Those Pesky Ratings

I'm guessing that the drop is in large part due to the new shows premiering on the same night last week. NY picked up viewers in the 2nd half, which indicates folks checked out the new shows, possibly found them lacking and went back to NY, or had intended from the beginning to check out both shows (since not everyone has TIVO or dvr! ;) )

I personally doubt that D/L has much, if anything, to do with the drop. Quite frankly, I don't think the relationship is compelling enough to matter one way or the other to the casual viewer out there (as opposed to we folks here on the boards, but we're not casual viewers). Like the GSR on the Vegas CSI, I sincerely doubt that either "relationship" is even intriguing enough to turn the average viewer on or off to either show permanently.

I'm beginning to think that viewers overall are simply getting all CSI'd out. The Vegas one has been around since 2000, and even though some viewers (including myself) think it has gone drastically downhill, many continue watching it simply because, as someone mentioned above, it's a bit of an institution by now, and unless you love Grey's Anatomy, there's not much else earth-shattering in that time slot.

I think many folks thought from the very beginning that 3 CSI shows was probably 1 too many, and NY, coming in last of the bunch, didn't attract as many viewers right from the get-go. Overall, I think it went from "Forensics Rocks! Science and Lab Geeks are the New Rockstars!" in the first few years, to "Yeah, seen it already, I already know forensics/science solves crimes. Show me something new." Viewers are notoriously fickle, and I think they're ready for something new.

But finally, I think everyone's previous posts have hit on improvements that can/should/could be made, but whether or not it would attract more viewers is hard to say.
 
^I thought people being "CSIed out" might be possible, too, until CSI came along and was the most watched show of the entire week with their season opener. In the eighth season! That's pretty darn impressive. The interest is still there, but both Miami and NY are down from last season. It'll be interesting to see what happens this week.
 
Granted, the Vegas CSI did phenomenal in the ratings, but they were pushing the Sara cliffhanger everywhere and every time I looked. Her fans of course tuned in to see if their beloved Sara lived, and I suspect alot of folks tuned in to see if she died... I wouldn't personally use the Vegas premiere numbers as an accurate answer to the "CSI'd Out" theory, but that's just me... and my pet theory :lol:
 
Yes, but that Sara cliffhanger was the resolution of one of the best written CSI arcs we've had in a while, at least in my view. I don't think CSI:NY or Miami has had anything nearly as strong as the Miniature Killer arc. The fact that Sara has fans who care about her enough to want to tune in and find out what happens to her is testament to a believable and well-acted character, and probably why Vegas is still the most popular of the three.
 
Well thats true none of the other shows have had better arcs that the Miniature Killer but you have to bare in mind that CSI LV have had a longer time to set up characters lives etc so can concertrate on big storylines!
 
That's also true, but I was just giving an opinion about why LV is currently doing better than the other CSI shows. Do big storylines require us to know about the character's lives? It's a crime show - we should know the characters from all three series well enough to predict how they'd react in a given situation. I'm not saying that what works in Vegas will work everywhere else, but there has to be some reason why NY has lost so many viewers.
 
Silencer said:
Yes, but that Sara cliffhanger was the resolution of one of the best written CSI arcs we've had in a while, at least in my view. I don't think CSI:NY or Miami has had anything nearly as strong as the Miniature Killer arc. The fact that Sara has fans who care about her enough to want to tune in and find out what happens to her is testament to a believable and well-acted character, and probably why Vegas is still the most popular of the three.
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Agreed. I think if you look at New York's track record, the same is somewhat true of Danny. "Tanglewood," "Trapped" and RSRD all got great ratings for the show. I think the characters are at the crux of the ratings, and putting them in interesting/challenging situations and people will tune in.
 
Silencer said:
... which surely raises questions about Danny's current character development, maybe Top?
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Well, if you look at the ratings numbers, I think it's pretty clear viewers would rather see Danny trapped in a panic room in a tight tank top than chasing after a frumpy chick from Montana. :lol: But that's the point...viewers like to see the characters in trouble/struggling with big issues. That's what allows us to get to know them. Even Grey's Anatomy, which is a soaper, was smart enough to introduce us to the characters and their issues and focus on those before getting romance-heavy. The problem with the CSI shows is that they're not character-driven, so the character moments are generally small and mixed in with the cases. That's why episodes like "On the Job" and "Trapped" are so brilliant--they provide insight into the characters hand-in-hand with interesting stories/mysteries. When there are so many crime shows on the air, the shows live and die by the characters and how they're developed.
 
