TRUE BLOOD (HBO)
Scheduling history: All 60 episodes of True Blood thus far have aired on Sunday at 9:00.
See (who saw) how it all began: The premiere ratings for True Blood don't remotely resemble the True Blood ratings to which we've become accustomed in the last couple years. Frankly, they weren't even that good for HBO! True Blood began on 9/7/08 with a mere 1.44 million viewers and a 0.7 demo rating. The show started to take off immediately, building to a 0.9 demo in week two, and by the second half of the season it was consistently above 1.0.
The best of times: Since the last few episodes of season two, True Blood has almost always fallen somewhere between 2.7 and 3.2, so there hasn't been any period that stood well above all the rest. If I had to boil it down beyond that, I'd probably choose the second half of season three; five of those six episodes hit a 3.0+ demo (just three other episodes have hit that plateau), and the penultimate season three episode hit a series high 3.2 demo on 8/29/10. The viewer high came with 5.53 million viewers on 8/21/11.
The worst of times: The worst of times was clearly early season one, and season one in general rated at less than half of any other season. The series low in both viewers and demo remains the aforementioned series premiere back on 9/7/08. I also feel I should point out the show's horrific performance in the second episode of season four on 7/3/11, when the show (a consistent 5 million, upper-2s demo grabber) got just 2.90 million viewers and a 1.5 demo. This was attributed to the double-whammy of Fourth of July weekend and early availability on HBO GO.
Then vs. now: As I said earlier, this show has been in the same general demo area for about the last 3.25 seasons. Seasons four and five have taken small downturns from the season three average, but it seems pretty amazing how well this show's held up considering how big it got and how far it's fallen out of favor with many critics.
Adults 18-49 info by season:
| Season | Year | Timeslot | Lo | Avg | Hi | Results | Grade |
| 1 | Fall 2008 | Sunday 9:00 | 0.7 | 1.07 | 1.5 | ||
| 2 | Summer 2009 | 1.9 | 2.27 | 2.9 | |||
| 3 | Summer 2010 | 2.5 | 2.85 | 3.2 | |||
| 4 | Summer 2011 | 1.5 | 2.73 | 3.1 | |||
| 5 | Summer 2012 | 2.6 | 2.68 | 2.9 | B+ |
| A18-49+ | Year-to-Year | In-Season | |||
| Premiere | Average | Finale | P -> F | ||
| Fall 2008 | 32 | +86% | |||
| Summer 2009 | 76 | +186% | +113% | +123% | +45% |
| Summer 2010 | 102 | +45% | +26% | +3% | +3% |
| Summer 2011 | 108 | +3% | -4% | -7% | -7% |
| Summer 2012 | 113 | -3% | -2% | +1% | -3% |
For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.
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