict answers so only one could be ranked at 10 (MOST favorite), one at 9, etc. We saw some surprises in light of the answers to Question 1, but even more interesting is the difference in ranking compared to November.

39% of respondents ranked the Chuck/Sarah relationship as their favorite, giving it a 10 on the scale. Compare that to only 35.8% saying it’s the main reason they watch. Meanwhile, 4% said that it was their least favorite part of the show. In second place was Team Bartowski with 35% of fans marking it their favorite element and 2% saying it was their least favorite. By contrast, in November 54% said the Chuck/Sarah relationship was their favorite part of the show and 37% gave the honor to Team Bartowski. With the software forcing people to choose, we do seem to get a clearer picture of which elements are most important, correlating with the results from Question 1, although flip-flopped.

The Comedy (13.8%) and The Hero’s Journey (11%) were third and fourth runners up for most favorite element in the show. Ranked lowest on the scale were Ellie and Awesome with 42.6% giving their relationship a 1 on the scale and The Buy More with 25% saying it was their least favorite element.

Question 3: Rank these season 3 developments in order of MOST favorite to LEAST favorite.

A new question for this survey asked fans which developments in season 3 worked for them. Surprising no one, Chuck and Sarah officially becoming a couple ran away with the category as 59.6% of respondents ranked it most favorite. Coming in a distant second, Morgan finding out Chuck’s secret garnered 13.8% of the top vote.

Tied for third place with 11% of the vote each were Chuck becoming a full-fledged spy and Orion leading Chuck to the vault full of intel.

Least favorite developments were Orion’s death, with 38.7% of respondents giving that development a 1, and the Buy More exploding which earned 22% of the least favorite votes.

Question 4: Do you feel strongly enough about any element of Chuck to STOP watching if the storyline doesn’t go the way you want?

Initially created to examine the early response to rumored storylines before season 3 premiered, in light of some polarizing moments over the last couple of months, we were pleased with our foresight in including this question. The results have changed a little since November: 86.5% answered no this time, compared to 82% then. Which means only 13.5% answered yes, compared to 18% then. A result of the means justfying the end?

Question 5: If you answered yes to question 4, which element?

Only those respondents who answered yes to Question 4 saw this query. Of those 13.5%, 72.4% noted the Chuck/Sarah relationship as the element that would cause them to quit watching the show if it doesn’t go the way they want. That’s a significant drop compared to the 86% who cited that element in November.

9% said they’d stop watching over Team Bartowski, and 5.3% cited The Comedy as the element they feel most strongly about. Both of those elements saw percentage increases over November.

Question 6: How do you feel about spoilers?

Although we post some spoilers here at ChuckTV.net, we know not all fans want to have information ahead of time. This season we received a few emails from fans wondering why people wanted spoilers at all, and Zachary Levi posited the same question at WonderCon. At the same time, there are those who are constantly asking if anyone has information about this storyline or that plot point. So how do Chuck fans feel about spoilers?

49.9% say the love spoilers and 31% say that while they don’t seek them out, they do read them. That’s a whopping 80.9% of Chuck fans who are into being spoiled. Not everyone likes them, though. 16.5% said they hate spoilers while 2.3% said they don’t trust them.

Conclusion

What can we learn from these numbers? Online Chuck fandom, at least, skews young and male. This season Team Bartowski rose in importance to equal the Chuck/Sarah relationship. Although we wonder how the results would have differed had we surveyed fans at mid-season, we suspect that this balance of what’s deemed important has to do with how the season ended. Chuck fans are slightly less ready to throw in the towel if a specific storyline doesn’t go the way they wish, but there is a little more concern about the status of Team Bartowski and The Comedy than there was previously.

This survey was conducted by ChuckTV.net and measured opinions of fans who visit our site. It was not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated with NBC, College Hill, Wonderland Sound and Vision, or anyone associated with Chuck.

