quarterlife, the relatively successful online show that features artistic and single white urban based twenty somethings living their lives out in stereotypical hip fashion debuted Tuesday night on NBC to absolutely abysmal ratings. It received the worst ratings of a 10:00 show in ten years and for NBC itself, it had the worst ratings for a show in 17 years. An estimated 3.1 million viewers watched it.
It has a relatively successful online presence, which is why NBC purchased the rights to it last November. But this whole thing seems ridiculous to me.
First, I agree with series co-founder Marshall Herskovitz that the series should be on cable. The audience for broadcast TV seems to be so dispersed these days. And the likely viewers of a show like this aren’t necessarily the broadcast TV watchers.
Second, maybe it’s me, but doesn’t it seem the concept of artistic and single white urban based twenty somethings living their lives out in stereotypical hip fashion seem, well, OVERUSED? Everyone is a hottie. Everyone has angst. Everyone has artistic interests and seemingly works in a cool sounding job. That’s not the real world.
Three, they shouldn’t be measuring this show as it relates to its time slot. It was on the same time as the latest Democratic debate…something that’s gotten the attention of the EXACT type of people this type of show would appeal to.
I’ve seen an episode of Quarterlife and didn’t think it was bad. It fit it’s purpose and had a decent size audience via the net. It may not hop over to cable where it could do fine. But unfortunately, for now, it fulfills one of my predictions for 2008.
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