ET. The first twenty seasons are available on DVD in regions 1, 2, and 4, with the twentieth season released on both DVD and Blu-ray in 2010 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series. Alas, I must confess, I stopped watching the show around season 12, and Simpsons World’s episode view counts suggest that modern streaming viewers are more interested in the early seasons too, so it could just be that people are losing interest. The idea behind tf–idf is to find words or phrases that occur frequently within a single document, but rarely within the overall corpus. The Simpsons has evolved over the course of thirty years, sometimes learning from its past mistakes, others not so much, and it's not the same show viewers met in 1989. Martin Recommended, xXx: State Of The Union: 10 Behind The Scenes Facts About The xXx Sequel, Enter For A Chance To Win CinemaBlend's Marvel Loot Crate Giveaway, Johnny Depp’s Habits Had Reportedly Started Affecting His Work During Murder On The Orient Express, How 9-1-1: Lone Star Said Goodbye To Liv Tyler's Michelle Blake And Whether She Could Return. TV ratings … All code used for this post is available on GitHub. In over 30 years on the air, The Simpsons has only put together a mere eighteen Christmas episodes, despite this tradition beginning with the very first episode of the iconic show way back in 1989. The more recent seasons have averaged less than 5 million viewers per episode, more than an 80% decline since the show’s beginnings. I don’t know the reason for the switch—it might have something to do with Nielsen’s measurement or reporting—but without any other data sources it’s difficult to confirm. Whenever the primetime measurements kicked in around the end of the game, it was being watched by around 35.6 million people, earning a massive 10.7 demo rating. Nick is a Cajun Country native, and is often asked why he doesn't sound like that's the case. Inauguration Draws 30% More Viewers Than 2017. I’ve heard this argument before, that the show was originally about Bart before switching its focus to Homer, but the actual scripts only seem to partially support it. Over the years, The Simpsons viewers have tuned into the fact that the animated series has seemingly predicted some major world events. Other than the NFL game itself and the post-game wrap-up, The Simpsons had the highest totals of the night across all broadcast networks. The Simpsons at 30: One big mistake cost the show its laughs. Biden Beats Trump Again! We could normalize Simpsons episode ratings by the declining top 30 curve to adjust for the fact that it’s more difficult for any one show to capture as large a share of the TV audience over time. I mean, the controversy over Apu was markedly less easygoing and playful, but at least that situation seemingly sparked more interesting and insightful conversations as opposed to pure rage. It beat out NCIS: Los Angeles, which had a second-place viewership of 8.29 million, with God Friended Me (8.23 million) and 60 Minutes (8.08 million) rounding out the other big winners of the night. To use a specific example from The Simpsons, the phrase “dental plan” appears 19 times in Last Exit to Springfield, but only once throughout the rest of the show, and sure enough the tf–idf algorithm identifies “dental plan” as the most relevant phrase from that episode. How The Simpsons Has Changed The Simpsons ’ first episode, “Simpsons Roasting on … Back in 2000, an … The Simpsons opened its season with a 1.7 rating among adults 18-49 and 4.44 million viewers. Next week's NFC Championship game between the Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints will likely draw an even bigger crowd, so it's possible The Simpsons and the other animated shows will have even more to celebrate next week. If we go all the way back to the 1951, the top 30 shows averaged a 38.2 rating, which is more than triple the single highest-rated program of 2014–15 (NBC’s Sunday Night Football, which averaged a 12.3 rating). Will the Simpsons still be around to celebrate another 30 year run in 2047? Another interesting follow-up could be to use more sophisticated techniques to write more complete episode summaries based on the scripts, but I was pleasantly surprised by the relevance of the comparatively simple tf–idf approach. Family Guy also earned its highest demo rating of the season with a 1.8, and Lil Rel Howery's comedy Rel ended its freshman season with its best numbers since its post-NFL premiere. Fans of The Simpsons are convinced the show predicted Kamala Harris would become Vice President. I used the Year in the and month in the dimension shelf. Unlike the other games in the NFL's divisional round, Sunday afternoon's game was a close one that went down to the wire, which definitely helped to keep people in their seats for The Simpsons' latest episode. Eagle-eyed viewers say her outfit at US President Joe Biden’s inauguration was identical to one worn by Lisa Simpson in an old episode. Ben Travers Jul 3, 2020 10:00 am Frinkiac. Next Post → Number of firefighters in the US ← Previous Post From celebrity cameos and sometimes predicting the … But ultimately Troy McClure said it best at the conclusion