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A C-Double Win
by Sophia Banay
Sep 3 2008
Sep 3 2008
90210 joins Gossip Girl as a big winner for the ratings-challenged CW. Can it last?
It's baaaaack.
No, we're not talking about 90210, the reimagined version of classic teen soap Beverly Hills, 90210, which had its series premiere on the CW last night. We're talking about the network itself, which seems to have been revived from near-death by the success of its two most recent series premieres.
In fact, against all odds, fall is off to a very strong start for the CW, the teen-oriented network from CBS and Warner Bros.
On Labor Day evening, the season two premiere of Gossip Girl scored 3.4 million viewers, the series' second-highest audience ever and one that, combined with strong ratings for the sixth season of teen drama One Tree Hill, helped carry the CW's best Monday night in the two years since it was founded.
And Tuesday night, the series premiere of 90210 did the network even prouder. In three categories—women 18 to 34, the CW's sweet spot; adults 18 to 34; and adults 18 to 49—the two-hour special was the highest-rated telecast of any CW scripted series, ever. It was also the highest-rated premiere of a scripted series in those three categories, all according to a press release issued by the network.
That's a big relief for the CW, which had been banking on big ratings for the show after an extensive marketing campaign. That campaign took a page from Gossip Girl's playbook, relying on racy billboard and print ads that featured the show's cast lounging in barely there swimwear, and that outraged bystanders including an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.
Despite—or perhaps because of—that scandal, and thanks in part to a heavy dose of nostalgia for its predecessor, 90210 attracted droves of viewers. The show drew an average audience of 4.9 million for the two-hour telecast—even more than Gossip Girl the night before—and the 4.3 rating among women 18 to 34, the 3.0 among adults 18 to 34 and the 2.6 among adults 18 to 49 were all sufficient to break records for the fledgling network.
The question now is, can 90210—and Gossip Girl and the creaky One Tree Hill, for that matter—keep on delivering? Unkind reviews for 90210's debut episode weren't hard to find. "At this point, adding Tori Spelling to the mix would have a calming effect," concluded Variety.
But numbers from the network proved that audiences disagreed. Total viewers increased 9 percent between 90210’s first and second hours, which bodes well for next week's second episode, and for the series in general.
The CW's future had looked precarious only last week, as the network's third broadcast season approached without a bona fide ratings hit on the schedule.
While audiences of 3.4 million (for Gossip Girl) and 4.9 million (for 90210) aren't exactly American Idol territory, they still represent great strides for a network whose buzziest show only averaged between 2 million and 3 million viewers in its first season.
That upward trajectory is one that the network no doubt hopes it can maintain. But do these shows represent full-fledged successes for the CW, or are they just temporary reprieves on the path to irrelevance?
"It's too early to tell," says Courtney Burke, senior vice president and director of network buying at Deutsch, a full-service advertising agency in New York. "The amount of promotion they put behind Gossip Girl and 90210—no one could walk through Manhattan over the past few months and not know about those two shows."
Because of that, she says, the level of fall-off the shows sustain over the next few weeks will be extremely telling. "They've definitely succeeded with Monday and Tuesday of this week, and we're all interested to see what happens next."
No, we're not talking about 90210, the reimagined version of classic teen soap Beverly Hills, 90210, which had its series premiere on the CW last night. We're talking about the network itself, which seems to have been revived from near-death by the success of its two most recent series premieres.
In fact, against all odds, fall is off to a very strong start for the CW, the teen-oriented network from CBS and Warner Bros.
On Labor Day evening, the season two premiere of Gossip Girl scored 3.4 million viewers, the series' second-highest audience ever and one that, combined with strong ratings for the sixth season of teen drama One Tree Hill, helped carry the CW's best Monday night in the two years since it was founded.
And Tuesday night, the series premiere of 90210 did the network even prouder. In three categories—women 18 to 34, the CW's sweet spot; adults 18 to 34; and adults 18 to 49—the two-hour special was the highest-rated telecast of any CW scripted series, ever. It was also the highest-rated premiere of a scripted series in those three categories, all according to a press release issued by the network.
That's a big relief for the CW, which had been banking on big ratings for the show after an extensive marketing campaign. That campaign took a page from Gossip Girl's playbook, relying on racy billboard and print ads that featured the show's cast lounging in barely there swimwear, and that outraged bystanders including an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.
Despite—or perhaps because of—that scandal, and thanks in part to a heavy dose of nostalgia for its predecessor, 90210 attracted droves of viewers. The show drew an average audience of 4.9 million for the two-hour telecast—even more than Gossip Girl the night before—and the 4.3 rating among women 18 to 34, the 3.0 among adults 18 to 34 and the 2.6 among adults 18 to 49 were all sufficient to break records for the fledgling network.
The question now is, can 90210—and Gossip Girl and the creaky One Tree Hill, for that matter—keep on delivering? Unkind reviews for 90210's debut episode weren't hard to find. "At this point, adding Tori Spelling to the mix would have a calming effect," concluded Variety.
But numbers from the network proved that audiences disagreed. Total viewers increased 9 percent between 90210’s first and second hours, which bodes well for next week's second episode, and for the series in general.
The CW's future had looked precarious only last week, as the network's third broadcast season approached without a bona fide ratings hit on the schedule.
While audiences of 3.4 million (for Gossip Girl) and 4.9 million (for 90210) aren't exactly American Idol territory, they still represent great strides for a network whose buzziest show only averaged between 2 million and 3 million viewers in its first season.
That upward trajectory is one that the network no doubt hopes it can maintain. But do these shows represent full-fledged successes for the CW, or are they just temporary reprieves on the path to irrelevance?
"It's too early to tell," says Courtney Burke, senior vice president and director of network buying at Deutsch, a full-service advertising agency in New York. "The amount of promotion they put behind Gossip Girl and 90210—no one could walk through Manhattan over the past few months and not know about those two shows."
Because of that, she says, the level of fall-off the shows sustain over the next few weeks will be extremely telling. "They've definitely succeeded with Monday and Tuesday of this week, and we're all interested to see what happens next."
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