Uh Oh, I'm offering what appears to be another lone dissenting opinion again :lol:

Re: Vegas being the most popular, I think the Main reason that it is, is because it came First in the CSI Trilogy, pure and simple. It has had the longest time to build and develop what has become a well established fan base, and as was mentioned by another poster and myself above, it has been around long enough that it's considered an institution a la "Law & Order". IMO, some/many viewers will continue tuning in, even if they've lost some interest in it overall, simply from a 7-year long habit. Also, some viewers haven't even tuned into the other 2 CSIs out of a (arguably misguided) sense of "loyalty" to the Vegas one. It came First, and will remain First in the hearts of many viewers; to watch, or *gasp* actually enjoy the other 2, would be a breach of that loyalty, almost like "cheating". I think that's a somewhat odd notion, but it's one that I know is out there amongst many fans. I know many L&O fans who are faithful ONLY to the original, so it's not just CSI.

I think that had Miami or NY come first instead of Vegas, it might very well be the same story with them. All supposition on my part, of course. But I do think that by the time NY came along last, many viewers were "CSI'd Out", as I mentioned earlier. They already established a relationship with the Vegas one, and some of them stepped out and became regular viewers of the Miami one too, but by the time NY came along, many folks figured "So What? Do we need another CSI?" And like Vegas enjoyed the benefits of being first, IMO, any of the shows that would have come last would also have been considered the Johnny-Come-Lately, no matter which show it was. It just happened to be NY.

Whether or not Vegas is more popular because it has the best writing/characters etc. is purely subjective. Personally, I find the Vegas show butt-clenchingly boring and by far the weakest link of the 3, and I think NY has the most compelling, likable & realistic characters. Obviously not everyone feels the same way, but I also think that how we feel about the characters also largely dictates how we feel about how good (or bad) the writing is.

*shrug* Perhaps that's why I could only make it through 30 minutes of the Vegas premiere before turning the channel; I don't find the characters likable, so I don't really care about the storylines they're involved in...and that makes it boring, to me personally. All purely subjective. I'll take NY's writing and storylines (and characters) over Vegas, any day.

But once again, I'm certainly not saying NY can't benefit in a huge way from some changes this season... starting with better continuity with past storylines, less focus on the rich/beautiful/famous, and a return to the grittier feel of earlier seasons. Not every single ep, of course, because I also think NY has the best humor of all 3, and I enjoy seeing them do the lighthearted eps here and there. But I miss the spine-tingling chills and diversified characters in eps like "Blink"...
 
From TV Guide online:

CSI: NY won the hour with the same tally as last week, 12.7 mil. ABC's Dirty Sexy Money saw 670,000 cash out yet kept ahead of NBC's listing Life, which with 8.8 mil was down 13 percent.
 
MBGrissom, I see what you're saying, but at the same time, it is possible for a spin-off to overtake the original. Law & Order SVU gets considerable attention--even Emmy nods, while CSI: Miami is the #1 show in the world.

But I do agree that Vegas has had a lot of time to build and develop the characters, and that does factor in, in addition to some folk's loyalty because it was the first CSI show. I don't find it quite "buttclenchingly boring" :lol: but I do think it's the lowest energy of the three shows, and I'm not drawn to the characters on it the way I am to the ones on NY or even Miami.

Thanks for posting the ratings, Dynamo! I notice that while NY won the hour, last year the second episode of the season got around 15 million viewers. Down 3 million again--that's not good. :(
 
Does anyone know which episode across all the seasons of New York had the highest ratings? :)
 
Probably "Blink" with 18 million, but "Tanglewood," "Hung Out to Dry" and I believe "Trapped" (though I'm not totally sure about that one!) got 17 million. RSRD and "All Access" also did well, but I think that was more in the 15-16 million range. Now that I think of it, "Manhattan Manhunt" was up there, too, but I can't remember if it had more viewers than "Blink." It may have.
 
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