Did you get to see NBC’s new series “quarterlife” on Tuesday night? No? Well don’t worry because neither did anyone else, anywhere. According to The Hollywood Reporter its premiere pulled just 3.1 million viewers, the lowest rating for the peacock network in 17 years. While I had never heard of “quarterlife” it apparently had quite a life of its own before hitting the airwaves:
The series made headlines when NBC picked up “quarterlife” in November after it debuted on MySpace, with producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick making an unprecedented deal to retain ownership of a network series. NBC has noted that “quarterlife” was an opportunity to pickup a scripted series with online following during the uncertain writers strike.
NBC Co-Chair Ben Silverman said “quarterlife” was “so worth the try.”
“The web site traffic went up a huge amount and we continue to try new things and new models,” Silverman said. “It’s very inexpensive but we hoped for higher ratings.”
Yeah, the worst ratings in 17 years couldn’t have been part of the business plan but trying to make the MySpace to network television is quite a leap. I can’t imagine NBC will bother with a second round of “quarterlife”. If it did so well on the interwebs then maybe that’s where it should return. If you were one of the 3.1 million then please let me know why.
Posted on: Thursday, February 28, 2008
February 28th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Hmm, I wonder how ratings work? Would they capture Tivo’d recordings of the show? I mean, this was a web-based show. Folks watched it at their convenience, not on a network schedule. That’s a huge transition for the expected viewership to make in the “migration”.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Didn’t know it was a “Web-to-TV” attempt, but now I understand. I watched about 5 minutes and had to turn it off — excessive, trite conversations among 20-somethings. No appeal whatsoever to anyone above or below that age group. Too age-specific for general audiences.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:27 am
@Moe: I’ve seen recent ratings that are updated days later by networks to include Tivo/DVR watches, so I believe they are able to include those. But the 3.1M was probably an immediate count and didn’t pull in playbacks.
@James: I remember, wayback when, the series for “Thirtysomethings” which was decently popular. I wonder if NBC was hoping they could repeat that with another focused age group. Sounds like it didn’t work
@Everyone: NBC announced Thursday afternoon that “quarterlife” had been canceled.
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 am
So, the big question, what was it that bombed 17 years ago? Cop Rock perhaps?
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I was very interested in that same question, but after looking around I can’t find the answer. If I see anything I’ll update it here.