Deeper look into the Ropers season 1 ratings

[TVFactFan]

For years I have known the Ropers had a good 1st season but there were actually signs during season 1 that the show needed to follow Three's Company because after the first episode that ranked #2, there seemed to be a dip in the numbers even though the show finished the season ranked #7

After the 2nd episode the show was ranked #11
after the 3rd episode the show was ranked #8
After 4th episode the show was ranked #12
After the 5th episode the show was ranked #30
After the 6th and final episode the show finished #9

[BestTVever]

Regardless of when it aired, this puts to bed the myth that it was not a successful show. For a show to debut in the top 10 in its debut season is spectacular. I was only 10 but I remember all the hoopla about the Ropers getting their own show.
I think the immediate success accelerated its demise. These strong ratings must have given ABC confidence to move The Ropers to odd times thinking it would still pull ratings. Perhaps if it had a modest first season would have kept it closer to Threes Company. Regardless, the writing mid second season was not great. We lost the Ropers and what we loved about them. Stanley had no job or purpose in life, Helen was no longer sexually frustrated and we got annoying characters like Helen's mother and sister. The wheels were going to come off eventually.

[TVFactFan]

Originally Posted by BestTVever

Regardless of when it aired, this puts to bed the myth that it was not a successful show. For a show to debut in the top 10 in its debut season is spectacular. I was only 10 but I remember all the hoopla about the Ropers getting their own show.
I think the immediate success accelerated its demise. These strong ratings must have given ABC confidence to move The Ropers to odd times thinking it would still pull ratings. Perhaps if it had a modest first season would have kept it closer to Threes Company. Regardless, the writing mid second season was not great. We lost the Ropers and what we loved about them. Stanley had no job or purpose in life, Helen was no longer sexually frustrated and we got annoying characters like Helen's mother and sister. The wheels were going to come off eventually.

A spinoff on the Larry Character would have been more successful because the TC fanbase was young people and since he was friends with Jack they would have tuned in. I dont think many people the age of Stanley and Helen was watching TC in 1979 to even follow the Ropers on their own show.

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

A spinoff on the Larry Character would have been more successful because the TC fanbase was young people and since he was friends with Jack they would have tuned in. I dont think many people the age of Stanley and Helen was watching TC in 1979 to even follow the Ropers on their own show.

Actually Richard Kline (Larry) was pitched by the production team to the network as the star of a spinoff that would eventually become Three's a Crowd but the network was not interested. I believe that occurred during or right after the sixth season or at the beginning of the 7th. It was pitched a second time with John in the lead and ABC became interested.

Someone wanted The Ropers off Three's Company the evidence points towards John, that was consistent with everything else that happened during the run of Three's Company and for that matter the Three's a Crowd spinoff. I agree that if this was actual attempt to spinoff something from the enormously successful Three's Company it would have been aimed at the same demographic group. What I like to call a faux spinoff (that is a production company adds character(s) to an existing series just for the purposes of launching them into their own series, Laverne & Shirley and Maude are examples of this) could have been done around some young people who frequent the Regal Beagle.

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by BestTVever

Regardless of when it aired, this puts to bed the myth that it was not a successful show. For a show to debut in the top 10 in its debut season is spectacular. I was only 10 but I remember all the hoopla about the Ropers getting their own show.
I think the immediate success accelerated its demise. These strong ratings must have given ABC confidence to move The Ropers to odd times thinking it would still pull ratings. Perhaps if it had a modest first season would have kept it closer to Threes Company. Regardless, the writing mid second season was not great. We lost the Ropers and what we loved about them. Stanley had no job or purpose in life, Helen was no longer sexually frustrated and we got annoying characters like Helen's mother and sister. The wheels were going to come off eventually.

You said:

"this puts to bed the myth that it was not a successful show".

It does exactly the opposite! I've run through this with you in another post, the show lost one third of its audience between the first and second episode, by episode 5 the show had lost over half its audience. There's nothing successful about that. AfterMASH was the biggest thing on television for the first three or four weeks it was on by midseason the rating were dropping at such an alarming rate CBS was on the fence about ordering anymore episodes.

You said:

"These strong ratings must have given ABC confidence to move The Ropers to odd times thinking it would still pull ratings".

That's complete nonsense. If the network believed in the series they would have supported it like ABC did with Benson, The Associates and Angie. The network placed it on Saturday night, the night with the lowest viewership, the night least attractive to advertisers it was put their to minimize the damage. Why do think Fell flew across the country on his own dime to meet with ABC executives and beg them not to move the series to Saturday.

You said:

"Perhaps if it had a modest first season would have kept it closer to Threes Company".

