7mo ago

"news" article pretends not to understand why two very different shows in two separate genres on two totally separate networks aren't judged exactly the same way.

www.forbes.com

‘The Acolyte’ Versus ‘The Penguin’ Viewership Comparisons Don’t Really Add Up

They're also comparing the ratings of a single episode of Penguin to the entire first season of The Acolyte

14 comments

Yeah, not a fair comparison. Plus, as an IP Batman related stuff isn't at the same level as Star Wars, I can't see why anyone would bother comparing and contrasting.
HBO Max has a subscriber base of X.
Disney+ has a subscriber base of Y.
The Batman had xx viewership.
Other Star Wars Shows had yy viewership.
The most you could do is compare audience reach of the first episode of The Penguin to the first episode of the Acolyte.
"Of the potential audience, Penguin reached aa% of subscribers while the Acolyte reached bb%."
But that doesn't really mean anything. How about comparing the Acolyte to Agatha All Along which is at least on the same service and did the same thing in dropping the first two episodes at once.
- I suspect I know the entire reason this "article" was written, and it's that the people who love every Disney property are still trying to make up literally any reason why Acolyte was cancelled other than the fact that it was just a jumbled mess of a show.
  I love Star Wars, I watched every episode of The Acolyte. It was ok at best. It was somewhat enjoyable but had so many issues with the writing that I wasn't that surprised when it got cancelled.
  
  Yeah, people still bitter over Acolyte failing.
  Beyond pure viewership, Disney also does surveys asking detailed questions about what you liked, didn't like, what you'd want to see in a season 2 and so on.
  I'd expect they got a lot of responses along the lines of "I didn't watch all of season 1, why would I watch season 2?"
  OTOH - it's not like they pulled all the episodes offline or anything... it's still out there. I bailed after Episode 3 stunk up the place, but I hear 5 is better.
  
  I watched all of them and it did get somewhat better here and there. The high points were just good enough that I still wanted to see what happened but there was just so much pointless junk that even the big cliffhanger ending didn't really thrill me... I'd honestly be fine if they just told me how the story ends in an email or something lol
  
  Finish it in a Marvel comic series.
  
  5 isn't better, it's just got action sequences full of glaring problems.
- The article itself brings up viewer retention, which would be a fair comparison if there were actually more than one Penguin episode available. Otherwise while context will be important I do think comparing viewership-to-budget is fair.

14 comments