V lost another 18 per cent of its audience for its third episode, with the drop off from the premiere failing to stop. The show’s live figures have now shrunk by around 40 per cent since its debut, which was the highest rated for any genre show so far this season with over 14 million viewers.
Despite this, the show still managed to keep 9.3 million viewers, a solid viewership for a science fiction show by any stretch of the imagination, particularly one so heavily science fiction as the remake. In addition to this, DVR numbers have yet to come in.
The drop off and the show’s inability to staunch it will turn some heads among the ABC brass, but there are a number of potential reasons for it. The chief reason is that the network only plans to air four episodes before retiring the series for a long hiatus – something that will undoubtedly discourage people from getting involved with it until they can continue the viewing experience on a weekly basis. The decision to split the programming has been heavily criticised in the media and by fans, but ABC hasn’t released much in the way of an explanation for it, or given any indication that it plans to reverse the move any time soon.
For the moment, then, V’s figures are probably enough to keep it afloat as long as it can maintain them at this level. The main concern is whether it will be able to retain the same audience when it returns in a few months time after next week’s broadcast.
