Lost comes in late now… will you (still) watch it live ?
By fred | April 24, 2008
Tonight is the biggest night on television ever. Or, since quite some time at least. There’s no doubt that Thursday night is a big TV night, and with the NBC comedy night back for a few weeks now, we’ve already have some good stuff, but tonight is really big. The Sweeps are on, and so NBC has its comedies, and on The CW along with Smallville there’s a new Supernatural.
But the biggest news might come from ABC, and the return of a full block of new scripted shows : Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, and, of course, Lost. Yes, finally, we’re here, the day the fourth and so incredible season of Lost comes back, and yes, it is now one hour later than it used to be. I’m sure many die-hard fans who felt like dying for the past weeks would be back no matter what time the show would be on, but what about you ? Will the majority of the audience (still) tune in live ?
I’m sure the old-school thinkers of ABC thought it’d be a good slot for Lost, because lead-in Grey’s Anatomy is still a pretty big hit, especially on the 18-49 demo, and that’s what matters most. Only I don’t think so, in fact I’m pretty sure that might not have such an impact on the show’s audience.
Of course I could be totally wrong on that one, but I don’t see anyone who never watched Lost actually watch it and become a regular viewers, just because it comes after Grey’s Anatomy. Lead-in can have an impact, but especially for non-serialized series. And with Lost, we’re even further than being serialized : Lost is not a TV show, it is so much more.
It’s not just that you need to know who the characters are, why it is a big deal to know that Ben may be able to leave the Island, what the Hell is that Island and what’s going on here to have a chance to understand, though of course without such knowledge the impact of awesome twists or flash-forwards will be greatly diminished.
But also, there’s no other show out there that have fans analyzing every episode like maniacs, coming up with theories probably a lot more complex than the show actually already is, and arguing with other fans about one of the many mysteries.
No other show created such a reaction from its audience as Lost did, and it reflects in how the way people watch the show : you can’t do something else at the same time (blasphemy!), you can’t be tired or half-sleep, you have to focus and devote your entire attention to the show, and once the episode is over, you want to think about it, you want to talk about it, read about it, or just watch it again, especially that scene with the cabin and the lantern who got unbroken…
There’s already a very large part of the audience of the show that doesn’t watch it live, because they’d rather wait so they can later skip the commercials or rewind and watch a scene again in case they (feel they) may have missed something. And I suspect that many could see that with the show now coming at 10.00, they’d rather make sure their DVR is set right two or three times, and go to bed. (Maybe even waking up early on Friday, to make sure they’ve watched it before going to work/school.)
Lost is already one of the show with the most time-shifted audience. For instance, on March 20th for its “mid-season finale”, Lost’s audience increased by very large 35.1% ! That is about 3.5 million people who did not watch the episode live, yet within seven days after its broadcast.
I’m not saying Lost isn’t going to do good in its new slot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t do as good as it did for the first half of the season, while in the mean time seeing its time-shifted audience increase even more.
When it comes to Lost, more than a strong lead-in, I think what’s really important is a good timeslot. And that means, it should come in earlier. So, what about you ? Did you watch the show live during the first episodes, or were you already waiting for the next day ? And now that the show comes in at 10.00, will you (still) watch it live ?
