Ratings: ‘Survivor: Worlds Apart,’ ‘Criminal Minds’ hit lows; ‘Law & Order: SVU’ benefits from crossover
This has not exactly been the best spring ever for CBS when it comes to the ratings, but at least until this week, “Survivor” had been pretty immune to it.
So why did “Survivor: Worlds Apart” last night fall to a series-low (not including recap episodes / day-before-Thanksgiving installments) 2.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic? As interesting as this season has been strategically, we would understand if some of the treatment of Shirin by the likes of Dan and Will is turning some viewers off and making it uncomfortable. We know that there are many families who watch it, and while we firmly support the show putting the real story on TV (even if it is difficult to watch), we know that there are some who will be outraged it. Seeing Shirin be voted out last night probably does not help. Of course, the show is still renewed, and ratings for the season as a whole have still been very good. In general, “Survivor” has retained its audience year-to-year at a remarkable rate.
As for “Criminal Minds” and its series-low rating of 1.7, we attribute that mostly to the “Chicago PD” / “Law & Order: SVU” crossover, which drew a 1.8 and 2.0 over its two separate hours. We do feel like the former show is just also long in the tooth at this point, and there is really nothing that it is doing to bring in new viewers. It skews extremely old, and many of its viewers are probably still trying to deal with the frustration of not enough character stories (which has always been our chief critique of the show).
As for shows currently on the bubble, “CSI: Cyber” (1.2) did not help its cause by sliding down in a pretty substantial way. That is the only Wednesday show that we’re worried about to a great degree; “The Middle” has problems, but they are more contractual than anything that has to do with its rating.
(Photo: NBC.)
mary
April 30, 2015 @ 7:12 pm
What rubbish! Part of the problem with Criminal Minds is that it too often slips into character stories of inane fluff and romance and soap drama instead of concentrating on the psychological crime drama about profiling that made it so unique. They do get it right sometimes – like last week’s stellar Mr Scratch – but too often they pander to those who want to see it turn into an action soap set in the FBI. If they focused on what made this show great instead of pandering to the crazies and kiddies on Facebook and other social media there is no reason Criminal Minds could not continue to dominate Wednesday viewing. Just try to remember Cartermatt – THIS IS NOT A SOAP! It shouldn’t be aiming at the lowest common denominator.
Michael Goldman
May 6, 2015 @ 1:04 am
You need to take it a little bit slow here. Criminal Minds is still a great show. The main problem Criminal Minds ran into is the same thing that SVU ran into. It was called EMPIRE and it blew them both off the map. I’m a big SVU fan, and I wasn’t happy to see NBC fold up its tent on SVU for a few weeks and run reruns so it wouldn’t go head to head with new episodes of EMPIRE. The main problem for Criminal Minds now is to see if they can bring back both Thomas Gibson and Joe Mantegna without sending the payroll into the upper stratosphere. I don’t know if bringing in Jennifer Love Hewitt was a great idea. She cost a lot of money, and now she’s going to have a baby and probably miss at least 2-3 months of the show. At least CBS is willing to consider spending more money on the payroll for Criminal Minds. NBC has cut the payroll and budget for SVU for 4 straight years. The only person with a contract next season is Mariska Hargitay. SVU has only 6 main characters in the show(Criminal Minds has more) and everyone except Mariska has missed 5-6 or more episodes this season. Criminal Minds tries to get everyone in each episode(or they used to). Perhaps a new show runner or some new writers might solve some of the problems with Criminal Minds? What do you think?
mary
May 6, 2015 @ 7:09 am
There is no doubt that Empire affected ratings and also it is an old show so you would expect ratings to slip – although Criminal Minds holds up very well thanks to very devoted fans. I still think the reason the show is not as good as it used to be is the showrunner shifting the show into the action/soap realm and losing the psychological profiling that made it unique. We also tend to see most of each episode focus on the unsub and watching him/her commit the crimes instead of seeing the profilers work out what happened. I agree the cast is too big and they need not have brought in JLH – although she has fit in quite well. This season has been a big step up from the dreadful Season 9 and we have had several pretty good episodes but there are writers on staff who really need to be replaced. Continuity is hit or miss with this show which is a big no no when you have a show with so many long time fans and they do keep doing bad retcons unnecessarily. I agree a new showrunner, some new writers and a smaller cast would help keep the show going but in the end it hinges on whether TG,MGG and JM sign new contracts.