Return to Unfiction unforum
 a.r.g.b.b 
FAQ FAQ   Search Search 
 
Welcome!
New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.
Website Restoration Project
This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.
Announcements
This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.
This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.
  

The time now is Tue Nov 12, 2024 2:53 am
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)		 View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum
Calendar
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Lost Experience » TLE: META, OT, and Social Interactions
[META] The Lost Experience and Lost Viewers
View previous topicView next topic
Page 1 of 1 [6 Posts]  
Author Message
rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

 		[META] The Lost Experience and Lost Viewers
Did the online experience bring new viewers to the series?
The ratings and total viewers of the Lost season 3 premiere matched those of the season 2 finale. Still, the show was down 25% from the season 2 premiere:

Quote:
Meanwhile, several news outlets have made note of the fact that the Lost season-three premiere was down 25 percent from its season two debut. The episode, which aired Wednesday, October 4, was watched by 18.9 million compared to 23.5 million in September of last year.


from this site.

So what does this mean for the success of the Lost Experience? My interpretation is that they successfully hung onto viewers who remained curious about the cliffhanger endings of the finale. But they were not successful in drawing more viewers to the actual show.

I was surprised that the ratings didn't increase, at least a tiny bit, because of the Lost Experience.

So, just how successful was the Lost Experience if it didn't help the show increase the number of viewers? I realize that some of the Lost Experience players may be watching the show on itunes or on the ABC website - still I expected the numbers to go up.

Any thoughts?

Note: some people seem to think that the Season 2 premiere numbers were skewed because of the intense interest in the hatch...I guess people were interested in the hatch and then left when the resolution of that story was not satisfying and neither was the switch of focus to the tail section people. But my question is about the Lost Experience and whether it brought in viewers.
_________________
I love this site for being free, in every sense of the word~Spacebass

Mankind was my business, the common good was my business.~ Dickens

PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 7:59 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
Pixiestix
Resident Angry Midget


Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 2465
Location: Tomorrow's Talk Studios

 		I'll start with a question : how are ratings found?

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/whatratingsmean/

Quote:
The way that Nielsen Media Research finds out about who is watching is to measure what a sample of television viewers are watching. For our national ratings estimates, we use a sample of more than 5,000 households, containing over 13,000 people who have agreed to participate. Since there are over 99 million households with TVs in the U.S., it might seem that a sample of 5,000 is just not big enough to represent the nation.


Okay ARGers, which TLE players are nielsen viewers who dropped the show. come on, speak up!!! it makes a difference!!!

My issue with this concept that the game did or did not affect ratings is that really you need to keep in mind that the game targets a certain type of person, namely gamers of some form, who may or may not be what i would assume is a rather small population of nielsen.
_________________
I don't believe in Chaotic Fiction, I only believe in ARG.
Remember kiddles, bad PMs get the wrath of the Vulva Puppets
PROUDLY owned by Gizmo, the wonder ARG pug!

PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 6:40 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 4109
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

 		Re: [META] The Lost Experience and Lost Viewers
Did the online experience bring new viewers to the series?
rose wrote:
So, just how successful was the Lost Experience if it didn't help the show increase the number of viewers?

It can be considered quite successful, if their goal was something other than increased viewership.

I'd have to dig up the pre-publicity press articles, but I'm pretty sure they specifically said they had no such ambitions, and were only doing it to give something back to the fans. Of course, that's probably just good public relations talking.

On the other hand, the sponsors probably did have their own goals, such as increased hits to the Jeep Compass website and forcing us to watch customer testamonials to the glories of broadband internet. Some players signed up with Monster.com just to access job descriptions they thought might be in game. These are the metrics that are easiest to measure, but probably don't directly impact ABC or the producers of LOST.

The long term benefit is in how people engage with a TV show as a brand, not how many passively watch.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:09 am
 View user's profile AIM Address Yahoo Messenger
 Back to top 
rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

 		I agree the Lost Experience had to drive eyeballs to the sponsor sites. If that was all they wanted - not to lose viewers, or rather to keep existing fans entertained and the story fresh, then I suppose they succeeded. I'm still a bit surprised that the people who dropped the show mid-way through the second season weren't at all coaxed back by the Lost Experience.
_________________
I love this site for being free, in every sense of the word~Spacebass

Mankind was my business, the common good was my business.~ Dickens

PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:07 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
Pixiestix
Resident Angry Midget


Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 2465
Location: Tomorrow's Talk Studios
Quote:
I'm still a bit surprised that the people who dropped the show mid-way through the second season weren't at all coaxed back by the Lost Experience.



There were a handful of people who played TLE who didn't watch the show, as there were a huge amount of fans who watched the show who didn't play the game. I half lurked, the game really turned me off with the full force of "watch our commericals". Also, keep in mind, at the beginning, the show creators kept saying over and over that the two were not dependant on each other - that you did not have to watch the show to play, and that there would not be anything in the game that would strongly affect the show. The only thing that I saw that did really affect the show over-all was they gave the numbers meaning {I know many many people who watch the show who did not even watch to lurk or hear beans about the game - i am still hoping we get the numbers meaning in show as well, but that is a different topic}. By saying that they were seperate, it didn't fully encourage all fans that they "had to play" or likewise promise any answers to any discouraged/disgruntled fans.

and again, i point up to my ratings post - we don't really know if the game affected ratings, the ratings poll doesn't help us see if those way-ward fans came back or not. All we know is that the nielsen familes decided to watch soemthing else on the season premier night.
_________________
I don't believe in Chaotic Fiction, I only believe in ARG.
Remember kiddles, bad PMs get the wrath of the Vulva Puppets
PROUDLY owned by Gizmo, the wonder ARG pug!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:24 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
RPGgame
Unfettered


Joined: 02 Jan 2003
Posts: 501

 		I in the end got turned off by it since they did not do a good job. There was one point where i gave up. I think it was when the candy came into play of the Apollo bars. Events did not go down the way it was supposed to and I was sick of the advertising since it was not being used in a creative way that impacted the story. If I would have made it through the whole game I would have possibly watched. They should have connected the show and the game more together if they wanted viewers or at least have a satisfying game.

The only time I felt the old arg feeling was watching the tape of Blake at Comic-con. You could feel the energy but with a lack of real puzzles, phone calls, and just pointing and clicking without thinking the game stunk
_________________
I use Blingo for my search engine and I won 3 prizes so far!
Blingo with RPGgame

I'm Marked

PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:54 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 1 of 1 [6 Posts]  
View previous topicView next topic
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Lost Experience » TLE: META, OT, and Social Interactions
Jump to:  


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum



Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group