The early ratings are in for “A Better Human Being” — but how do the numbers stack up?
Fringe was steady with 1.1 in the key demo, with 2,992,000 viewers.
Fringe Season 4 Ratings So Far:
4.13 — 2.99 million | 1.1 adults 18-49 (prelim)
4.12 — 3.03 million | 1.1 adults 18-49 (final)
4.11 — 3.20 million | 1.2 adults 18-49 (final)
4.10 — 3.33 million | 1.2 adults 18-49 (final)
4.09 — 3.19 million | 1.1 adults 18-49 (final)
4.08 — 2.88 million | 1.1 adults 18-49 (final)
4.07 — 2.88 million | 1.1 adults 18-49 (final)
4.06 — 3.03 million | 1.1 adults 18-49 (final)
4.05 — 3.21 million | 1.3 adults 18-49 (final)
4.04 — 3.14 million | 1.2 adults 18-49 (final)
4.03 — 3.18 million | 1.3 adults 18-49 (final)
4.02 — 3.05 million | 1.2 adults 18-49 (final)
4.01 — 3.5 million | 1.5 adults 18-49 (final)
Source: Masked Scheduler
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{ 54 comments… read them below or add one }
Damn
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Totally agree, it sucks !!!
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I just don’t get it…
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I agree with you Mike. It makes me so angry and sad that this is happening to such an amazing show. I didn’t get to see last night’s episode because my computer is dead but I know it was amazing. Fringe rarely disappoints. Unfortunately the majority of us who watch are not Neilson families or are in another country (me). I hope there is another season of Fringe, but if not, it has been an amazing journey.
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I know and by the preview the next episode is going to be outstanding. And then we will have a 3 weeks hiatus.
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How?
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Could it be because of long weekend?
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What long weekend? As far as I know, no one in America has President’s day off anymore… Except Post Offices and Banks, but that’s pretty much it…
About the ratings: I don’t get it… I just don’t… How can this show lose viewers and stay at is lowest ratings as a series low when the episode itself was just mindblowing? I just… I really don’t understand, and I don’t think I will… Who ever came up with the Neilsen system didn’t have anything better to do…
That’s it, Neilsen has to go…
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Funny how this great show gets so much crap and Supernatural has been on for eight years and the ratings are lower then these. Interesting, IMO.
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Well Supernatural has a different set of standards, because it’s not on one of the “big 4″ networks. For The CW, Supernatural’s ratings are actually pretty good, and with any luck, will be renewed. I am a devoted fan of both shows. I know it doesn’t matter because I am not a Neilson family, but I do make a point to watch Fringe and DVR Supernatural.
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respect. but i must say, it might be a good idea to dvr fringe too…since dvr is what brought us this current season.
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It just don’t make sense to me how it can be happening!!! Serious! It’s just a fantastic show!
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It just make me very angry! Is practically the only show that I stop to see!!!!!!!
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Apparently there have been loads of all time lows this week, so the fact that fringe held a 1.1 is according to some people very good news, i dont know the details of this, or what the reason is behind all time lows, but i guess thats alright if not good news.
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Exactly my thoughts!!! I´ve also red somewhere that this week was poor with ratings everwhere so actually it is good that Fringe remains steady!
Such an outstanding show- Fringe deserves season 5 !
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I guess it’s good to see that Fringe seems to have found a core audience with about 3 Million viewers and a 1.1-rating.
So Fox Execs know what they can expect from Fringe. But there has to be at least a 1.2 next week with this cliffhanger.
I think Alcatraz for example would rapidly drop under 1.0, if Fox moved it to Fridays instead of Fringe.
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Come on! Fringe continues its mind blowing streak, and the ratings go DOWN. What kind of world do we live in where extremely high quality shows like this are always on the verge of cancellation, but shows that are filled with crude sex jokes (*cough* Two and a Half Men *cough*) are massively successful?
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I don’t get it. The show gets better and better, but the ratings go down.
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Alcatraz fell big time this week. I think in the future, JJ should shop all his shows around to cable. Actually, I think that goes for ANYONE thinking about creating serialized TV. They all have a better chance of surviving. All people care about on the networks are reality TV and NCIS. Pretty sad. Its easy to blame Fox, and the neworks for shows that dont make it, but the numbers speak for themselves. America likes crap.
Well-loved. Like:
16
Un-be-lie-ve-ble!!!
It annoyes the !@#@#$%! out of me that those Nielsen boxes even excist.
This was truly a HUGE, no, LEGENDARY episode, and nobody was watching live.
