Hopping on the Mad Men bandwagon, ABC recently began airing Pan Am on Sunday nights. The network’s been searching for some new hot dramas to replace Desperate Housewives and their aging medical series. Have they found the solution in a show named after a defunct airline or will this one just crash and be cancelled?
Pan Am follows the pilots and flight attendants that work for the world-famous airline in 1963. Dean (Mike Vogel) is a young pilot who’s just been promoted to captain. His co-pilot, Ted (Michael Mosely), is hiding a secret. Stewardess Maggie (Christina Ricci) isn’t afraid to push the limits, Colette (Karine Vanesse) flirts too much, and Kate (Kelli Garner) has taken on a dangerous side-job after helping her sister, Lara (Margot Robbie), become a runaway bride. While traveling the world, the flight crew have interesting brushes with history.
The series debuted on September 25th to a 3.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 11.06 million viewers. Those aren’t bad numbers but they’re hardly impressive either. Pan Am was second in the timeslot, behind NBC’s football coverage. Looking at the breakdown for the show’s ratings in quarter hour increments, about 10% of the demo audience tuned out before the episode was finished. That’s not terrible but certainly not positive either.
The second episode dropped 16% in the demo to a 2.6 rating with 7.76 million viewers. That’s a pretty normal second week drop-off but Pan Am really didn’t have many viewers to spare. Week three is where things really got bad.
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The third episode saw the demo drop by an astounding 27%. Did the people who tuned in for the second episode decide that they’d seen enough or, was the third week just a fluke?
Apparently it was the latter because the ratings dropped by another 5%, to a 1.8 in the demo with 5.84 million. Last night’s numbers held steady according the fast affiliate numbers. That’s positive but a 1.8 demo rating is certainly not.
Pan Am is currently the lowest-rated new show on ABC with an average of a 2.2 rating in the demo and 7.36 million. Those numbers will keep dropping unless future episodes perform significantly better. Of the 14 scripted shows currently on the network, Pan Am ranks 12th, beating only Body of Proof and already-cancelled Charlie’s Angels.
While Pan Am’s fate seems all but sealed, ABC doesn’t seem ready to throw in the towel just yet.
They’re reportedly bringing in veteran writer and producer Steven Maeda as showrunner. He previously worked on Miami Medical for CBS and Lie to Me for FOX. ABC execs, who apparently still really like Pan Am, want to hear Maeda’s story ideas before deciding on whether they want to order additional episodes for a full season.
It’s very likely too late to pull this show out of its downward spiral but perhaps ABC will get lucky and beat the odds. Typically, once viewers reject a show, it’s nearly impossible to get them to take another look.
What do you think? Should ABC keep Pan Am flying for a full season or should they just pull the plug and cancel it now?
Image courtesy ABC.
GREAT NEWS!! I just found some very positive information about our beloved show on deadline.com today. ABC has hired Steven Maeda (Lost, X-Files, Lie to Me) as showrunner to oversee the latter half of “Pan Am” ‘s first season. It appears that, despite lower ratings (which are leveling off now), “Pan Am” has strong support at ABC and is very popular with advertisers. Not only that, but the network does realize the show is benefiting from lots of DVR viewing. According to deadline.com, ABC is expected to order an additional 9 episodes, bringing “Pan Am” to a total of 22… Read more »
LET PAM AM KEEP FLYING!!! DONT CANCEL
I love it! Keep!
Keep it. It is full of good memories of an era when women started taking control of their lives.
If this show wants to compete with Mad Men, it will have to step up and do a better job with the hair styles. Mad Men fans are obsessed, not only with the plot, but with the absolutely perfect costume design, make-up and hair. Pan Am stewardesses in the early 1960s had their hair permed, set and backcombed regularly. They wore hair nets and about 18 layers of Aqua Net. The women on this show have limp hair that falls flat about 1 minute into every scene, little-to-no hairspray, and a lot of frizz. It’s not appealing to watch. The… Read more »
The hair is realistic except that so many of the girls have their hair down. In the 60’s we did’nt have the tools to do hair like we do today. We had our hair in rollers while we were waiting to hear from the company for our next assignment and then it was a mad dash to get your hair done. No blow dryers or hot rollers in the day.
Pan Am is GREAT show! I don’t think that there are any other shows out there like this one. Its so different and interesting and should not be cancelled.
Kate (Kelli Garner) is adorable and and excellent choice for this part. Doing a great job. I enjoy the show. It was fun to fly back then and admire the beautiful flight attendants. Give it a chance.
Keep it! ABC needs to stop getting rid of shows before they have a chance to even introduce the character backgrounds. This is a fantastic show unlike any other, and as a flight attendant, I enjoy seeing what my career used to be like. Unfortunately I can only watch it when I’m home, on demand. I hope they are adding those viewers in their figures as well. There are a lot of us in the industry who love this show.
@Flyboy — that’s just the problem. They AREN’T counting those numbers. They only count those Americans who have Nielsen boxes. They don’t take into account downloads, streaming, DVRs, recordings, or the many MANY people who are watching but don’t have Nielsen boxes. It’s an antiquated, obsolete system and it desperately needs to be revamped to catch up with the 21st century. It’s ridiculous to determine a shows success based on a small sampling of Americans who happen to be sitting in front of their television at that particular time that a show airs. Why are we not counting the millions… Read more »
I think they do actually count DVR viewers (not sure about On Demand), but they count less than live Nielsen views because the live showing is what advertisers want (where all the commercials are). Hopefully the networks begin to realize just how important online viewing, On Demand, DVR, etc. are though.
Love !!!!!!! Pan Am !!!!!!!!!!!
Before this series aired, PanAM was promoted as the introduction to the jet age in the 1960s. That was the decade the world made the transition from the propeller to the jet age reduging travel time in most cases by half. With that transition came a radical change in cultural perceptions throughout the world and in the airline employee and commercial aviation cultures, as well, that when in 1963 inflight cabin crews did serve passengers, not only with hats on, but with also with jackets, by the early 1970s for most commerical airlines, hats, gloves, and girdles had completely disappeared,… Read more »
I love this show! It is a flashback of a time in America that most of us born in the 50’s have a longing for. I can so relate to this time in our country when everyone took pride in flying. When style and manners all mattered, but it also shows that we were fun loving and risky!
I noticed a discrepancy regarding a naval officer saluting senior offices while uncovered.
I LOVE watching Pan Am it takes me back to when the world was a much better place to live, I was born back in 1961 a whole another era then now. I think people need to respond to help save this show because it reminds us all of what was good in the world back then growing up and how happy things were. I think the chose of actors/actresses for the characters was a very good choice. I would HATE to see this show be cancelled, PLEASE give it a chance! A fan who wanted to be a stewardess… Read more »
Despite it’s flaws, it does represent a time in our history that needs viewing.
Work on it, it’s worth it!
I really hope they can save this. I think the story lines are getting much stronger. I think there is a lot of history they could pull from, the Beatles, the Pan Am 707 that lost it’s engine on take-off from SFO to Honolulu. Not to mention the glitterati, celebs, politicians, etch that flew on Pan Am, or even current issues that could be interwoven, ‘hidden marriages, abortion, pregnancy scares, and so on. I love the CIA covert operative angle, and I love the set design and the costumes. I do wish, however, that the show could be as gritty… Read more »