Viewing figures for the series?

Anorak

Project QL Intern
Dec 9, 2016
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I've done a search and can't seem to find that this has been discussed?

I know in today's age we know a great deal more about how many people watch TV than we did then. What I found last night was just two pieces of information:

* Season One made it into the top 12 most-watched shows.... but only when it was screened for a rerun.

* Season Three was in the top 60.


Does anyone know anything else? I'd love to know the ratings for each individual episode, that would really be something.

I know over here (the UK) it was very popular, getting big viewing figures on a minority channel... though since the series ended, it seems to have been largely forgotten in the UK.
 
I've had a bit longer to search tonight, so I've been finding out some more info. One problem is that some of the US newspaper sites like the Chicago Tribune are now unviewable in Europe due to legislation, so I can't read them.

But I found this

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/216193/THE-AC-NIELSEN-RANKINGS.html

That's the rating for Roberto!, which was the 54th placed show with 10.2, which I gather translates to 9,394,200 viewers?



Further references, in order of air dates:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/41192/NBC-WINS-DESPITE-BIG-OSCAR-RATINGS.html
A reference to an early episode (judging by the dates, almost certainly Star Crossed) being the 55th watched show.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article...YING-SAM-IS-BAKULAS-IDEA-OF-A-DREAM-ROLE.html
References season two being ranked at No.72. (This link also contains a fairly interesting small interview with Scott Bakula)

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/155577/TWIN-PEAKS-IS-DEAD-QUANTUM-LEAP-LAW--ORDER-ARE-NOT.html
The season (season three) had been ranked "just 83rd" "so far" (which is, at most, the first 15 episodes of that season)


https://www.deseretnews.com/article/287224/DESIGNING-WOMEN-QUANTUM-LEAP-AXED.html
Discussion of the axe, talking about the show falling from 63 to 91, and that it was "never a big hit".


I hadn't realised that it hadn't "taken" in the US quite so much, as it seems to have entered the public consciousness... though so did The Twilight Zone, and I guess that was never a major hit, either.
 
Actually, this is even better, it gives the actual figures for every episode of season two:

http://tvaholics.blogspot.com/2017/05/classic-ratings-review-quantum-leap.html

Sadly, they don't appear to have done the same for other seasons, but that's intriguing. I heard Deborah Pratt talk about the viewing figures going up every time Scott took his shirt off, so it'll be interesting to see if that correlates.

I should point out that I don't regard viewing figures as having any bearing on the quality of a TV show whatsoever (other than keeping it going), I was just curious about this.
 
I don't know how interested folks are in this, or whether these figures are already widely known (they're certainly new to me) but I asked the site to do the rest, and they obliged with season three:

http://tvaholics.blogspot.com/2019/01/classic-ratings-review-quantum-lead.html

It'll be interesting to see the ratings for Seasons 4 and 5. They really started shuffling things around then, giving us a lot of the 'stunt' leaps, so both overall season and week-to-week ratings will be interesting to see.
 
It'll be interesting to see the ratings for Seasons 4 and 5. They really started shuffling things around then, giving us a lot of the 'stunt' leaps, so both overall season and week-to-week ratings will be interesting to see.

Definitely. I listened to the podcast commentary with Deborah Pratt on Another Mother, where she claimed that the ratings rose every time Scott Bakula got his chest out. :)
 
Definitely. I listened to the podcast commentary with Deborah Pratt on Another Mother, where she claimed that the ratings rose every time Scott Bakula got his chest out. :)

lol, I have no doubt she's correct about that. There's likely already a post here about it somewhere, but that would be a good statistic to track. Number of times per season Scott Bakula went bare-chested and ratings for each of those episodes compared to ratings for episodes with no bare chest.
 
lol, I have no doubt she's correct about that. There's likely already a post here about it somewhere, but that would be a good statistic to track. Number of times per season Scott Bakula went bare-chested and ratings for each of those episodes compared to ratings for episodes with no bare chest.

I'd actually be sad enough to work that out. :)

I'm assuming that it would be the ratings for the following week's episode, though, after word-of-mouth picked up?
 
I'm assuming that it would be the ratings for the following week's episode, though, after word-of-mouth picked up?

That makes sense (unless the ad for that upcoming week's episode featured the shirtless shots :) ).