Mad Men averaged over 2 million viewers for every episode from S4 onwards and only S1 averaged less than a million. S2 and S3 were in between.
Succession have never had 1 million viewers for a single episode, ever. It is currently averaging less than 600k viewers per episode. And ratings are going down. They have multiple episodes with less than 500k viewers.
Even if we only compared season 1-3, mad men is crushing succession in viewers.
So no, the shows are not remotely comparable when it comes to being a critical darling that didn’t get viewers. Mad Men was superior critically, culturally and in terms of viewers.
Even just to say their ratings won’t match their critical acclaim isn’t really accurate. Mad Men was a ratings smash, not to mention cultural phenomenon, compared to succession.
Now HBO would say they don’t care about ratings in that way but that’s besides the point.
You're not doing anything near an apples to apples comparison. Many HBO subscribers don't even have a linear feed. Average on all platforms for Succession is in the 5 million viewer range per episode. Also Mad Men was on basic cable. The Roys are making their way into pop culture and Mad Men was a bit of niche show too. They don't really seem that far off to me.
You're not doing anything near an apples to apples comparison. Many HBO subscribers don't even have a linear feed. Average on all platforms for Succession is in the 5 million viewer range per episode. Also Mad Men was on basic cable. The Roys are making their way into pop culture and Mad Men was a bit of niche show too. They don't really seem that far off to me.
And Mad Men didn’t exist when streaming was as ubiquitous as it is now so that’s not really fair either.
Succession is also nowhere near 5 million. The S3 premiere was 1.4 across all platforms. Mad Men S3 had double that, with no streaming figures.
And Mad Men being on basic cable is irrelevant.
Last edited by Cecil Terwilliger; 12-01-2021 at 05:29 PM.
And Mad Men didn’t exist when streaming was as ubiquitous as it is now so that’s not really fair either.
Succession is also nowhere near 5 million. The S3 premiere was 1.4 across all platforms. Mad Men S3 had double that, with no streaming figures.
And Mad Men being on basic cable is irrelevant.
Quote:
Sunday’s audience will grow to several times its original size over the course of the season three run. Season two ended up drawing more than 5 million viewers per episode across platforms — a figure that, despite Succession’s trove of awards and critical acclaim, isn’t among HBO’s top performers in recent years.
HBO is a $10-15/month standalone service. AMC is included in basic cable subscriptions. Basic cable generally gets better ratings, and HBO is basically VOD, so same night ratings are not very relevant.
Mad Men averaged over 2 million viewers for every episode from S4 onwards and only S1 averaged less than a million. S2 and S3 were in between.
Succession have never had 1 million viewers for a single episode, ever. It is currently averaging less than 600k viewers per episode. And ratings are going down. They have multiple episodes with less than 500k viewers.
Even if we only compared season 1-3, mad men is crushing succession in viewers.
So no, the shows are not remotely comparable when it comes to being a critical darling that didn’t get viewers. Mad Men was superior critically, culturally and in terms of viewers.
Even just to say their ratings won’t match their critical acclaim isn’t really accurate. Mad Men was a ratings smash, not to mention cultural phenomenon, compared to succession.
Now HBO would say they don’t care about ratings in that way but that’s besides the point.
I don't know, there could be a number of factors at play here... as mentioned, streaming is vastly different now than the still-novel PVR days of Mad Men.
I would also argue that huge factor is that there are more quality options vying for viewers' eyeballs now. Mad Men mostly competed against other current run shows, of which it was an outlier in quality. Succession on the other hand, thanks largely to streaming, is competing for viewers with literally every show (and movie) ever made.
It could be because I'm 15 years older and pay attention to different things, (or maybe it's bombing and HBO is going on a marketing offensive), but Succession seems far more pervasive in everyday media and pop culture than Mad Men was at season 3. Granted, Mad Men went out with a bang, but for apples-to-apples, Succession just isn't there yet.
I'd rather have a drink with Don, but Logan is more entertaining.
So decided to watch Lisey’s Story. Big name cast, Stephen King story, cool premise (dead husband leaves clues for his wife, supernatural stuff ensues).
