The sixth season of Community — the first, and possibly last (or not, maybe?), of the great Yahoo Screen experiment — wrapped up this week. It was really quite good, and really quite weird, especially with the way it just let it all hang out in the little tags at the end of each episode. My word, those were fun. If you haven’t watched the season yet, consider pounding through it this weekend now that all 13 episodes are available. Definitely worth it.
But now that it’s over, tiny voices are rising up — tiny voices in suits, tiny voices holding printed out copies of spreadsheets — to ask questions like, “Yes, but was it a success?” and, “How many viewers did it have?” and so on. And Yahoo ain’t in any rush to provide the answers.
From Adweek:
Yahoo did not respond to several queries from Adweek, including how many viewers watched each episode, why the episodes had no ad load when viewed on Apple TV and iPhone, how successful Community has been at bringing viewers to Yahoo Screen and driving them to the service’s other content (including original series Other Space and Sin City Saints), and whether it will pick up another season of the show. […]
While it’s not unusual for a streaming service to withhold metrics — Netflix and Amazon routinely do so — those companies also find a way to publicly spin the non-numbers in some way, like, “It’s the most popular show on our service.” But Yahoo hasn’t even thrown out declarations like that when asked about Community‘s viewership.
The Adweek article goes on to make the following points: 1) Yahoo reportedly wants the show back for another season; and 2) The advertisers, especially Honda, were very happy, because the show found edgy ways to work in product placement and blah blah marketing blah blah branding. So here’s my question: If Yahoo is happy, and the advertisers are happy, and I — me, noted Everyman TV Viewer — am happy, then, like, who cares what the numbers are? Maybe Yahoo’s investors, I guess, if they want confirmation that the company isn’t just shoveling money into a fire. But that’s about it.
It’s just… this show, man. Fans spent every season following behind-the-scenes drama and scanning Nielsen numbers for signs of improvement like we were all jaded Hollywood insiders having lunch at The Ivy. It’s been kinda nice to not have all that information available for once. The whole conversation, basically, has been:
“Hey, Yahoo, Community doing okay?”
“Yup.”
“Cool.”
“You enjoying the episodes?”
“Yup.”
“Cool.”
This is better. This is much better. Let’s not go out and ruin it with math.
(Via Adweek)