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19 comments

  1. hello!
    really interesting the results about age, the one i most curious about.
    excellent survey, great initiative, as usual 🙂

  2. One thing I noticed about this survey – it was a bit confusing and counter-intuitive.. it seemed to me that the scale was backwards and I found myself at first giving lower ratings to things that I liked a lot and higher ratings to things that I didn’t like. At some point in the process of answering the questions, I did realize what was happening and went back to fix the answers – but I’m wondering whether others experienced the same thing. No? Just me? Okay. 🙂

    • Yes, I think I rated all mine backwards. I was listing what I liked the most as 1 and what I liked least as 10. I guess i need to read the instructions more clearly.

  3. Hardest thing about the survey (and the best thing about this show) was that I was required to pick and rank what was most important to me about the show…..but it wouldn’t be the Chuck that I love if ANY of those elements were missing.

    What can I say? I love it all! 🙂

  4. ermmmm……seems look like the increase of chucksters took this survey

  5. Haha, awesome. I was the single vote!

    • Although least important is relative. I find every aspect of the show to be important in one way or another.

      • so true…every aspect is very important even though we are prone to liking some more than others

  6. By my calculations that means 4.6% of the those surveyed voted for either the explosion of the Buy More or the death of Orion as their favorite developments of the season Sadists!

  7. Man… I’m old.

  8. hey chuck fans! pls. vote for chuck at e online for having the best season finale. chuck really nailed it! pls. vote for it. tnx! AND SPREAD THE WORD!

  9. It would be better and easier if we could see the results in graphics, just saying..

    • As noted above, we had to merge results from 2 different survey software packages, thus the lack of screencaps.

  10. Just got done rewatching all S-3 eps. I was hoping maybe my
    opinion of them would improve but it hasn’t. The season figured
    to be a transition one after the exellent S-2. The whole Shaw arc
    was annoying for it’s blandness- not the fact he was hitting on
    Sarah. The Buy More has out lived it’s usefulness and should
    remain blown up in S-4. Only Chuck, Sarah, Casey, Morgan and
    Beckman are needed now. Get rid of Devon and Ellie nothing
    left to contribute. Team B should be used in a Mission Impossible
    fashion taking on the toughest jobs. Ramp up the action and
    adventure. The fans will come back.

  11. PUT CHUCK on THURSDAYS

  12. Survey Says: Can we have a new Featured Content? I do appreciate all the hard work you guys do on this website though. I think that is why I am anxious for something new or just different to see and read about. Thank you.

    • There’s not much news out there right now, unfortunately. It’ll start picking up again in a month or so.

  13. The results survey don’t surprise me. The result of the first question makes perfect sense since they’re officially together now, which allows the team to take the lead in importance. For the 2nd question, now that Chuck and Sarah have been resolved so it doesn’t stand out as much, and now Team Bartowski is enjoyable to watch again, so it’s become important too. The result for the 3rd one also makes sense considering the first 8 episodes of the season were a disaster. Them being officially together now is a very nice improvement. One development that I liked a lot was Casey getting a daughter. I hope she’s on the show more in season 4 and having her and Morgan together would be pretty funny (because of Casey) and interesting at the same time. Now, for the 4th and 5th questions, the drop in Chuck and Sarah %s is exactly what I had predicted would happen. Now that they’re officially together, the angst garbage no longer overpowers everything else and people don’t have to worry about it returning so there’s less reason to stop watching. For the larger drop in % in the 5th, this makes sense because of the above. Since the % is still high, however, if F&S mess with it again things could get ugly. I hope Schwartz takes a few lessons away from the early renewal for season 4. One, you don’t have to wait until the last season or the series finale to get the 2 leads officially together. Two, I hope he learns that you can safely get the leads together fairly early in the series and the show won’t die because the other elements will fill the hole left by the tension (ex. Team Bartowski becoming just as important as C&S). Three, the show might actually BENEFIT from getting them together earlier, hence the early renewal.

    As for season 4, great. For still being on Monday’s, not so great. I don’t know why NBC keeps putting Chuck in a timeslot where it can barely survive. It deserves more exposure. I’m actually a little worried because it’s going to have to compete with Monday Night Football again (as if it didn’t already have enough competition) and since they’ve only ordered 13 so far, it’s not going to have a chance to air without Football being on also, which could be bad. Anyway, can’t wait for season 4 and hopefully season 5 and beyond.