It doesn't work like that. Taxi was a much more important show than the Ropers, ABC thought they had a potential major hit on their hands and wanted to give it more time to grow. Obviously ABC was very high on Angie, a show that fit ABC's audience like a glove so the slot before Three's Company was going to be filled by Angie with the strong Happy Days lead-in and Three's Company supporting it on the other side.

Now here's the real problem with your response, you correctly point out the problems with the series from the start, and by definition imply you could see what network executives and the production company couldn't! I don't think so, the knew what they were selling, Fell knew what they were selling but it goes back to the old saying: Due to circumstances beyond our control", namely the star of Three's Company wanted those characters off the show, let's take a look:

"We lost the Ropers and what we loved about them. Stanley had no job or purpose in life, Helen was no longer sexually frustrated and we got annoying characters like Helen's mother and sister. The wheels were going to come off eventually".

Those problems that you pointed out existed from the start.

[BestTVever]

#Facts
Like Three's Company, The Ropers was introduced as a late season replacement series in the spring of 1979 premiering the same night as Three's Company on ABC's successful Tuesday night lineup, airing at 10 pm. In its first season, the ratings for the show were very high (the show finished at number 8 for the 1978–79 season), and had the second-highest series premiere rating at the time.[2] After the season premiere, Three's Company went on hiatus, but The Ropers still did well. 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.

[TVFactFan]

Originally Posted by BestTVever

#Facts
Like Three's Company, The Ropers was introduced as a late season replacement series in the spring of 1979 premiering the same night as Three's Company on ABC's successful Tuesday night lineup, airing at 10 pm. In its first season, the ratings for the show were very high (the show finished at number 8 for the 1978–79 season), and had the second-highest series premiere rating at the time.[2] After the season premiere, Three's Company went on hiatus, but The Ropers still did well. 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.

I never knew they aired reruns of the show in August. Oh wait, I guess that was a way to grab new viewers before the 2nd season started In september

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

I never knew they aired reruns of the show in August. Oh wait, I guess that was a way to grab new viewers before the 2nd season started In september

Yeah, it doesn't show up on the Wikipedia listing but in fact it was on in August of 79, although it was not the full month, episodes ran on 8/12, 8/19, 8/26, and 9/2. I'll go through the numbers in my response to BestTVever.

[TVFactFan]

Originally Posted by Duster76

Yeah, it doesn't show up on the Wikipedia listing but in fact it was on in August of 79, although it was not the full month, episodes ran on 8/12, 8/19, 8/26, and 9/2. I'll go through the numbers in my response to BestTVever.

I would have aired the one with Larry on 9/8, a week before the season premiere of the new season with the Trio as guests if I was the president of ABC. That way you would have had back to back episode with a TC character

[BestTVever]

I was alive in 1979 and remember all the buzz about watching The Ropers. Threes Company was the talk of the town and on all the TV magazine covers. We knew it was dumb but we still tuned in to watch. The first season is actually not that bad but it was all novelty and shined in the limelight of Threes Company. Season 2 kicks off with the best episode IMHO, Stanley, The Ladies Man. But even the best episode in season 2 the ratings went way down. We still see the hot tub in episode 2 of season 2, Days of Beer and Rosie. But soon that would be gone. I always laugh at the title almost a rip off of Days of weeds and beer from Threes Company. We suffer from seeing a bored Stanley and Helen with nothing to do. No wild kids living above them to intrude on.

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by BestTVever

#Facts
Like Three's Company, The Ropers was introduced as a late season replacement series in the spring of 1979 premiering the same night as Three's Company on ABC's successful Tuesday night lineup, airing at 10 pm. In its first season, the ratings for the show were very high (the show finished at number 8 for the 1978–79 season), and had the second-highest series premiere rating at the time.[2] After the season premiere, Three's Company went on hiatus, but The Ropers still did well. 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.

My response will be in a different order than the issues you raised.

You said:

"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".

I don't like using summer numbers since they tend to be a bad barometer to use to predict what will happen once the new season starts. That said, you brought it up so let's take a look.

The audience numbers are lower during the summer so The Ropers 8/12 audience size would roughly translate to a number 37 position during the regular primetime season.

The Ropers started running on Sundays on 8/12, at 8:30 pm behind (and this is key) monster hit Mork&Mindy. The first week the show came in at number 23, the week of 8/19 number 27, the week of 8/26 number 19, the final episode aired 9/2 and that came in at number 32. In all four instances the show trailed Mork&Mindy in the ratings suggesting the it was being carried by the lead-in. It was hard to be happy by the mediocre performance of the series especially considering the fact that the final episode dropped out of the top 30. Episode 2 had done worse than episode 1, episode 4 worse than 3. Again, the pattern matched Mork &Mindy suggesting the lead-in was the critical factor for The Ropers.

