For the last few weeks, as “Hawaii Five-0” introduced its third season, it looked like a ratings train wreck.
The September premiere drew an audience that would become the largest so far this season. But at 9.24 million viewers, that audience ranked as the smallest in the short history of the rebooted version of the show. Until last week, when “Five-0” notched a series low of 7.53 million viewers.
But ignore those numbers.
The one number to remember is 2014 — specifically, the summer of 2014, which is when cable network TNT can begin domestic syndication of “Five-0.” At that point the series should have about 90 episodes that were sold, according to The Hollywood Reporter, for about $2 million each.
Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS, pointed to that deal in 2010 and 2011 when he called the show “a billion-dollar franchise,” and he reminded reporters during a CBS earnings briefing last week that the deal was not that far off.
“Five-0” is a perfect fit for rebroadcast and syndication. Its episodes are largely self-contained, and while there’s usually some background subplot, that won’t cause much confusion for occasional viewers, said Syracuse University professor Robert Thompson, who serves as the director of The Bleier Center for Television and Popular Television.
And there will be enough episodes for TNT to put in a broadcast rotation that won’t become too familiar.
“Hawaii Five-0” will deliver predictable, dependable results once it starts airing on other outlets, said Thompson, a fan of the original series who has not missed an episode of the new version.
“I would put ‘Hawaii Five-0’ in the status of those yeoman series that will run for five or six seasons and will continue to do good ol’-fashioned duty in reruns,” he said. “No one will compare it to ‘Breaking Bad.’ No one will put it in the same category as ‘The Sopranos.’ It will not sweep the Emmys. But we will watch it for a long time.”
Still, the Nielsen decline for “Five-0” is not good news. The show has aired in the same Monday time slot, battled “Monday Night Football” on ESPN regularly as well as Major League Baseball playoffs and reached a broad audience. The only wrinkle this season was that superstorm Sandy prompted CBS to postpone the Oct. 29 episode until Monday, the night before the general election.
“A ratings plunge like this in this point in the series history is not good news,” Thompson said. “The idea is that anyone who has sampled it has sampled it, and if the ratings are going down it means that those who elected to watch it are not watching it.”
But those viewers are only part of the numbers story. During the briefing, Moonves said the season’s most significant development was the increased used of digital viewing recorders and programs-on-demand.
“This is a good thing for us,” Moonves said. “It means that more people are watching our programming in the situations where there used to be scheduling conflicts. But it also means that you have to be more savvy when reading the ratings these days. It now takes more time to determine the true performance of a show and, in fact, even a network.”
CBS has 11 of the top 20 shows that Nielsen monitors for DVR use over a seven-day period after the episode airs. “Five-0” ranks No. 12 and averaged a 3.2 million viewer bump for the four episodes monitored this season, according to a network ratings spokesman.
“So as I said, it’s a different way of looking at our world,” Moonves said. “And once again you have to stop — people have to stop looking at overnight ratings because it’s really a very, very different ballgame than it ever was. And once again we are encouraged because more and more people are observing content, and we’re going to get paid more and more.”
AND that’s a wrap …
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Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
