Viewers Say Bah, Humbug to HBO's 'Angels' - washingtonpost.com

robd-
how do you know viewers "enjoyed it more" than the other shows mentioned in the article?!?

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A lot of non-theater people I know who watched it (and I did not watch it so I'm just relaying information) were turned off by the first half hour or so. Those that stuck it out agreed the first part was tough to get into but enjoyed it overall. But some people didn't stick it out through that first part, too.

Actually, I don't think that at all. In fact, I think most things I enjoy would not be interesting to the "general public." The more general, the less likely.

The beauty of pay channels is that you pay up front, and the show's success is not measured by how many people tune in the first time it is aired.

I do know several people who weren't HBO subscribers who signed up and told the person on the phone that they were doing so specifically because of Angels. That means a lot to TimeWarnerConglomerateIncorporated.

HBO will be happy come Emmy time.

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Updated On: 12/10/03 at 10:54 AM

Could it be that it's the holiday season and people didn't want to invest in a heavy drama? Would it have done better if it played in April or May?

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Updated On: 7/9/04 at 11:16 AM

But as Playbill.com has reported, it is the year's top cable movie. It grabbed 4 times as many people than the highly controversial and in the news Reagan movie.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/83238.html

I'm sure that all of the buzz surrounding this film will encourage more to catch the repeated airings. Plus, it is available on HBO On Demand.

It will be interesting to see how the numbers are for Part 2, given the possibility that it could build its audience over the week.

HBO is more concerned with subscriptions than ratings for the obvious reasons. This film is likely to attract the audience they hope to capture--people with money to buy HBO.

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Updated On: 12/10/03 at 11:48 AM

Magruder and JRB are right: by cable standards, this is a hit. That it was produced, and aired, is amazing. 4.2 million people went on this journey -- in its INITIAL showing? Cause for celebration. There are many repeats on the horizon, then DVD. This is not some small, art-house film. Bravo to HBO; Mr. Kushner's characters and their harrowing stories are now a part of the culture, in a big way. (Will anyone study Roy Cohn or the Rosenbergs in the future without accessing the POV of this play?)


ANGELS is here to stay. 2003 won't just be remembered as the year that SEABISCUIT made it to the screen.

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Updated On: 12/11/03 at 11:26 AM

Again, Neilsen ratings are not the major measure of success for a network that people PAY to watch. What matters is that people have HBO, what matters is it brings new subscribers to the fold, what matters is that it gets the name HBO in front of the public, as the miles of column inches devoted to Angels surely did, and that the awards bestowed upon it will continue to do. Peter Travers in Rolling Stone put it in his top 10 movies of the year, even though he covers the cinema and not TV.

Comparing a two part, six hour movie to series in their fifth or six seasons, which had YEARS to develop a loyal fan-base like Sopranos and Sex & The City, is foolish. Comparing it to the audience of a boxing match is BEYOND apples and oranges. And let's be grateful Showtime didn't buy Angels, because they'd have turned it into a weekly series.

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And if memory serves, Band of Brothers was another prestige production that didn't do all that great in the numbers department.

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A-friggin-MEN, Auggie.

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Really all that matters is what HBO thinks. And considering they are now looking to finance Caroline or Change on Broadway they must think of it as a succuss. I used to have a friend that worked for Comcast...and they told me that when someone calls and requests to order a pay channel..the sales rep is supposed to record if the customer gives a specific reason why they are ordering. That info is then forwarded to the cable channel. However there's no way to know how consistently people do this.

Again, RobbO, I don't know WHAT your investment IS in looking at this as a glass half empty phenomenon exactly, but you do seem to always want to take "the other point of view" in this discussion. The thing is, you are using commercial broadcast network standards to asses the success of the Angels cablecasts.

How many times do I have to explain this in how many different ways? Let's try again: ratings matter on commercial stations because they set ADVERTISING RATES based on the numbers. HBO does not do that because they do not show commericals. What they want is to be considered the modern day "Tiffany Network," a title that belonged to CBS back when there were only three networks. They want to be known as the single biggest reason the commercial networks have fewer and fewer audience members every season. They want to create water cooler discussion programming.

Exactly ONE writer put a negative spin on the numbers. This is miniscule compared to the huge amount of copy devoted to the high quality of the production, which, AGAIN, is what matters to the cable network that wants to be perceived as THE destination of prestige productions.

Sure, it would be a great point of discussion if every HBO subscriber in the country tuned in, but they didn't. What, exactly are you worried about? That the people concerned with the bottom line on Angels in America are going to erase the film and that it will no longer be available? That they won't film a sequel?

Stop using one article as a jumping point to apply the old standards for measuring TV success on what is a shockingly good (for this day and age) TV presentation. They say it in their own slogan, it's not TV, it's HBO.

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Updated On: 12/12/03 at 11:25 AM