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

[Rob]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 9:46am

https://www.broadwayworld.com/l.cfm?id=15568

The viewing numbers are in for Angels, and relatively not that great... I think that the 4.2 million people that did tune in probably enjoyed it more and got more out of it than some of those higher-rated shows mentioned in the piece.

[RobbO]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 9:50am

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

[Rob]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 9:59am

"I think" - personal opinion.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 10:19am

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.

[lc1965]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 10:50am

I think you've come very close to nailing it. Not just theatre people, but everyone (I've always found) think that what interests them & their community will be of interest to everyone, regardless of the subject matter, if protrayed w/ enough skill. Let's face it: AIDS doesn't play particularly well in Peoria. There are a whole lotta TV viewers in areas where AIDS & its culture are, if not foreign, at least relatively unfamiliar or something that happens "over there". For us in NY & esp. in the theatre community, "over there" is "right here". None of us should be surprised, then, that the numbers weren't spectacular.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 10:54am

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.

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

[Tesse]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 10:56am

How sad!! But not terribly surprising.

For once, a show's advertising pandered not to the lowest common denominator, but the highest. I certainly appreciated that, but the tactic probably doesn't get John Q. Public to tune in. The adverts on HBO showed interviews with the stars, talking about how moving and powerful the script is (kiss of death for a movie- call it "powerful"), and the trailer showed some quick, random images with almost no dialogue samples. The posters just showed Emma hovering above Justin, which doesn't really give much of an indication of the plot. Most people probably had very little idea of what the show was about, but guessed from the casting that it would be a heavy, serious piece, which never draws viewers like comedies or action films. Those who did watch it were either fans of the original play, fans of the stars, or people who read and were intrigued by the rave reviews. And, of course, they'd have to be HBO subscribers. That kind of narrows the spectrum down. (Incidentally, I wonder how many people without HBO gathered with friends who do subscribe to watch the movie, and if the ratings reflect that possibility. There may well have been have been five to ten people gathered around each TV tuned in. Just a thought.)

So, yeah, it kinda makes sense that the numbers would be low. I hope this doesn't keep HBO from supporting magnificent work like AIA.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 10:59am

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?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 11:00am

Well, there isn't that much magnificent work like Angels. And they did this, and that's great. It's what they call a prestige presentation.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 11:16am

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

[magruder]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 11:18am

On the bright side, if you totalled the people who have seen Angels in America on stage around the world, the total wouldn't come anywhere near the four million viewers who watched Part One on Sunday.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 11:48am

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.

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

[Alex the Cat]

Posted: 12/10/03 at 11:50pm

I disagree that you have to somehow relate to this movie to appreciate it. Great art is great art, period. Thank God for HBO- it's the only channel I watch any more. I can appreciate great art because it's beautiful- it takes me somewhere else completely... I was spellbound by this movie, just as I was by 'Henry IV' at Lincoln Center. All it takes is a tiny bit of intelligence, and a willingness to experience worlds other than your own.

I think if middle America would switch off 'Average Joe' for a couple of nights and watch 'Angels', they just possibly would appreciate it too. But unfortunately the networks are so unbelievably dumbed down now that you don't have the opportunity to watch anything of quality unless you can not only afford cable, but a premium channel like HBO. It's just sad.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/11/03 at 11:26am

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.

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

[RobbO]

Posted: 12/11/03 at 11:46am

while i enjoy AIA, i have to disagree that by cable standards it is a hit. while i would not put it in the "loser" column as the article did, when compared to the success of band of brothers or the other piece mentioned in the article specifically referring to cable movies, the numbers for AIA are a bit disappointing.

according to an article on zap2it.com:
"The "Angels" premiere was HBO's highest-rated original movie or miniseries this year, but it fell below the viewership for a typical episode of "Sex and the City" or "Six Feet Under." In fact, it won't even be HBO's most-watched program of the week; Saturday's (Dec. 6) heavyweight fight between Vitali Klitschko and Kirk Johnson takes that prize with about 4.3 million viewers."

prestigious? without a doubt. strong contender for emmys and other accolades? of course. but even so, the ratings could have been better. they SHOULD have been better. but as we all know, many times critical successes are not always well received by the masses.

one thing that i noticed upon watching the hour installments after the intitial 3-hour presentation was that it would probably be easier for the "lay person" to watch in one hour increments than 3 hours all at once - especially during the holiday season.

i used to work at a movie theatre and we would often have very bad weekend showings (especially during the day and on sunday) during the early holiday season when people were still shopping, buying christmas trees and otherwise engaged. perhaps this was a factor as someone else suggested it might have done better in the spring. who knows?

Updated On: 12/11/03 at 11:46 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/11/03 at 11:28pm

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.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 7:54am

I agree Namo. I don't really even think it's fair to compare AIA to Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers had Spielburg and Hanks behind it...two of the biggest names in the entertainment industry. Sure, AIA has some big name stars, but how many people are as familiar with Kushner and Nichols as they are with Spielburg and Hanks?
On a more depressing note...I was watching Extra (or one of those shows) last night and they said 17 million tuned in to watch Ryan and Trista's wedding. They also went on to call it "the television event of the year".

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 8:52am

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

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 9:08am

Namo's points are telling. As a theatrical board, we have to remember the script's journey toward a big audience; this show started with the Eureka Theater Company, on a shoestring budget, in a house that seats 100 people. Who -- Kushner included -- could have foreseen anything on the scale of HBO's production or the numer of people who would see it?

And what's even more remarkable, the material is INTACT. Still precisely Kushner's vision. Some idiot didn't come in and say, "make Roy Cohn a fictional character, with fewer scenes, and turn Louis into a woman, so you don't eliminate the demographic looking for a hetero romance..." Those sound like silly fixes, but we all know of material that has been destroyed moving from stage to screen. The play is still "a gay fantasia on national themes," still about AIDS, still about Reagan's (shallow) America. To many of us who've been watching the dumbing down of entertainment for the last 30 years ... ANGEL's existence -- and the volume of time devoted to it -- is nothing less than a miracle.

Updated On: 12/12/03 at 09:08 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 9:40am

A-friggin-MEN, Auggie.

[RobbO]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 10:47am

yes, but unfortunately if not enough people watch it, it does not matter much to the people just looking at the bottom line. my concern is that while AIA did respectable, many media articles labeled it "disappointing" and a "loser" by just looking at the numbers. that perception, whether justified or not, can make a big difference to people who do not look beyond the surface, i.e. many casual viewers.

agreed, it is hard to compare to boxing, SITC or other shows, but thats the way the system works when comparing simple viewership numbers. i wonder if hbo releases any sort of data (or has a way to correctly quantify) how many people subscribed to hbo for AIA. also, band of brothers had about 10 million viewers for its initial airing. is it the talent involved? subject matter? time of year shown? marketing?

Updated On: 12/12/03 at 10:47 AM

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 10:59am

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.

[GladysBumps]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 11:23am

Of course this does not take into account the number of people who had HBO subscribers tape the program for us. In my circle, VCR copies have been making the rounds all week. What a magnificent gift Mike Nichols has bestowed upon us!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 11:25am

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.

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

[robbiej]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 11:50am

Excellent points, Namo.

I work for a basic cable station that relies on advertising rates and, therefore, Nielsen ratings. And even though we produce serveral high quality original mini-series and films, we know, come next September, who will be taking home the Emmys. And, in the end, that's the most important thing.

Having a monsterous amount of golden statues in a world where there are 7 million cable channels is what counts in the end. It will cause more and more people to subscribe to HBO...which is all they really want.