FOX, mr. Kevin Reilly, i sincerely hope you read this, but someone is using Fringe technology to manipulate those number downwards, i tell you.
As for me personal: S5, bring it on!! The wait is almost over for that positive news to come in. Hey: i’ll even buy the trade cards if it helps.
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Friday night is not a good time for a show…people are usually doing things, eating out, going to basketball or football games, date nights, etc.
Fox needs to give the show a fighting chance by moving it to another night…I just don’t know what would be the best one. I will be inexpressibly sad if it’s canceled. I haven’t loved a show this much since “Lost.”
I guess there’s always a possibility it could be picked up by another channel, like the SciFy, or something?
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Is it too late to move Fringe back out of Friday night now? The story has gone so far and I am sure whoever didn’t follow Fringe since it was moved to Friday night, they either will not want to start watching Fringe again, or even they try, they might not understand what’s happening to the characters and the story. Only those who keep watching Live or DVR it (the 3.X million total viewers) will know what’s going on.
So will it help if FOX move Fringe to other nights? will that help the rating go up? i don’t think so. It’s too late, IMO
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It is too late. It had its chance and it’s gone. But remember: Last year, Fringe wasn’t sent to the death slot on purpose; FOX loved the show and didn’t want to cancel it. The only problem was that American Idol was coming back and it needed the Thursday slot. Friday was vacant, so FOX sent it there where it could thrive. If it had stayed on Thursday, odds are it WOULD have been cancelled.
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By the way, last night’s episode was MINDBLOWING. It just brought back everything I love about this show.
Well-loved. Like:
21
Fox sucks
its sad to see numbers like this. I don’t live in US and I wish I was able to contribute to the ratings. We need a season 5, hell we deserve to have a season 5! Move Fringe to a better night fox, swap Bones and Fringe! Fringe is totally 10 times better this season and all seasons for that matter!
Hot debate. What do you think?
9
I agree !! We Want FRINGE Season 5!!
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I love Fox. No only have they brought us this great show, they’ve brought us it for four years. On other networks we may never have even got a third season, let alone a fourth!
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Fox banished it to Friday and cut its promotions to the freakin’ bone. Friday is a terrible TV night on any channel. People go out on Friday night. Give me a freakin’ break! Hmmm? I wonder why it’s struggling.
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*Not
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It is great that Fox has given us 4 seasons already but there is so much more story to tell and thats why we need season 5. They need to change the time slot so Fringe can have its chance. I don’t live in US but do they show alot of the promo’s for upcoming episodes because the upcoming episode promo is awesome and if I didn’t watch fringe I would tune in for that reason alone.
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I know one should not get hung up on a TV Show, but this has to be for me one of the most infuriating situations I can think of.
Fringe has delivered over the last 5 weeks episodes of outstanding quality,
the acting superb, and intriguing storylines but yet somehow this isn’t being reflected in in the ratings. Surely now there has to be an investigation now into how this Neilson System actually works and how accurate they are, and who are they really surveying. Surely some of the Fox Executives (kevin Really, Fringe fan) must be just as stumped as I am.
Although I must say Kevin’s words, when quizzed about the future of the show at the end of last year unfortunately might be coming true. For when quizzed he said that because of the shows mythology he didn’t think it would garner any new viewers other than the audience it had already got, and I hate to say this but seems to be what is happening with the ratings what they are.
Still this is a situation I think warrants further investigation and ultimately complete dismissal of this the most outdated of survey systems (The Neilson Rating System)
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Friday is where shows are sent to die. The shame is that this time it’s a great show. The ratings were much better before it got banished to Friday.
If they moved it to another weekday, and gave it 1/3 the advertising they do for the animated shows or idol, it would do so much better.
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Lesson to draw from this:
Cr@p sells. Anything that asks the masses to think outside the box, when vegetating in front of the TV, does not.
Hence, reality TV. (Cue the Talking Head’s song: “We’re on a Road to Nowhere”)
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Hey!!! OMPeter!! Last episode the glyphs spelled Henry, what if September is Henry??! Peter’s son???!
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Good point.
Haven’t watched this last episode yet (I’m not in the USA or I’d make a point of watching live) but it would be a great twist if when December said “they can never know the boy grew to be a man” he was talking about September, not Peter.
I think somebody might have speculated that here or on Seriable?
The showrunners did say the Henry thread was over, but I suspect that may have been a bait and switch.
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Thank you!!! When are u seeing the episode? Well keep in touch!!!!