On 9/9 The Emmy's were on so the series was preempted, The Ropers would begin season two, only the seventh episode of the series the following Saturday night 9/15.

Now let's reintroduce your description, "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".

That big audience you alluded to must have been excited, new season, Jack, Chrissy, and Janet as guest stars up against a CHIPS rerun and a preview of Working Stiffs which would finish 55 out of the 57 shows of that week. How did the show do, number 37! It barely beat out the CHIPS rerun. What's worse, Detective School at 8:30 actually outperformed it finishing in 31st place. Incidentally, Detective School was number 6 in the ratings the week of August 5th, number 16 the week of August12, and number 5 the week of August 19th. So much for summer ratings! After 9/15 things got really ugly in a hurry, The Ropers dropped out of the top 50. The more people saw of the series the less they liked it. This was consistent with the summer and consistent with the initial run in March/April.

You said:

"In its first season, the ratings for the show were very high (the show finished at number 8 for the 1978–79 season)"

Networks care more about week to week than the overall season number which can be skewed for various reasons. The show lost a third of its audience from episode 1 to episode 2, by episode 5 it had lost more than half. The final episode rebounded but you have to take into account the fact that it had Richard Kline in it. The network did what they could during the summer putting it behind Mork&Mindy on Sunday night but the audience interest in the series was not there, the only hope the series had was to be placed behind a much more successful series and based on the series potential to grow the network was unwilling to do that.

You said:

"Like Three's Company, The Ropers was introduced as a late season replacement series"

Three's Company had success written all over it, The Roper's didn't. During the abbreviated first season the show outperformed the show in front of it, something The Ropers did not do. The demographics were also a bullseye for ABC, there is no comparison between the first year of Three's Company and The Ropers.

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

I would have aired the one with Larry on 9/8, a week before the season premiere of the new season with the Trio as guests if I was the president of ABC. That way you would have had back to back episode with a TC character

The network could have, the episode performed well the first time out, but the show had everything going for it the opening week (Jack, Chrissy, Janet as guest characters) and it did horribly. Up against very weak competition, a CHIPS rerun and a preview of Working Stiffs which bombed (it finished 55 out of 57 shows), the series finished 37 for the week, finishing behind Detective School (31) the series that followed it.

Under better circumstances the series would have been pulled at the end of the month and the Ropers returned to Three's Company similar to the way Grady was returned to Sanford and Son.

[icecream]

Why would John Ritter want to get rid of the Ropers? They did not assume they were the stars of the show like Suzanne Somers later. The main reason I have heard was ABC wanted a less expensive cast, just one replacing two would do that.

[Duster76]

Originally Posted by icecream

Why would John Ritter want to get rid of the Ropers? They did not assume they were the stars of the show like Suzanne Somers later. The main reason I have heard was ABC wanted a less expensive cast, just one replacing two would do that.

The answer is simple and complicated at the same time. The simple answer, stars have their ways. A very small thing to an outsider is a big deal for them and it's something they want dealt with. I'll give an example, on Mork & Mindy do you remember the character Remo, it was a small supporting part played by DJ/actor Jay Thomas. Thomas was hired to give Robin a little relief from carrying the comedy load all by himself. Jay discussed with Gilbert Gottfried on Gilbert's podcast (I can't believe both those guys are gone) how difficult and unfriendly Robin was to him. Now, you tell me what did Robin have to be concerned with, did he actually think Jay would steal the show from him! It's just the way it is.

John wanted the show to be about his character, during the early run of the series as Diane3 pointed out The Ropers and Chrissy were the breakout characters, for John that was a problem. He was the star, he wanted the focus on his character, none of this is unusual. You should read about some of the stuff that went on behind the scenes of Hawaii 5-0, Jack Lord had an ego the size of the Grand Canyon. You should read about some of the things that went on with Darren McGavin on Riverboat, Burt Reynolds described McGavin this way, "he came down off the cross to do that series".

To put it simply, John wanted the show to focus on his life with two female roommates, his problems with his landlord, how Jack dealt with his best friend, Jack's love interests and his various jobs and budding career as a chef.

Go back and follow the series from beginning to end, without exception every change benefitted one person in the cast at the expense of all the others. It even leaks over to the Three's a Crowd spinoff with the absurd hiring of Mary Cordette as the female lead.

[icecream]

I remember Remo, he really didn't add much to Mork and Mindy. ABC made a mistake firing Mindy's family in place of Remo and his sister. A previous comment about Saturday nights being the worst night of the week, it wasn't the wasteland then that networks abandoned in the 21st century. CBS had its strong 70s comedy block with All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, and others. On ABC the same era of The Ropers, The Love Boat lasted several seasons on Saturday, also getting a ton of big name guest stars. Then NBC would have success there in the 80s with The Golden Girls hitting big.