if we're looking at 18-49, according to TV by the numbers, Mr Robot did marginally better than Top Chef, and marginally worse than Project Runway. But I think that was looking at Season 1 numbers since it was comparing emmy nominated shows.

If we look at the Sept 7 new episode as a more recent example, in 18-49, the new episode Mr Robot was just above a 5:30pm TBS rerun of Friends, just below a 930am episode of Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse, and several places below Hannity.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...tember-7-2016/

pffff, harsh **** man, those comparisons are brutal

Have you seen Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse though?

screw the 18-39 demo.
1-4 year olds are the most loyal viewers.

Again, USA execs love the show for the type of people it attracts. They don't care about the hard number ratings

From a few weeks ago

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...-sunday-917084

sounds like he is in the same boat as the shows audience and has no idea whats going on

The only reason this show is getting a third season is because season 1 had Emmy nominations. It is doing terrible by every conceivable metric. Don't believe PR. It doesn't pay the bills, and without fail every scripted show's ratings on this channel are bad (so nothing can prop it up). Advertisers don't give a s*** about that kind of time shifting, and they have marketed the ever living f*** out of the show to no avail because it is so niche. Shows have to make money in the first 3 days to stay on the air. It has higher ratings than live there, but it is still pathetic in every conceivable metric. The show doesn't even have 700k viewers routinely live and same day, and it's lost over half the viewers from season one live and same day. Maybe they should just move the show to the internet for that PR babble to make any logical sense. Unless the ultimate Hail Mary comes in the season finale, it's not getting nominated in Best Drama Series again next year. And that prestige is the only thing protecting the show no matter what PR says. USA has never had a Best Drama Series nominee to my recollection. TNT is in essentially the same boat USA is, too. Two excellent cable networks have fallen into disarray via bad decision making.

If this guy's two new shows fail (Falling Water and Eyewitness), he's probably going to be out at USA. He's presided over a dumpster fire there for about 5 years where their flagship scripted show is getting a 0.5 in the 18-49 demo. Ratings like that would have been unheard of for shows on USA even 3 years ago. And hint, this isn't a DVR penetration issue, it's a quality/niche issue.

Just for context, how does that Suits show do. That crap is on season 6. Specifically, how did it do in seasons 1 and 2?

I think people overestimate how well a dumb cable show has to do to get renewed. Rizzoli & Isles got 7 damn seasons!

Right now, Suits has basically been guaranteed another two seasons. When I say flagship show, I mean the highest rated scripted show on the channel. Suits' ratings are pathetic in comparison to what they once were (it used to pull in 4 times the ratings+ of what Mr. Robot gets now), but it would get renewed forever (if the makers want to go forward) at the ratings it currently has. It used to get ratings well over double what it has now when Burn Notice was still on. That's how far USA has fallen since McCumber took over in 2011 (a guy who was behind a bunch of genius marketing campaigns in the mid 2000s, but clearly should not be developing TV shows).

Your mistake is assuming that renewals have anything to do with quality, unless they bring the channel prestige, which Mr. Robot did for season 1. USA canceled/ruined several very good shows to put this guy's agenda in place. His only "success" besides Suits, which is lol on almost every level, is Mr. Robot. The only success is in prestige. No one watches this show, and I can't emphasize that enough. They probably spend triple its budget in marketing and still no one watches it. It's a marketing disaster, and they know it. But they will double down on it until it loses its prestige (again, it reached its prestige peak in season 1 as nearly all shows like this do, though if they know season 3 will be the final season it could have another strong go for that one). Expect next season to be the last as nearly every show has light audience erosion throughout its seasons. This one has almost nowhere to go. For a comparison, the best show airing right now is Halt and Catch Fire on AMC. That show should have been canceled after season 1, but AMC knew how good it was, and The Walking Dead made it very easy for them to be able to afford to float a show at Halt and Catch Fire's quality. It gets a little less than half the ratings of Mr. Robot, and has never had any kind of Emmy notice (other than for Main Title in season 1). But, The Walking Dead is what has made 3 seasons of that show possible. USA has no high performing scripted shows they can bury Mr. Robot's losses in. If the show had any real buzz (no matter what USA says), people would be watching it. It's too niche to be a ratings success. This ain't HBO or Showtime, ratings still matter on basic cable, though to only a tiny degree in comparison to network TV.

