HBO declines; Showtime fares better with 'Tara'

HBO and Showtime launched dueling winter slates Sunday night, with one network enjoying increased ratings and the other enduring steep declines.

The debut of Showtime’s multiple personality disorder dramedy “The United States of Tara” drew more viewers than the series premieres of the network's “Weeds,” “Dexter,” “Tudors” or “Californication.”

The first airing of “Tara” was seen by 880,000 viewers (a figure that swells to 1.5 million when you add in extra airings and online streaming, according to Showtime).

“Tara's” lead-in, the final season premiere of “The L Word” (460,000), may increase the chance of the drama’s spinoff pilot getting greenlighted -- “Word” returned 44% higher than last season’s opener.  Yet the second season debut of imported series “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” (560,000) broke Showtime’s streak of good news, down 40% from last year despite a stronger lead-in.

Over on HBO, the news was grim: The third season debut of “Big Love” (1.2 million) fell 47% from last year and the second round of “Flight of the Conchords” (560,000) was down 50%.

Sunday cable was led by ABC Family’s “Another Cinderella Story” (5.3 million viewers), the network’s third-most-watched telecast ever.

Comment: I'm surprised by "Tara." I've been skeptical about the show since it was announced. Screenwriters consider crazy people to be inherently unsympathic to viewers (or, at least, have a steep hill to climb to become anywhere close to relatable). The endeavor sounded like a parallel universe version of Fox's "Dollhouse" -- a showy platform for an actor, sure, but is there a story you can sink your teeth into? But the positive "Tara" reviews and these numbers speak for themselves.

Comments

[TVGuruMAN]

Worthless statistics. Pay cable is a subscription business. They don't rely on eyeballs watching at a certain time slot or even a certain day because they're not driven by commercial advertising.

HBO and Showtime both have OnDemand viewing, meaning that a subscriber can watch an episode at their leisure with just a few clicks of the remote. Additionally, the episodes air a multitude of times during the course of a week or month, giving subscribers even more options about when and how they can tune in to the programming.

[Heradite]

Worthless? Maybe. Interesting? Yes.

[Adam]

I don't think they're worthless... Pay stations want shows that stick: ones that will draw people to their TVs at a specific time every week because they just couldn't possibly wait to watch later on demand or online. It's that kind of interest that keeps people paying their subscription fees.

[S. Hagood]

I think the ratings for "Flight of the Conchords" should be discounted, since the first episode was on Showtime's page to watch before it aired. I bet lots of people did that and then just skipped watching or recording it later.

I really enjoyed "Tara", hopefully the storyline will go up from here.

[TVGuruMAN]

Adam,

Pay stations want shows that stick: ones that will drive up the number of subscribers; not plant people in front of their TVs at a specific time. It's a different business model than that of the Broadcast Networks. ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and others that broadcast commercial advertising want viewers glued to their TVs at specific times because advertisers pay premium dollars for those time slots. While it's a great feeling for the pay networks to have everyone watch the shows at one time, it's really not the most important factor, as long as subscriptions increase. I mostly watch HBO's and SHO's programming over the broadcast networks but almost never do so at the appropriated times.

[Adam]

TVGuru - What I'm saying is that the pay networks need good shows to keep their current subscribers, but they need GREAT shows (the ones that have you tuning in at a specific time every week) to recruit new ones. Especially in this economic climate, I can't see people wanting to pay their HBO and Showtime bills unless they'd otherwise be missing something really enticing.