"Alias" and "Lost" Posts record low ratings for brand new episodes!

"Lost," 8.9/13

Those were the kind of ratings "Alias" were able to pull in after "Lost"
last season... this is not a good sign for "Lost" in particular.... Last
year it had no problem up against "American Idol" as it pulled in its
highest ratings ever reaching over 20 million viewers up against the show.

rwgibson13...

Yeah, for the season finale.

RWG (yawn)

Source: Zap2it.com

David...

Last year I don't believe it was ever up against "Idol." And Marc
Berman had an interesting stat. At 9:30 "Lost"s ratings go up by 2.1
million people. So if there are that many people willing to watch just
the last half hour then the potential audience for "Lost" must be much
bigger than it currently appears. ABC just has it take the bullet
against "Idol" since nothing else they have could do that well in that
slot.

neon_06...

Last year "Lost" had 4 episodes up against "American Idol" actually.

David...

I searched the web for "Lost"s ratings for all new episodes airing between January
and May of last season. "Lost" faced "Idol" twice.

1/19:
"Idol" 26.40 million viewers
"Lost" 19.55 million viewers

5/26:
"Idol" 15.0/25
"Lost" 11.3/18

The first 3 were in January when Alias returned last year starting on
January 5th and then once again up against the shows finales back in
May. Each episode of "Lost" brought its 4 highest ratings of that
season, eaching pulling in 18.5million to 22.5million.

Yes "Lost"s ratings did go up by 2.1 million in the half hour, but it's
been doing that every week. The point is the ratings are still
dropping. Last new one got close to 16 million it went from 15 to 17

David...

"Idol" is having its highest-rated year yet and as it gets closer to
the finale its ratings go up. This doesn't mean that "Lost" has fewer
viewers this year, just that people who want to watch both shows would
naturally watch "Idol" since it's live and there's more immediacy to
it. Besides that, "Lost" is also doing well on iTunes (2 million
downloads a week) and starting this week it's available for free at
abc.com.

bklyntv...

Interesting, we COULD be seeing the first measurable effect of
downloading on Neilsen ratings. Lost is exactly the kind of show people
would want to keep around and review (unlike Idol, who wants to watch
an episode twice? I don't even watch them once but anyway...)

But that 2 million people are willing to PAY to see broadcast TV is
really a good healthy sign for the show.

million aprox. This week it looks like it went from 12.5 to 14.5 (I
don't have the actual ratings in front of me) "Lost" has never scored
below 16 million viewers which is a really bad sign viewers are tuning
out.

rwgibson13...

And they'll tune back in as the series approaches the season finale.
It showed pretty much the same trend last season, though the numbers
were slightly lower. It started out on fire, then slowed down (16 mil)
during the February sweeps period, then picked back up during the May
sweeps.

I think what threw the ratings off this year were the staggering
numbers for the first few episodes (20 mil plus) this season as new
viewers came in after the DVD release. It's been slowly losing viewers
since, but I expect we'll see how it all plays out as it nears the
season finale.

RWG (I think a whole lot of viewers are simply waiting for the
inevitable DVD releases anymore)

bklyntv...

Interesting since it was a pretty awesome episode of Lost.

Patrick Joseph McNamara...

Cutting edge shows like Lost and Supernatural can draw a large audience at
first because of the mystery, but as soon as the mysteries get solved or
people see that they aren't going to get answered, viewers can be turned
off. For instance, everyone knows that once the people on Lost are rescued,
then the show is over. So anything that happens before that becomes
irrelevant. It was for that reason that I never bothered to watch it. And as
original as it might seem, from what I gather it's become a live-action
version of Myst.

bklyntv...

Well, since "you never bothered to watch it" you don't really have any
idea what you're talking about do you?

Rich...

Alias is gone, (so Garner can go take those acting lessons she so
desperately needs). As for "Lost" maybe the kitch is wearing out it's
welcome?