RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Pan Am’, Everything Else Down On Sunday

COMMENTS (20)

• TV Executives watched Mad Men grow and win awards and took ideas from separate episodes and tried to turn them into TV series. Both ideas are failing because the execution isn’t on the same level as Mad Men. It is the little things and attention to detail that makes Mad Men special. ABC and NBC miss that in their attempts at it.

  Football might have lost ratings due to the fact that baseball playoffs were on. Just a thought.

  Comment by Ralph Jones — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 9:52am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Pan Am isn’t “failing.” Not by network standards (it beat CBS warhorse CSI: Miami in the 18-49 demo). And since you brought up the “success” of Mad Men, THREE TIMES the number of Americans that watch a new episode of Mad Men watched Pan Am last night. Mad Men would be canceled after a single episode if it aired on a network, given that artistic, cerebral fare is not to the taste of anything more than a niche audience in America. The last thing ABC wants is for Pan Am to be anything like Mad Men in any way other than its 1960′s setting.

    Comment by MoreTears — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 10:23am PDT  Reply to this post

    • You can’t compare the ratings of Mad Men to Pan Am since it’s on basic cable. Even The Playboy Club gets better ratings than Mad Men, but it’s already close to cancellation. I’ll concede that Mad Men has never gotten huge ratings, but it did help put AMC on the map, and managed to attract a decent sized audience at a time when the network was only known for showing classic films. It also helped the network’s reputation with all of its Emmy wins. AMC has grown since then with The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and The Killing so the real ratings test for Mad Men will come when the new season starts next year, but either way it’s already guaranteed three more seasons.

      Comment by JR — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 11:59am PDT  Reply to this post

• Watched Mad Men grow? Perhaps creatively, but it’s still a show that has never managed to get even a 1.0 demo rating.

  ABC and NBC’s stupidity lay in ripping off a show that basically no one watches.

  Comment by velouria — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 10:25am PDT  Reply to this post

  • THIS, thank you! everyone is going on and on about how the networks are ripping off mad men, as if mad men is a tried and true formula for success. sure, the show gets critical lauds, which is fine, but i’m sure ANY of the networks would rather have their own 2 1/2 men, which is critically lambasted but incredibly popular, than mad men. even if playboy club and pan am were the critical darlings of the season, i doubt anything would be different.

    Comment by bob — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 10:45am PDT  Reply to this post

  • LOL! “ABC and NBC’s stupidity lay in ripping off a show that basically no one watches.”

    That is one of the best comments ever! You are so right, it’s one thing to rip off a hit show with huge numbers, but to rip off a show that practically no one watches but TV critics is a fireable offense for a network programmer.

    Who in their right mind would copy a show with such low ratings. Personally, I do find Mad Men a bore, and so was Pan Am unfortunately. The ads and all the marketing made it seem like it would be fun, light and airy, but Pan Am was as much of a snoozefest as Mad Men. Much ado about nothing…

    Comment by Bam Bam — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 11:01am PDT  Reply to this post

    • Just proves that HBO has disproportionate influence in Manhattan and L.A.

      I thought about getting out of my easy chair at 1000p last night to find the remote and turn on PAN AM. Then I remembered that in last week’s episode I couldn’t find any plot or character I cared about, i didn’t know where the show was going or why, and I said the hell with it. Left the TV off and put on music.

      Comment by TomF — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 12:59pm PDT  Reply to this post

      • Oops, HBO = AMC obviously in this case.

        Comment by TomF — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 1:00pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Mad Men pulls pretty shit numbers, too, actually.

  Comment by Katie — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 10:45am PDT  Reply to this post

• I’d like to see the #s on Mad Men’s ancillary markets, like DVD set sales, streaming, merchandising, etc. There’s a Mad Men fashion line in Banana Republic, ferchrissakes. THIS is the real profit area, and then add in the MOUNTAINS of free publicity and buzz that Mad Men generates because it’s so damn good and has hit the zeitgeist in popular culture, and…you’ve got potential for a lot of dough to be made by other networks attaching their throw lines to it.

  Of course, these new shows are going to fail because they just aren’t GOOD, but in terms of business decisions, I can’t fault the execs who greenlit them.

  Comment by Truth-o-Meter — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 12:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Yeah, it’s strange a network might want to copy a quality show, isn’t it? They should stck to things like Eating Yogurt with the Stars (or more accurately D list Clowns), or maybe the 313th singing or “talent” contests. After all, who needs anything that might actually be good? Let’s have more vampires, ghosts, and soap operas. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

  Comment by Caporange — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 12:56pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Are you unaware that television is a business?

    It doesn’t matter how high the quality is, broadcast shows can’t live with cable numbers. Attempting to emulate a show that wouldn’t have even lasted five episodes on your network is complete idiocy.

    Comment by velouria — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 1:40pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • Are you aware that network TV is a business that will not survive doing nothing but crap/tired formula? USA, TNT, AMC, (and TBS, to a degree) may not pull network numbers, but how many of their shows are the ones people avidly follow and “water-cooler chat” the next day? If this season is showing nothing else, it’s showing that the “heartland” sure ain’t tuning in to the nets for remakes and the same old same old. (Aren’t even established reality shows down substantially as well? Who saw _that_ coming?)

      Comment by deering — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 2:31pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Like Mad Men or not, the show has writers and actors that can act. Pam Am is missing both . I watched the first episode , and left after 10 minutes of the 2nd. The most interesting thing about Pan Am for me is they are filming it in my neighborhood

  Comment by joe — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 1:32pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Christina Ricci, Kelli Garner and Margot Robbie are great actresses. However, its the men that is the problem.

    Comment by Jack — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 4:02pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Like it or not, “Mad Men” set the standard for today’s 1960s period drama. “Pan Am” and “The Playboy Club” are merely copies and show it at every opportunity. These copies are also handcuffed by the restrictions of broadcast television. Put them on AMC, or better yet HBO or Showtime, and it MIGHT be a different story (maybe).

  Commercial scripted dramas on Sunday night face heavy competition, not just from Sunday Night NFL football. “Dexter”, “Boardwalk Empire”, and “Homeland” all took viewers away from vanilla sanitized OTA broadcast programming. In 2012, “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones” will continue to take Sunday night viewers away from ABC, CBS, and NBC.

  Comment by gary — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 2:22pm PDT  Reply to this post

• “Pan Am” was number two in the 18-49 demo last night (October 2nd).

  I would think ABC and thre show’s producers hope that the show can stay number two in it’s time period until after the football season ends.

  Later this season, “Pan Am” may be able to dominate it’s timeslot.

  Comment by Joseph — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 4:31pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Pan Am started off good,but this ep sucked. The story lines sucked, what’s with the french character and that terrible accent? It was super boring and cheesy, almost felt like watching a bad version of “Airplane”. The sister storyline SUCKED!!!

  Comment by TVg — Monday October 3, 2011 @ 9:01pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Terrible French accent? She us ACTUALLY from France. Maybe your too used to fake French accents?

    The ratings on Pan Am are fine. The comments here make it pretty clear people don’t know what they are talking about.

    Comment by Ricky — Tuesday October 4, 2011 @ 3:22am PDT  Reply to this post

  • The actress with the “terrible accent” is Karine Vanasse and she happens to be a FRENCH Canadian actress so her accent is genuine. Personally, I found her accent attractive and charming and enjoyed Pan Am for what it’s meant to be…mindless fluff. For excellence, I watch Mad Men.

    Comment by Marie — Wednesday October 5, 2011 @ 7:18am PDT  Reply to this post