of the The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular, which, it’s hard to believe, now covers less than 25% of the show’s history: Term frequency–inverse document frequency is a popular technique used to determine which words are most significant to a document that is itself part of a larger corpus. From the 9/11 tragedy to Donald Trump's shock presidency, the … To be expected, The Simpsons also earned itself a very impressive demo rating for viewers aged 18-49. At first glance, that number may sound like plenty of Christmas specials dotted throughout the 700+ episodes that viewers have spent in the company of The Simpsons . Thanks to a lead-in NFL game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the victorious New Orleans Saints, The Simpsons enjoyed its biggest viewership in over four years. His love for his wife and daughters is almost equaled by his love of gasp-for-breath laughter and gasp-for-breath horror. Fans of The Simpsons are convinced the show predicted Kamala Harris would become Vice President.. Eagle-eyed viewers say her outfit at US President Joe Biden’s inauguration was identical to one worn by Lisa Simpson in an old episode. Zaius”, though to be fair, there are also some less iconic results. Bart accounted for a significantly larger share of the show’s dialogue in season 1 than in any future season, but Homer’s share has always been higher than Bart’s. That was definitely true for the episode that followed the divisional round playoff matchup on Sunday afternoon, which earned The Simpsons its highest viewership and ratings in years. Dialogue share might not tell the whole story about a character’s prominence, but the fact is that Homer has always been the most talkative character on the show. Chicago’s Public Taxi Data », © 2021 - Todd Schneider - About + Contact, Term frequency–inverse document frequency, « Taxi, Uber, and Lyft Usage in New York City. Law And Order: SVU Delivered Devastating Advice To Olivia Benson, So What's Next? Ralph is Chief Wiggum's son in the hit … The season contains five hold-over episodes from the season 14 (EABF) production line. THE Simpsons fans have come up with a wild new theory which challenges everything we know about Ralph. What 9-1-1: Lone Star's West Wing Reunion Means For Owen In Season 2, Michael B. Jordan And 16 Other Actors You Probably Forgot Were On House. The Simpsons: 10 Songs You Completely Forgot About. Then, earlier this week, The Simpsons viewers noticed an eerie similarity between a 21-year-old episode and Kamala Harris’ inauguration. As I write this, The Simpsons is under contract to be produced for one more season, though it’s entirely possible it will be renewed. If you want to quiz yourself, pause here and try to name the next 5 biggest characters in order before looking at the answers…. As a fan of the show, I present a few short analyses about Springfield, from the show’s dialogue to its TV ratings. David Richardson, a veteran comedy showrunner whose credits include 'The Simpsons' and 'Two and a Half Men,' died January 18 of heart failure at 65. Viewership appears to jump in 2000, between seasons 11 and 12, but closer inspection reveals that’s when the Wikipedia data switches from reporting households to individuals. When it comes to staking claims in the primetime TV landscape, The Simpsons has one of the best in the biz. Aside from that bump, which is most likely a data artifact, not a real trend, it’s clear that the show’s ratings are trending lower. If we exclude the Simpson nuclear family and focus on the top 50 supporting characters, the results become a bit less predictable, if not exactly surprising. All code used in this post is available on GitHub, and the screencaps come from the amazing Frinkiac, Posted by Todd Schneider Commentary: When it first aired 30 years ago, The Simpsons was groundbreaking … R, « Taxi, Uber, and Lyft Usage in New York City I added views in the measures shelf. According to TVByTheNumbers, "The Girl on the Bus" landed a more-than-solid 3.8 rating, which was also its best stat since that same 2015 episode, which boasted a beastly 4.7 rating. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007 and grossed US$526.2 million worldwide. The early seasons averaged over 20 million viewers per episode, including Bart Gets an “F”, the first episode of season 2, which is still the most-watched episode in the show’s history with an estimated 33.6 million viewers. But as mentioned earlier, the normalization would only account for about a 50% decline in ratings since 1989, while The Simpsons ratings have declined more like 80-85% over that horizon. In the previous season, the Simpsons episode that aired on that same NFL Wild Card weekend earned a 12.04-million-strong audience. 