For basic cable, 4 years ago, you needed a 0.8 in the 18-49 demo to be considered on the bubble. 3 years ago, it was 0.7. 2 years ago, it was 0.6. Now, shows that get a 0.4 are routinely renewed (including another very good USA show Queen of the South). Queen of the South beats Mr. Robot in every conceivable metric ratings wise, and very few people are watching it, as well. It beats it in every core demo, and it has nearly double the average viewers.

I know you think you're making some killer point about Rizzoli & Isles, but you're not. That was actually a good show for a number of seasons, and it has always been one of the higher rated basic cable TV shows, even with a large amount of audience erosion over the past several seasons. It recently had its last season, probably because they just didn't feel like making any more episodes. One cast member committed suicide about 3 years ago, and the show was never the same after. Even its series finale had a 0.7, which is nearly double the ratings needed to get renewed on basic cable these days.

Today, basic cable is littered with good shows that are around or below 0.4 in the 18-49 demo. That's still the bubble, and typically what determines a return is how much the channel likes it and how much prestige it has. That's how a great show like FX's The Bridge can get canceled after two seasons, and total piece of crap like Tyrant is allowed to go for three seasons at the exact same ratings (FX just hated the politics of The Bridge and loved Tyrant's). FX also loves the politics of The Americans, and just could never understand why it never got any Emmy nominations despite being not that great of a show (easily one of the most overrated on TV). It finally broke through this season, and it was not one of its best seasons. It wasted almost 9 episodes doing almost nothing, and gets a Best Drama nom, specifically because almost all of the best shows have moved to an Anthology format. This season was the most historically weak in the drama category since network shows routinely got nominated. This probably won't be the case going into next year's Emmys.

Again, unless there are political machinations going on behind the scenes, any show that gets above a 0.5 in the 18-49 demo on basic cable is getting renewed. Mr. Robot usually gets a little more than half that. No matter how much PR you put behind it, Mr. Robot is a loser when it comes to money. Them deciding to put season 1 up for Emmys basically shackled them to the show for one more season. But that was ultimately a good decision, based on the trajectory of season 2. Considering next season will likely be its last, it will probably be the best Mr. Robot season IF USA doesn't string them along making them think there's a chance of a season 4.

Insanely hyped for the finale. Don't let me down Sam.

nunnehi's wall of text makes me feel confident that the show will go 5+ seasons and be an unqualified success for the network.

Maybe, maybe not. But he is spot on about The Bridge/Tyrant.

I watch it via Amazon Prime. How does this fold into the ratings?

I torrent it :/

He's aggressively wrong about The Americans, first three seasons were great, last season was a little worse but still very good.

But on the business end, that's all true, and the dynamic he's describing of money-makers carrying prestige is very accurate. USA is hurting right now, they had a good thing with their Monk/Psych/Burn Notice run but they've got nothing besides the decrepit Suits and super niche Mr. Robot.

This S2 finale needs to land and land hard.

they need to get mr robot on a streaming site. If it's not

Pretty sure it's on amazon prime. Season 1 definitely is.

Re: The Americans

Et tu, Brute?

I could list dozens of things wrong with the show, but I watch it from a quite different perspective than most. It's not overrated like Homeland territory, but critics saying that show is the best on TV is laughable. But for the people who love it, it's like a drug, it pokes a part of the brain that makes them not see the flaws. Oh, and again, no one watches that show, while if it were done right it would be a moderate hit because of the specific genre and era it depicts. Never make a spy show where it seems nearly every outcome is never in doubt and is told from the winners' perspective. The way the show is done hides so many flaws, just like Homeland. /Americans derail

Queen of the South is a bright spot for USA (not in ratings), if you can make it past the somewhat cheesy aspects of the Pilot. I found out it was renewed at the end of the season finale.

Wtf

Man....if this is what I think it is.....Feels like Bobby Ewing in the shower all over again. Uggh!

Wat

cya in 9 months folks!

Welp.