Big mistake. Just not very good at all, no suspense and I found myself laughing at some of the made up vocabulary they used. I guess Stephen King wrote the screenplay. Reviews were bad.
Started Only Murders in the Building. I was very hesitant given the trailers but saw some good comments on CP. First episode was excellent.
Yep, another strong recommendation for Yellowjackets.
Spoiler!
I only realized today that they are apparently stranded in the Ontario wilderness. I wonder if this was done because the audience might assume Ontario is a much more vast and unpopulated wilderness than anything in the NE US, and our horse and carriage search parties would have a tougher time finding the plane?
Last edited by Flabbibulin; 12-05-2021 at 05:41 PM.
Yep, another strong recommendation for Yellowjackets.
Spoiler!
I only realized today that they are apparently stranded in the Ontario wilderness. I wonder if this was done because the audience might assume Ontario is a much more vast and unpopulated wilderness than anything in the NE US, and our horse and carriage search parties would have a tougher time finding the plane?
I don’t know, but it was either a blurb or something in the show about seeing the Rockies, which was kind of odd if they were flying from Maine towards Ontario.
I recommended Yellowjackets to my parents and their PVR taped the wrong episode. They ended up watching episode 2 before 1 because the episode details were mislabeled.
So warning to anyone who may be PVRing the show and hasn’t watched yet. The episodes appeared to have been labelled incorrectly when aired (not sure how many times or how often). My PVR had the same mistake. Said I have Pilot and F Sharp but actually it’s F Sharp twice.
Anyone see the trailer for the Yellowstone prequel show?
Sam Elliot, Billy Bob Thornton and some other people. Starts in a couple weeks. Not sure if it’s also on Prime or just the stupid and crappy Paramount+. It’s says exclusive but I thought Yellowstone was at first too.
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Anyone see the trailer for the Yellowstone prequel show?
Sam Elliot, Billy Bob Thornton and some other people. Starts in a couple weeks. Not sure if it’s also on Prime or just the stupid and crappy Paramount+. It’s says exclusive but I thought Yellowstone was at first too.
Well I'll give it whirl. I'm not huge into Westerns normally, but we shall see.
If it doesnt go well they can probably transition it into a Walking Dead story.
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Its amazing how all the different streaming services have only served to make it more confusing where people can watch what, but of course made it WAY easier to pirate stuff.
Its amazing how all the different streaming services have only served to make it more confusing where people can watch what, but of course made it WAY easier to pirate stuff.
It feels like 50% of people don't even mention what streaming service when they recommend a new show or movie.
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Netflix, Disney+, HBO are all usually pretty straightforward and obvious.
Paramount is a giant mess. Yellowstone isnot even on their own Paramount+, which is supposed to be their future. Old seasons are on their direct competitor Peacock, and current season is on Paramount cable network that requires a cable sub. And it's all completely different in Canada I see! And the spinoff is going to be on completely different services!
Its amazing how all the different streaming services have only served to make it more confusing where people can watch what, but of course made it WAY easier to pirate stuff.
I pay for Disney, Netflix, and Amazon, but for TV series I really like and my movie collection I still download it to my Plex server. At first it was just for the convenience of having everything in one spot. Then Plex kept adding features to their players and now they have a better, more usable interface than any streaming service, which makes me want to download even more stuff. And now recently if you want to watch some TV shows in their entirety, you HAVE to download them. South Park, Always Sunny, Community, all some of my favorite shows that have had some of their best episodes pulled from streaming because of stupid controversies. Why would I pay to stream an inferior version of these shows when I could download a proper version for free? This also affects older shows that streaming services force into widescreen for some reason. Watching Seinfeld on Netflix sucks, so many scenes just look off from being zoomed in so much to fit on a modern TV. I have the DVD series rip on my Plex server though in proper 4:3 format, and thanks to upscaling it looks great
At this point I only keep the streaming stuff for the kids, because their tastes change so quickly it would be impossible to have everything they watch on Plex
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