Nielsen Losers Can Still Be 'Hits'! Case Study: Gossip Girl
Jessica Shaw of Entertainment Weekly wrote that on paper Gossip Girl is not very successful, drawing a relatively lame 2.6 million viewers and languishing near the bottom of the Nielsen chart. (It's at No. 105, to be exact.) But in a season with few new breakouts, Gossip Girl is redefining what it means to be a TV hit.
The generation watching Gossip Girl doesn't do appointment television. They are masters at using the latest technology to watch TV when and how they want. So it's significant that Gossip Girl is consistently the most downloaded show on iTunes (it edged past The Office soon after it premiered in September), and it gets about a 14 percent hike in female teens and 30 percent in 18- to 34-year-olds when DVR viewings are factored in. It's also the most-watched new show by teens.
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Being obsessed with a teen show — from 90210 to The O.C. — has long involved reveling in the problems of beautiful people from snazzy zip codes. But Gossip Girl is especially racy, full of casual sex and unapologetic pot smoking. Perhaps that's why some Manhattan kids say that their schools have discouraged them from watching the show or even talking to the media about it. (Multiple schools did not return calls to EW.) ''We're not trying to make a documentary about the life and times of the Upper East Side,'' says the 22-year-old Crawford. ''People should know the show has been embellished.''
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I saw this article on polijam.com
Neilsen ratings are pretty pointless, especially now that DVRs are mainstream.
Gossip Girl consistently doing well on Itunes (all episodes are in the TOP 50 still). And the last two episodes are still in the top 10 (its been 2 weeks since a new episode last aired). It is also one of the top shows downloaded on bitorrent. When a episodes comes up on youtube for a day (before taken down), it becomes on of the MOST VIEWED, discussed, etc clip on youtube. Also, based on PERCENTAGE (not viewers), Gossip girl also in the TOP 10 MOST DVR'D SHOW...Nielson ratings are definitely NOT a good representation of viewership.