Dollhouse renewed amid Hulu audience size controversy
First, the good news: Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse has been renewed:
The show will return for 13 episodes, with an option for more episodes
if required. Return is seen likely for Fall. The show budget has been
slashed, however the show is moving from 50 minutes per episode to 42
minutes per ep, which should help bring down some production costs.
The move will also mark a shift in creative direction of the show.
Now, why was it renewed? The story is that the Fox execs were comparing Dollhouse to Firefly in terms of TV ratings
(i.e. pretty bad), but also took into account that Firefly sold a truckload of DVDs and turned into a movie that made
an okay profit, and apparently predict a similar trajectory for
Dollhouse.
But I suspect Fox is looking at other info, to wit, the numbers on Hulu. Nielsen claims that Hulu had 8.9 million unique visitors in March, but comScore estimated a drastically higher 42 million. The folks at Hulu aren’t making specific claims, but according to the New York Times, it’s unhappy with the Nielsen numbers. Fox, being a TV network, already knows how shoddy Nielsen numbers can be, and certainly has accurate numbers internally from Hulu, as Fox owns a large percentage of the company. So they know things that mere mortals don’t.
This also suggests why Fox is holding off on episode 13, “Epitath One”. They’re certainly holding it for the DVD to goose sales, but they may even hold it for Hulu just to prove a point to Nielsen.
Hat tip: Obsessable.
Looking at that pic, and remembering some of the episodes, if Dechan Lachan (Sierra) doesn't get some decent work out of her exposure in "Dollhouse", it will merely confirm my belief that there's o real justice in Hollywood.(Australian/Nepalese – how's that for a hybrid?)
Epitaph One, not "Epilogue One"
You're right. Fixed.
If the Nielsen ratings really are that far off, this would destroy their credibility. It could be that Dollhouse appeals to a computer savvy crowd and that one specific group is underrepresented by Nielsen, but Nielsen isn't doing nearly as badly with other groups.Or maybe comScore is the one who is off.
Nielsen's credibility has been in question for years… or at least their absolute accuracy.But so long as they were purporting to measure only over-the-air programming in an era before the VCR or DVDs, it was generally accepted that, even if the absolute numbers they reported were probably not accurate, any inaccuracies in methodology would affect all ratings pretty much equally – that maybe NBC didn't beat ABC by 6 million viewers to 4 million but that they did beat them by prety close to a 3-to-2 ratio.Nowadays, though, with so many other ways to watch the programming, most of which Nielsen apparently doesn't even understand, much less count accurately and somany sources of programming Nielsen doesn't even pretend to be able to quantize … well, networks are beginning to realise that having progeams live or die by the Nielsen is maybe not the best thing to do.As the article points out, the overall business model is shifting – at one time, networks paid directly for productions; the network itself was the producer. Some time in the 1960…s that changed, but it took everyone a while to realise what it meant. Before, the networks figured that they would run a program segment maybe twice, and that would be it. You had to make all the money on the front end, first runs.Star Trek changed all that – it was immensely profitable in reruns.Programs began being produced with an eye to syndication – New Trek was pretty much guaranteed a five-year minimum run from the very beginning, because five seasons of material was needed for the program to be a viable sell in the syndication market, and it wasn't the first.But, in general, the nets – and the studios that took over the production reins – were still thinking almost entirely in terms of television. Star Trek the Motionless {i mean, Motion…} Picture changed that.The possiblity of making films from TV series was suddenly viable – and not like the "features" made from two-part Man from UNCLE episodes, either.But even after the VCR changed tv-watching habits, with time-shifting and commercial-skipping, nobody muvh was payig too much attention to the home video market.Until the DVD made it a lot more feasible to profitably mass-market TV series to the home viewer in pre-recorded form.The important thing in all this is that, every time a paradigm-changing innovation came along, it took the industry quite some time to adjust its thinking.And, as the article points out, perhaps the latest paradigm-shift is beginning to pay off, with networks realising that they don't have to make theier money off the one or two prime-time runs of programming and Firefly is a prime example.(The studos began realising it sooner – Terminator 2 was profitable before it was ever shown to ticket-buyers, based onm foreign rights and video and merchandising rights.)
If Dollhouse has been renewed for a secon season, wouldn't it start off with Epitaph One?