Whilst Heroes returned with a bang on Monday night, it’s viewing figures of around 14million, whilst steady, was not the boom in viewership NBC was hoping for. E! Online has more:
NBC’s Heroeswas the night’s highest-rated show among 18- to 49-year-olds who don’t particularly care if Marie Osmond can fox-trot or not. But audience-wise, the show failed to build on its first-season buzz. Monday’s opener was no bigger than its first-season premiere: an estimated 14.1 million viewers.
Publicly, NBC was upbeat about the show’s premiere. But its atypical request of Nielsen seemed to speak louder than its press release.
NBC has asked the ratings service to hold off on compiling final numbers for Heroesuntil the network reairs the premiere on Saturday night, Nielsen confirmed Tuesday.
A “newish” rule, dating back to 2006, allows networks to combine a show’s ratings from multiple broadcasts, as long as the same commercials are aired each time, Nielsen Media Research’s Gary Holmes said.
As a result, barring a Saturday-night blackout across the nation, Heroes will not go down in the books as having run even with its first-season premiere; it’ll go down as averaging more—thanks to people who tuned in on Monday, plus however many million tune in over the weekend.
Holmes said he believes at least one other broadcast network has taken advantage of the double-your-fun rule. As to whether it’ll become a numbers-crunching trend, he said, “I think it’ll depend on how the industry reacts to this.”
According to an NBC spokesperson, the Nielsen loophole likely will be used sparingly because of the commercial sponsorship rule. Monday’s Heroes‘ was a candidate for it because the show aired with limited commercials supplied by one sponsor, Nissan, who also signed on for Saturday.
Per the network spokesperson, NBC decided to combine Heroes‘ Monday and Saturday numbers before the Monday numbers were released.
Has Heroes reached the tipping point? Has it hit it’s head on the ceiling of no return? This second season will be very important for Heroes as second seasons are usually some of the most difficult.
