Sign In
SHARE
Email Confirmation
Gossip's Streaming Success
by Sophia Banay
Jul 24 2008
Jul 24 2008
The CW finds that the most dedicated Gossip Girl viewers are watching on the Web.
Serena and Dan, the preppy classmates of the CW's buzzy Gossip Girl, look like they are meant for each other. But the juicier industry debate is whether the same can be said of the two networks that were merged to create the CW. Read More
For a TV show structured entirely around a blog, the CW network's Gossip Girl sure has an ambivalent relationship with the internet.
When the show debuted last September, original episodes were available for free on the network's website. That continued through January, when Gossip Girl’s last original episode before the 100-day writers' strike aired.
Surprisingly, when the show returned in April, the streaming episodes were yanked, making Gossip Girl the CW's only show, aside from Smallville, not available online. (Fans could still purchase episodes via iTunes.)
In the most recent twist, word leaked this weekend during the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles that this fall, when season two of the popular drama returns to the air, streamed episodes will once again be available online.
But the network, a joint enterprise from CBS and Warner Bros., is keeping a lid on its reversal, not even issuing a press release about the change of heart.
"The passionate fans found other digital outlets and websites to watch their favorite show online," said a network spokesperson. "Ultimately, we've decided to begin streaming episodes of the show again on cwtv.com because we want the CW to be the primary destination for all things Gossip Girl, from on-air to online."
That decision seems as obvious as the previous one was mystifying. The online episodes only ever averaged a viewership in the hundreds of thousands, according to people close to the network, while television ratings for new episodes averaged more than 2 million viewers per episode, according to numbers provided by Nielsen.
But the people watching the show online comprised the most "passionate" part of the show's fan base, trading tidbits about plot points and the stars on other websites. By cutting them out, the CW also undermined one of Gossip Girl’s most attractive assets: young, tech-savvy viewers.
For new episodes on TV last season, the average viewer age was an advertiser-friendly 26, according to Nielsen. The average for online viewers, which Nielsen doesn't measure, was undoubtedly lower.
In addition, there's evidence that people who consume content online actually pay closer attention than those who watch it on TV, because they multitask less than their square-eyed counterparts, says Rachel Mueller-Lust, the executive vice president of networks at IAG Research, a firm that measures the effectiveness of advertising on television and the internet.
Because Gossip Girl already performs very well in terms of viewer engagement, ranking among the top 20 prime-time TV shows for adults 18 to 34 and 18 to 49, it stands to reason that online viewers would constitute an even more committed, hyper-engaged audience (lest they miss a juicy tidbit).
When they shut down the streaming episodes last spring, CW executives reportedly felt that they were cannibalizing their Nielsen ratings, which were low by network standards. Gossip Girl quickly became a cornerstone of the network's programming schedule anyway, and now, the network seems to have realized that alienating their most tech-savvy and devoted fans wasn't good P.R.
"All the networks are looking to get more viewers engaged with the programming by doing streaming online," says Mueller-Lust.
The problem, of course, is monetizing those viewers once they start to stream. Online episodes of Gossip Girl will have three or four ads each, making them far less profitable than your standard TV episode. But for now, the CW seems to have decided that un-monetized viewers is better than angry viewers—or no viewers at all.
When the show debuted last September, original episodes were available for free on the network's website. That continued through January, when Gossip Girl’s last original episode before the 100-day writers' strike aired.
Surprisingly, when the show returned in April, the streaming episodes were yanked, making Gossip Girl the CW's only show, aside from Smallville, not available online. (Fans could still purchase episodes via iTunes.)
In the most recent twist, word leaked this weekend during the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles that this fall, when season two of the popular drama returns to the air, streamed episodes will once again be available online.
But the network, a joint enterprise from CBS and Warner Bros., is keeping a lid on its reversal, not even issuing a press release about the change of heart.
"The passionate fans found other digital outlets and websites to watch their favorite show online," said a network spokesperson. "Ultimately, we've decided to begin streaming episodes of the show again on cwtv.com because we want the CW to be the primary destination for all things Gossip Girl, from on-air to online."
That decision seems as obvious as the previous one was mystifying. The online episodes only ever averaged a viewership in the hundreds of thousands, according to people close to the network, while television ratings for new episodes averaged more than 2 million viewers per episode, according to numbers provided by Nielsen.
But the people watching the show online comprised the most "passionate" part of the show's fan base, trading tidbits about plot points and the stars on other websites. By cutting them out, the CW also undermined one of Gossip Girl’s most attractive assets: young, tech-savvy viewers.
For new episodes on TV last season, the average viewer age was an advertiser-friendly 26, according to Nielsen. The average for online viewers, which Nielsen doesn't measure, was undoubtedly lower.
In addition, there's evidence that people who consume content online actually pay closer attention than those who watch it on TV, because they multitask less than their square-eyed counterparts, says Rachel Mueller-Lust, the executive vice president of networks at IAG Research, a firm that measures the effectiveness of advertising on television and the internet.
Because Gossip Girl already performs very well in terms of viewer engagement, ranking among the top 20 prime-time TV shows for adults 18 to 34 and 18 to 49, it stands to reason that online viewers would constitute an even more committed, hyper-engaged audience (lest they miss a juicy tidbit).
When they shut down the streaming episodes last spring, CW executives reportedly felt that they were cannibalizing their Nielsen ratings, which were low by network standards. Gossip Girl quickly became a cornerstone of the network's programming schedule anyway, and now, the network seems to have realized that alienating their most tech-savvy and devoted fans wasn't good P.R.
"All the networks are looking to get more viewers engaged with the programming by doing streaming online," says Mueller-Lust.
The problem, of course, is monetizing those viewers once they start to stream. Online episodes of Gossip Girl will have three or four ads each, making them far less profitable than your standard TV episode. But for now, the CW seems to have decided that un-monetized viewers is better than angry viewers—or no viewers at all.
| Read All