As fall TV pilot season heats up, Trendrr revealed an important chart listing the top ten TV pilots that have received the most buzz so far before airing. Dissecting whether these numbers reflect pilot episode ratings could mark a huge shift in the way television marketers decide to promote new shows they’re trying to launch for next year’s pilot season.
ABC’s Once Upon a Time, was number one, followed by NBC’s The Playboy Club. Number three and four were also ABC shows (Revenge and Charlie’s Angels), followed by the CW’s The Secret Circle. Fox had one show on the list (New Girl) and CBS, “America’s most watched network,” didn’t have any shows on the list.
Demographics across networks often don’t sync with users across the platforms Trendrr tracks (CBS viewers tend to skew on the older side), but ABC does seem to be killing it with five of the ten top shows.
Premieres have already begun this week. Last night’s season four of FX’s Sons of Anarchy launched with the show’s highest ratings ever. Fueled by his passion for social media and his personality Sons creator Kurt Sutter promised one of his Twitter followers and one of his blog readers a trip to LA if the show’s ratings improved 10%. The 19% increase in ratings prove the power of harnessing your fans in anticipation of a launch. Sutter even recognized that he’s “gotten so many tweets and Facebook messages from fans who just discovered the show when it was released on Netflix,” that it could bring new viewers for season four.
It’s going to be an exciting fall season, maybe even a game changer.