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HBO's In Treatment Premiere Wanting for Ratings Therapy
Low Numbers for Premiere Monday Night, But Pay Network Has a Plan
By Anne Becker
HBO executives might be calling their shrinks Wednesday. The pay cable
network’s new therapy series, In Treatment, premiered to the lowest
numbers ever for one of its originals Monday night -- 446,000. That’s
about one-half of what its last original, hour-long relation****p drama
Tell Me You Love Me, premiered to in September.
Some analysis of In Treatment’spremiere number, however, showed that
it’s not the train wreck it may seem.
First, the 9:30 p.m. Monday premiere was unorthodox for HBO, which
usually premieres big series on Sundays. Viewers who’d heard about In
Treatment may have looked to Sunday to catch it. Tell Me, for example,
premiered that night, as did Flight of the Conchords, which drew about
1 million viewers to its premiere but had the benefit of a lead-in
from established half-hour Curb Your Enthusiasm. The network has
reserved Monday nights in the past for dramas that already had hit
seasons under their belts, like Big Love and Six Feet Under.
In Treatment’s entire scheduling play was deliberately atypical on
HBO’s part. The series stars Gabriel Byrne as a therapist whose
intense patients give him cause for therapy of his own, and HBO is
running new episodes each weeknight for nine weeks straight, devoting
the same night each week to the same patient and Fridays to Byrne’s
character’s own therapy sessions.
Given the scheduling oddity, the network made an ambitious play to
pick up viewers by offering the series on platforms other than just
its main cable channel. The entire week’s worth of new episodes goes
up on HBO.com, HBO On Demand and iTunes each Monday. Given the show’s
intense drama, not to mention the dearth of broadcast scripted dramas
given the writers’ strike, viewers may be tempted to watch In
Treatment episodes in batches on those other platforms.
HBO always cites ***ulative premiere numbers for its shows, adding up
multiple plays the episode receives over the course of a week, rather
than focusing on just the premiere numbers. Following that method,
Tell Me premiered to 965,000 viewers Sept. 9 but averaged 3.8 million
with eight additional plays over the next week. The series also picked
up more than 500,000 more viewers on video-on-demand over the course
of its run.
VOD viewing and multiple plays will undoubtedly boost In Treatment’s
average numbers, as the critical acclaim the series received likely
will, as well. The network launched a series of online applications,
like a Facebook group for the show, to help fuel online buzz.
The show is adapted from an Israeli series that captivated the nation
over its run. HBO will run original episodes for nine weeks straight.
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