| Timeslot | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | A18-49+ | Results |
| Sunday 9:00 | 1.6 | 1.84 | 2.2 | -21% | 98 | detail |
Rating the Ratings: Like MTV with Jersey Shore, HBO seems to have realized when it was pretty much over for True Blood and got out before the ratings got embarrassing. Even in an announced final season, True Blood took easily the largest drop in series history. It had a relatively healthy 2.2 premiere, down just 10% year-to-year, and it had an OK but unspectacular bounce to 2.1 for the series finale (down 9% vs. the season six finale). In the middle, the show had a string of high-1's, and the year-to-year drops were usually even larger than the -21% listed above. That still made it one of the summer's biggest series, but it was not an impressive trend since the end of the series was looming. Grade: D+.
Here's the now updated War of 18-49 post for True Blood.
4 comments:
It's kind of amazing that the final couldn't even match the premiere. And it wasn't like it had a massive premiere. Still you can't take ending twice as big as you began in season 7 isn't noteworthy. Few shows end stronger than they began. How I Met Your Mother and House are the only other announced final season shows with at least 7 seasons that I can remember doing this.
Grade D
I'd also add The Office to the list as one of those shows that decided to end before it got pathetic.
I am surprised, though, that True Blood could not spark a rally in the run-up to the end, or even stem the bleeding from the previous season. Maybe it was the quality (I wasn't a viewer), maybe it was the increased competition, maybe it was just the show's age.
It feels unusual that HBO is losing so many dramas this year: True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, and The Newsroom. But Game of Thrones alone makes up the combined ratings of all three (and then some). Too bad that show is only 10 episodes a season.
IF George R. R. Martin doesn't speed up his writing process it will be 6 episodes seasons soon ;)
I think it's odd that HBO makes so little effort to launch compatible programming out of their big hits. But this is a phenomenon similar to most cable nets actually. Homeland, The Walking Dead, True Blood in their prime, Game of Thrones never had what I would call compatible lead-outs. The Dexter-Homeland pairing was incredible though, but that was basically it. Pairing True Blood with stuff like The Newsroom never made any sense to me. Same for pairing Homeland with stuff like Masters of Sex and The Affairs. And I like all three of these shows,I just don't think the pairings make sense.
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