Deeper look into the Ropers season 1 ratings

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by torcan

I do think Norman and Audra got a raw deal. ABC probably realized by October/November that the show wasn't going to last. They should have cancelled it right there and brought them back to Three's Company.

Maybe the way they went about the spinoff was all wrong. What about something like this: keep them in the Three's Company apartment but show what they're doing when they're not interacting with Jack, Janet and Chrissy. They could show them conversing with other tenants of the building, or on their own in their apartment. Every once in a while Jack, Janet and Chrissy could pop in.

This sort of thing could have worked...think Sam Drucker on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, but in the same setting...or Oscar Goldman on Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman.

If they'd done it that way, maybe it could have lasted a while.

(for some reason this may have been posted twice, for some reason).

You said:

"ABC probably realized by October/November that the show wasn't going to last".

They realized in September, with the firepower in that first episode (appearance by Jack, Chrissy and Janet) up against a CHIPS rerun and a show that finished 55 out of 57 series that week, to stagger home in 37th place for the week told anyone looking all they needed to know. The next week the show dropped to 52!

You said:

"Maybe the way they went about the spinoff was all wrong".

The characters were not ready to be placed in their own series. An older middle-aged couple, retired, childless what were supposed to do that would get people to tune in. The Ropers back and forth had to be softened, by themselves they were all each other had to cling to, what was once funny now would be hurtful. Before they were put into a spinoff needed additional fleshing out , more of a backstory and something to do in this new series. What happened didn't make any sense that's why it needs to be examined.

[TVFactFan]

Originally Posted by torcan

I do think Norman and Audra got a raw deal. ABC probably realized by October/November that the show wasn't going to last. They should have cancelled it right there and brought them back to Three's Company.

Maybe the way they went about the spinoff was all wrong. What about something like this: keep them in the Three's Company apartment but show what they're doing when they're not interacting with Jack, Janet and Chrissy. They could show them conversing with other tenants of the building, or on their own in their apartment. Every once in a while Jack, Janet and Chrissy could pop in.

This sort of thing could have worked...think Sam Drucker on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, but in the same setting...or Oscar Goldman on Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman.

If they'd done it that way, maybe it could have lasted a while.

They should have realized it by September because after the first episode of season 2 with Jack Janet and Chrissy as guests, the show wasnt even in the top 30, it was ranked 37th. So lots of Three's company fans already decided by that point that they had no intentions on watching the show

[BestTVever]

Originally Posted by Duster76

Sorry it took so long to get back to this but there are a lot of issues here so it will take a little time.

Let's start here:

Even with Suzanne being the biggest star no one ever suggested that Ritter wanted Suzanne off the show.

I'm not sure where this is coming from, how was Somers a bigger star than Ritter going into the series. He had a recurring role on The Waltons and had done a lot of TV prior to Three's Company, checks their credits, it's close but I would give him the clear edge.

You said

"no one ever suggested that Ritter wanted Suzanne off the show".

Ritter wanted the scripts focused on his character, Somers and her husband were smart business people they knew what was going on, so the battlelines were drawn. She was not going to stay on the show serving John's character, things could have been worked out, but this was an either or situation and John had the upper hand.

You said:

"The Ropers actually facilitated his comedy".

The characters were getting over, breakout characters, John wanted the show focused on his character, when the show was talked about, written about, he wanted to be the subject of that publicity. You want proof, take a look at every change and ask yourself who benefitted from the change.

You said

"This issue I see is you are looking back with what you know now. I view things as they were in real time in 1979".

Actually the opposite is occurring, I'm trying to recreate the real time process as it actually took place. Network people pour over ratings in real time, in other words the week by week performance of a show is much more important to them than the overall season number. By the time the show finished it's initial run (March-April) several things were clear and the network acted on the information. The three new series that the network thought most highly of were scheduled with the supports around them that gave those series the best shot at success (I've covered all that). The Ropers were placed on Saturday with no supports a clear sign the network had very little faith in the series. I discussed Fell's reaction to this move, let me add one more piece, Fell indicated the network retained the series for the season to meet the cancellation stipulation in Fell contract (if the series was cancelled in less than a year the characters would be brought back to Three's Company).

To conclude, the season 2 episode 1 rating was devastating, against a CHIPS rerun, and a series opener on CBS that finished third from last and with Jack, Chrissy and Janet as guest characters the show finished 37. It even finished worse than Detective School the series on after it. If you're looking at ratings in real time that's as clear a sign as anyone can possibly have that the show will fail. The two series (The Ropers and Detective School) fell out of the Top 50 the following week with Detective School being cancelled at the end of November. The Ropers should have met the same fate, but the series didn't, the question is why, the evidence speaks for itself, and as I noted before Fell was aware of what happened and was vocal about it.

