The peacock network has announced that they are ordering nine more episodes of The Event. Loyal fans of the series may be overjoyed but, it’s important to look at the news in context with the ratings.
The Event follows Sean Walker (Jason Ritter)who’s investigating the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend. He slowly begins to uncover the biggest cover-up in the country’s history. Others in the cast include Sarah Roemer, Laura Innes, Ian Anthony Dale, Scott Patterson, Clifton Collins Jr., Taylor Cole, Lisa Vidal, Bill Smitrovich, Zeljko Ivanek, and Blair Underwood.
On September 20th, the freshman series had a positive debut with a 3.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 10.88 million viewers. Unfortunately, viewership didn’t stay at that level for subsequent episodes and the show’s numbers have been declining each week. Last week’s episode fell all the way to a 2.2 demo rating and 6.5 million viewers. That’s a loss of nearly 40% in the all-important demo rating — in just four weeks.
What’s more, The Event has been ranking in third place for the timeslot in the demo numbers. For the first two weeks, it was opposite FOX’s ratings disaster Lone Star but now, running against FOX’s Lie to Me, The Event could easily slip to fourth place.
The NBC press release about the renewal touts that The Event is outperforming last year’s timeslot holder (Trauma) by 30% in the demo. That’s not exactly very hard to do considering Trauma tanked in the ratings right from the start. It only lasted as long as it did because NBC ended up having lots of airtime to fill because of the Jay Leno Show debacle.
While the full season order for The Event is a positive thing for fans who want to see more of it, the series will have to turn their numbers around to survive to see a second season. That’s a really hard thing to do considering the fact that it’s an ongoing serial with lots of mysteries and a growing mythology. History has shown us that this kind of show’s audience typically shrinks over time, not grows.
If the show is cancelled after one season, hopefully the producers will give loyal fans some closure by the last episode — instead of what happened with FlashForward last season.
What do you think? Will The Event see a second season or be cancelled? Why do the ratings keep dropping? How would you attract new viewers — or at least keep those that the show already has?
Image courtesy NBC.
You I bring back the event me and my husband have been waiting a very long time to watch season 2 I can’t believe you guys are saying that it hasn’t been getting that much viewers ?
closure!? the last episode was a freaking cliffhanger, shame on the producers for doing this over and over with all the interesting shows
OMG they are going to keep a good show on? Figured they would axe it like Flashforward for actually being too interesting and having writers with creativity
exactly. so true
I love the show!!
“Ow! My Balls! Networks listen: Watching LIVE TV is something our GRANDPARENTS DID!!!! Duh! Dudes’ Mindless Reality not going to save your networks. Someday, someone like Netflix would bring back series shows and leave Network further in the dust . Advertising will follow and learn to adapt and maybe even merge making the advertizing inside series. Then putting series onto DVD’s and steam the series into our homes where the series show would grow. It was so clever for networks to combine Wrestling and Jackass and call it Reality . Networks are like an attack of Zombies and they’re eating… Read more »
Not so sure stats are accurate. It was on too late, for working folks, and way tooooo many commercials, so we opted to watch it on our cable carriers list of missed shows. So we watched it faithfully, just at a time better for our schedules.
I JUST WISH THE SERIES WOULD STAY CONSISTENT, AND COME ON EVERY MONDAY SO THAT WE CAN SEE THE END OF THE STORY!NO FAIR. IT’S LIKE READING A BOOK THAT YOU CANT FINISH BECAUSE YOU DOG CHEWED THE LAST PAGES UP. WE WOULD WATCH EVERY WEEK IF IT WOULD JUST COME ON!ITS A GOOD SERIES.
please relaunch this series .. its really exciting.. probably people stopped watching it from the first episode because it has a lot of going back to near past then returning to the present again .. but after skipping this episode i really found that this series is interesting . think about the people who are waiting to get to the end of this .. NOT about those who didn’t even thought of watching eat . its a bit different of what we watch this days. it keeps waiting on the edge for more and what coming next. i don’t get… Read more »
Great show so far, but it’s biggest draw can also be it’s biggest drawback. You need to watch weekly and keep up to date. As ” V” found out, you need to be able to make back issues available in case one or two are missed along the way. Which the EVENT did very well thank you! PLEASE keep that up….And season one didn’t end all uneven, disjointed or full of holes. It looks primed and ready for an exciting season two… I wish they would’ve kept that creepy old dude around longer too (the Guardian?) I think an interesting… Read more »
NBC evidently shouldn’t be listing to ratings or viewers. The Events ratings and viewers went down because people couldn’t comprehend or follow the story from week to week. Well, I could and I believe it should stay. Same goes for The Chase. NBC had 2 good shows that they’ve now decided to cancel for simpleton game shows.
I have loved this programme and couldnt believe it was put on much later in the evening so quickly from a prime time 9pm, they didnt give it enough time to get going it is brilliant and i really really hope they bring a series two out and Great Britain airs it. I am so fed up of watching good programmes that get moved to silly times that you forget about late in the evening (fortunately i have bought a machine that i can set everything on now) Brothers and Sisters is another prime example that is an all time… Read more »
The show should continue because to me this is the series of the year. Le there be season 2 guyz
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Love the series
Very interesting series