Here's The Question for Wednesday, September 12, 2012. Last season's The X Factor was one of the most hyped premieres in recent memory, but the ratings didn't particularly live up to the ginormous expectations. The show has managed to rekindle the hype machine coming into season two thanks to an overhaul of the show's on-air talent, most notably new judges Demi Lovato and Britney Spears. But will another round of hype fizzle out, or will X Factor mark the spot this time?
| The X Factor premiere | The X Factor finale |
| 4.4 (9/21/11) | 3.8 (12/22/11) |
| American Idol Finale -> Premiere | The Britney Spears Effect |
| +20%, +3%, +18%, +18%, -20% | 4.5 (HIMYM, 3/24/08, then-series high) 5.9 (Glee, 9/28/10, still regular series high) |
Last year, The Voice premiered huge and dropped big-time; its Monday average ended up 28% below its premiere number. Meanwhile, much-ballyhooed The X Factor premiered softer than most expected but ended up dropping just 13% on average on Wednesday, ultimately averaging high-3's and hitting low-3's toward the end. Is it crazy to think those roles could be reversed this year? My instinct has been pretty much from the moment Britney Spears signed on that the X Factor changes will be pretty good for the short term but pretty bad for the long term.
A whole lot has been made of NBC's decision to put an hour of The Voice up against The X Factor's opening hour, rekindling the old Britney/Xtina rivalry. (Or something. I honestly don't know much about that whole thing.) Will that make a difference? ...maybe a little one. But if X Factor were ever going to break out this fall, I'm not sold that a show that's already aired twice this week will be dragging away masses of interested people. I'm going to maintain that The X Factor is up a bit at the beginning, beats The Voice's premiere from Monday, but drops bigger as the season progresses.
Over/Under: 4.6.
5 comments:
I'll go under, slightly, 4.4.
As in: pluses and minuses (which you nicely summarized above) to cancel each other = equals first season premiere
I say under. I don't have an exact number though. I usually suck at precision stuff. [recalls incident where he sarcastically predicted 5.0+ for The Voice in April 2011 while trying to invoke this, only to be screwed by the fates]
Under--let's say a 4.3. I think that talent show overload and The Voice's early premiere is going to cancel out any Britney boost.
I'm saying a decent boost from the first season premiere at 5.0. What would be amazing is that the extra attention won't pit the shows against each other as such, but increase focus on both, so I will guess The Voice goes back up to 4.2.
Under 4.2; Voice 3.8
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