I am not going to respond to you anymore because you keep making stuff up. I never said that Sommers was a bigger star coming into the show. Of course Ritter had another TV show under his belt. However its not even in dispute that Sommers blossomed into the star of the show. This is why she wanted a raise. Her and her husband counted the number of magazine covers she was on. Her stardom created friction on the set.
You want to dissect posts and insert your opinion which is fine but I wont partake anymore.
You still provide NO SOURCE for your wild accusations about the show that have never been reported by ANYONE connected to the show. Yet you keep inserting your opinion as fact. Then when confronted you sort of backtrack what you originally said. Its not in dispute the show was created with the character Jack as the central character. Everyone knows that. But everything you say after that is FALSE. He never lobbied to get the Ropers off the show. The Ropers were supporting characters. You can still be the central character and have a supporting cast.
Again you are trying to mix up the equation. The purpose of this thread is SEASON 1 ratings, not season 2 ratings. Yet you are now focusing on Season 2 ratings. Again, no one disputes season 2 ratings were bad and getting worse.
The facts are after season 1, ABC really thought they had a hit on their hands.

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by BestTVever

I am not going to respond to you anymore because you keep making stuff up. I never said that Sommers was a bigger star coming into the show. Of course Ritter had another TV show under his belt. However its not even in dispute that Sommers blossomed into the star of the show. This is why she wanted a raise. Her and her husband counted the number of magazine covers she was on. Her stardom created friction on the set.
You want to dissect posts and insert your opinion which is fine but I wont partake anymore.
You still provide NO SOURCE for your wild accusations about the show that have never been reported by ANYONE connected to the show. Yet you keep inserting your opinion as fact. Then when confronted you sort of backtrack what you originally said. Its not in dispute the show was created with the character Jack as the central character. Everyone knows that. But everything you say after that is FALSE. He never lobbied to get the Ropers off the show. The Ropers were supporting characters. You can still be the central character and have a supporting cast.
Again you are trying to mix up the equation. The purpose of this thread is SEASON 1 ratings, not season 2 ratings. Yet you are now focusing on Season 2 ratings. Again, no one disputes season 2 ratings were bad and getting worse.
The facts are after season 1, ABC really thought they had a hit on their hands.

I'm going to get right to the point:

Your Opinion:

"The facts are after season 1, ABC really thought they had a hit on their hands".

This is an example of you giving your opinion and designating it a fact. We know that's not true and I've already walked you through it. Let's recap the new series coming on board:

ABC really thought they had a hit on their hands with Angie, that's why they placed it at 8:30 between mega hits Happy Days (3) and Three's Company (2).

ABC really thought they had a hit with The Associates that's why they placed that series on heavily viewed Sunday night at 8:30 behind Mork & Mindy(3) and the Sunday movie (15).

ABC really thought they had a hit with another spinoff this time from Soap.
Benson was scheduled on Thursdays at 8:30, between Laverne and Shirley (1) and Barney Miller (15), and rounding out the card, Soap (19) the mother series.

So we know the series ABC thought were the best bets to be hits they were supported and strategically scheduled, how you can argue this is beyond me, the facts are right there. The Ropers were dumped into the black hole on the ABC schedule 8pm Saturday night, I won't waste your time or any of the readers time listing the shows ABC ran into and out of this time slot since the early 70's. I've already mentioned this but I'll repeat it, the star of the series Norman Fell flew across country on his own dime to meet with the ABC executives to beg them not to do this.

Your Opinion:

'However its not even in dispute that Sommers blossomed into the star of the show".

This is an opinion not a fact! Chrissy and The Ropers were breakout characters, I never thought of Chrissy as the star of the show, I thought of the three as making more or less equal contributions until the show turned into Jack and Company.


Your Opinion

"The purpose of this thread is SEASON 1 ratings"

The title of the thread is in fact "Deeper look into the Ropers season 1 ratings"

That was done, in my previous responses here comes some facts:

The show lost a third of its audience from episode 1 to episode 2 and half the audience it started with by the 5th episode.

You didn't mention any of that of course and then you brought up the summer ratings here comes another opinion:

"ABC reran the episodes over the summer of 1979 (in August on Sundays) where they continued to achieve high ratings leading many to believe that the series would enjoy a long run".

Four episodes were run from mid August to Labor Day weekend, during that period the show went from 23, to 27 and finished at 32, that's not good news that's bad news and consistent with what we saw during the first run.

The second season opening episodes are important because they illustrate the continued downward trend of the series that after only 8 episodes settled outside the top 50.

That brings me to the final fact you choose to ignore, again Norman Fell said himself that ABC kept the series on the air so the return clause in his contract could not be exercised.

You can accept the established history, that's your business, there are too many inconsistencies, you don't see them or for some reason you don't want to see them. Fell saw them and asked questions that were never answered.

Someone wanted The Ropers off that series, I think it's clear, based on everything else that happened surrounding this series, the mother series and Three's a Crowd, the sign points in the direction of John Ritter.

[DORVID]