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Hey I went to Seriable and saw that fringe friday thought the same thing and that Peter will see Henry in his mind!! So
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… So he can’t let himself be erased from time!!
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I saw the episode last night. I enjoyed it, this season is definitely picking up momentum after a shaky start.
Last week’s episode was one of the best ever ‘mythalones’ of Fringe. It was suitably apocalyptic and had a frightening concept at its core. It had a cinematic feel that is Fringe at its most dazzling.
I could understand the early dissatisfaction with this season, I felt it too – but all that changed with David Robert Jone’s reappearance.
Now the ratings baffle me. They climb back to the 1.2 zone, then plummet. This season is getting better in leaps and bounds, yet the audience is dropping again.
Let’s hope the next episode climbs again. Or Fringe moves to AMC or CW – for them, 3 million viewers in the fourth season would be a dream.
I’ve said it before, a big network like Fox has such high running costs (gotta cover all those suit’s salaries, you know!) that ridiculous expectations are made on show ratings, even four seasons in. It means most series almost never get to live out a natural lifespan.
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Even if Henry isn’t the Observer, I like the idea that December wasn’t talking about Peter, but Henry. It’s very interesting.
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I don’t understand how it can be so low after last week’s episode which was absolutely amazing… well at least it’s steady… This show deserves so much better!
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I think the recent trend disproves those people who claim that the standalone eps lose the show viewers. We’ve seen a steady decline over the last three episodes, and they were definitely myth arc driven. I think the majority of the viewers are the casual kind, and they get turned off when the show dives too deep into the underlying score of past seasons. So it’s actually the standalones that annoy some fans so much that keep the show on the air.
Personally I believe the Friday time slot is what saved Fringe. Yes, networks send shows there to ‘die’, but Fringe got a S4 out of it, and I’m praying that the numbers are good enough to get us a S5. The thing is that the hardcore fans will catch the show regardless on what night it airs, and Fringe has a sizable chunk of those. And on any other night the show would have to compete with some kind of blockbuster procedural that would draw the casual viewers away. Also, my guess is Fringe caters to an audience of all ages and people in the ‘mature’ category – like me – don’t necessarily feel the urge for going out every Friday night.
Well-loved. Like:
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Well put. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
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I am in Canada, not in USA. I watch Fringe live every week although i am not sure i am contributing to the ratings. I understand that everyone has his/her own preference. But seeing Fringe’s rating suffers, and other reality shows and some not so special procedural tv shows get way more attentions, i am kinda confused. Well, I guess people just don’t wanna invest too much energy to understand one show like Fringe.
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Let’s hope the DVR numbers will increase the final rating a bit. Using Neilson numbers alone no longer represents the true number of viewers for any given show in this day and age.
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As far as I can see, DVR numbers are irrelevant to advertisers. Only live viewing offers some guarantee that their adverts will be seen.
Advertisers are the ones that pay the bills for a television network like Fox. Fox cares a lot more about what they think than they do the fans.
There’s no question that the Nielsen system is no longer representative of true viewership figures. But, to reiterate: advertisers don’t give a hoot about ‘true figures’. And they require tangible metrics to demonstrate that the money they spend to reserve a timeslot is worth it.
DVR viewers are not a viable market if you can skip their ads.
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That not totally true.Watch live plus DVR the show, re-watch or replay by 3am.Does COUNT towards the live+SD viewing.
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Roco, you probably know better than I about this: do advertisers care about the DVR viewing figures?
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What Don says is true.
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My question was if it counts for the advertisers, not just raw stats.
I’m not in the USA, so perhaps DVR doesn’t work like it does in my corner of the world, so I admit, I might be wrong in my assumptions on this. But my DVR allows me to skip past ads.
But if your DVR system can skip the ads, then sorry Don and Willg, if their adverts can be fast forwarded through, then I can’t see how it would hold quantifiable value for advertisers, and by extension for Fox.
If you’re spending large wads of cash for ad-spend, I’d imagine you’d make pretty that your metrics offered some guarantee of viewership.
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Damn, that should be “I’d imagine you’d make pretty SURE that…”
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You are correct it measure dvr commercial watching. Which is why when you add dvr viewing up till 3 am plus live viewing, it generally does not change much.
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Again no upward adjustment for Fringe, staying on 1.1. I’m really surprised this episode didn’t rate higher. Here’s hoping the next episode can do better than a 1.1, surely we can get the rating to a 1.2 or (wishful thinking) 1.3?!
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Roco what happened to Fringie of the week for a better human being? I didnt miss it did I??
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