Subj : Re: Rome
To   : alt.tv.farscape
From : Ken McElhaney
Date : Thu Sep 01 2005 11:26:40

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape


RR wrote:
> 'Rome': Veni; Audience: Vidi; Results: No Vici
>
> Seeming to invoke the proverbial admonition that Rome wasn't built in a day,
> executives of HBO dismissed analysts' observations that the 3.8 million
> viewers who tuned into the first episode of Rome Sunday fell far short of
> the numbers for other recent HBO series premieres. What counts, they
> indicated, will be the total number that the installment draws as it repeats
> over seven days on HBO's various digital channels. It is also available 24
> hours a day on HBO's video-on-demand service. While the audience was roughly
> a third of that drawn by HBO's The Sopranos, a spokesman for the pay-TV
> channel remarked, "You can't compare it to The Sopranos. The two are
> completely different shows." The initial broadcast of Rome on Sunday also
> faced strong competition from MTV's Video Music Awards, which drew 8 million
> viewers. (Indeed, the VMAs may have been harmed more by Rome than vice
> versa; last year they drew 10.3 million viewers.) Fox News drew 4 million
> viewers for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina on Sunday, while CNN drew 2.3
> million.
>
> [Translation: "You'll pay to see what you never had any desire to stomach."]

Barring a ratings disaster which actually pulls a show from the line-up
before it completes its run, I'm not surprised by HBO's response.  What
we don't know was HBO's expectations for "Rome" and if it was around
4.0, then it can be seen as a success.

Personally, I think the first episode was quite good and I'm looking
forward to the second.  Perhaps this series will end comparisons
between modern western societies (namely the US) and Rome since the
Roman society was far more brutal and barbaric in all aspects
(especially political).  But, I'm sure there's enough cynics out there
to keep that old canard going.

Ken

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