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Emmy-Winning Series Loses 2 Million Viewers

Nov 8, 2011  •  Post A Comment

A scheduling decision that moved an Emmy-winning series to a new time slot looks like it’s turning out to be a bad move for the show, reports Bill Carter in The New York Times.

CBS’s "The Good Wife" has lost about 2 million viewers since the network moved it to Sunday evenings, the story says.

Particularly frustrating for the show’s fans is that the network’s late-afternoon National Football League games are causing delayed starts for "The Good Wife," leading to problems for viewers who tape the show on DVRs, the story points out. The show has started as late as 9:29 p.m. ET, creating truncated episodes for viewers whose DVRs had been programmed to start recording at the show’s scheduled 9 p.m. start time, the piece notes.

With the show’s plot continuing from episode to episode, missing a portion of a program can be disruptive. “I can certainly understand the frustration some people have with the NFL run-overs,” CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl said.

CBS said it’s trying to alert fans when the show is delayed, including using messages on its Twitter network and information on CBS.com and its Facebook page.

Kahl said he’s satisfied with the show’s performance, noting that the upset over the delays "“tells me that ‘The Good Wife’ has a very loyal audience," the story says.

5 Comments

  1. What’s the big deal, other than being inconvenient? Go to cbs.com and watch the show there. I cut the cable 18 months ago and get over-the-air TV. Sometimes, the signal is weak (I’m pretty far from the transmitters) and especially ABC, pixellates or pauses or drops out altogether. I just go to abc.com…

  2. Using Twitter as a solution on this show’s 25-54 year old demo is like asking a tweeter to use a landline.
    Not a smart move by the cbs scheduling chief.

  3. Scott clearly is oblivious/uninterested when it comes to broadcast programming (yes, it still exists!). JustTheFacts, you know your stuff.
    The demo for The Good Wife is not the same demo that would be happy to watch TV on a computer screen or laptop, nor are they likely to be the same group to have a TV connected to a HTPC. They have a DVR because that’s what the cable package included and they use it to record the shows that come on after their bedtime (10pm on a Sunday…pretty late for the demo).
    Honestly though, I wonder how much of the audience has left more because of the story lines? Changed drastically from a patient but stern wife of a philandering husband to the free-wheeling lawyer slut pretty quickly. Most women find it hard to identify with the cold attitude of the “new” character. The older storyline was at least something they could identify with.

  4. The main reason, which none of you have mentioned is, it is up against Desperate Housewives.
    Personally, I love both shows and watched it regularly on Tuesday. But, there is no way, I am not going to watch my wisteria lane girls.
    CBS programming made a scheduling change driven by EGO…they were confident, they could know DH off there ladder. So many good shows go in the tank because the EGO makes the non-intelligent decision…..AND yes, I realize this is the last season for DH, so it GH is on Sunday, it will probably do well next year. They made the move a year to soon.

  5. The reason TGW has lost viewers is not the scheduling change. The quality of the writing has fallen off a cliff. WTF? Does anyone know what happened?

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