'The Simpsons' seemed to get it right ... the timeless series often finds itself aligning with "life imitates art" moments that happen years after airing. While later seasons would focus on Homer, Bart was the lead character in most of the first three seasons. Season 1 of The Simpsons averaged 27.8 million viewers throughout its run. Why The Masked Dancer Host Craig Robinson Is The Real Winner Of The Show, Last Man Standing's Tim Allen Reveals The Amazing Home Improvement Props He Still Owns, How Firefly Helped Bring Gina Torres To Fox's 9-1-1: Lone Star. A look at the show’s list of writers reveals that 9 of the top 10 writers are male. If we remove the Simpson nuclear family, things look even more lopsided: women account for less than 10% of the supporting cast’s dialogue. The Simpsons has made some eerily accurate predictions over the years - but the worst could be set to come in 2021. The Simpsons had an average of 13.5 million viewers per episode. Of course Homer ranks first: he’s the undisputed most iconic character, and he accounts for 21% of the show’s 1.3 million words spoken through season 26. The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Historical Nielsen ratings data is hard to come by, so I relied on Wikipedia for Simpsons episode-level television viewership data. In addition to streaming every episode, the site includes episode guides, scripts, and audio commentary. At 27 seasons and counting, it’s the longest-running scripted series in the history of American primetime television. Beyond “dental plan”, there are fan-favorites including “kwyjibo”, “down the well”, “monorail”, “I didn’t do it”, and “Dr. HBO Is Developing Another Game Of Thrones Prequel, And It's One George R.R. Eagle-eyed viewers say her outfit at US President Joe Biden’s inauguration was identical to one worn by Lisa Simpson in an old episode. The colors of the bars in the above graphs represent gender: blue for male characters, red for female. The influential animated mainstay locked up its Sunday night time slot long before other networks started using Sundays for their prestige dramas, with its early-season numbers almost always bolstered by its NFL lead-in. A lifetime spent in the vicinity of a television screen led to his current dream job, as well as his knowledge of too many TV themes and ad jingles. I did not collect data on which writers wrote which episodes, but it would make for an interesting follow-up to see if the episodes written by women have a more equal distribution of dialogue between male and female characters. ... comparisons by viewers were readily made. You can see the full list of episodes and “most relevant phrases” here. Back on January 4, 2015, the episode "The Man Who Came to Be Dinner" aired as a follow-up to the Wild Card game where the Dallas Cowboys defeated … To see what other new and returning shows are hitting primetime soon, head to our midseason premiere schedule. And it even guessed billionaire businessman Donald Trump would become US President – an idea which would […] When The Simpsons came out in 1989, the highest 30 rated shows on TV averaged a 17.7 Nielsen rating, meaning that 17.7% of television-equipped households tuned in to the average top 30 show. For comparisons: The 28th season of The Simpsons on FOX averaged a 1.77 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 4.146 million total viewers It was … Some viewers believe The Simpsons eerily predicted the scenes in 1996 (Image: ... Back in November last year, The Simpsons predicted what would be happening in January 2021. How well did The Simpsons fare for its second episode in 2019? In 2014–15, the highest 30 rated shows managed an 8.7 average rating, a decline of 50% over that 25 year span. James Spader And 6 Veteran Marvel Actors Who Should Return For Disney+'s What If, Why Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick Isn’t Being Sent To Streaming, America's Got Talent Champ Darci Lynne Farmer Shares Thoughts On The Virtual Auditions For Season 16, Halle Berry Talks Her Interracial Family And Why Seeing Black Women On The Big And Small Screen Was So Important, 'One Night In Miami' Interviews With Regina King, Leslie Odom Jr. And More, Letterkenny Interviews with Nathan Dales, Michelle Mylett, K. Trevor Wilson & More, Kevin Feige Talks Marvel Phase Four, Disney+, WandaVision & More, The Best Celebrity Bernie Sanders Memes Go To Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Hart And More. 9-1-1's Mudslide Vs. Tsunami: Which Season Premiere Disaster Was The Best? The Simpsons airs Sunday nights on Fox at 8:00 p.m. The scripts also include each scene’s setting, which I used to compute the locations with the most dialogue. I used R’s tidytext package to pull out the single word or phrase with the highest tf–idf rank for each episode; here’s the relevant section of code. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture and society, television, and the human condition. Last season, its first outing with an NFL lead-in came in … The same army of "Simpsons" clones that formed Fox's Sunday night lineup for years is now helping Hulu become adult animation's streaming hub. (Remember when everybody freaked out over NFL ratings dipping ever so slightly?). If we look at the supporting cast, the 14 most prominent characters are all male before we get to the first woman, Mrs. Krabappel, and only 5 of the top 50 supporting cast members are women. Sep 28th, 2016 Not too many people know that The Simpsons won the 1999 Annie Award for “Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Program. Marge, Bart, and Lisa—in that order—combine for another 26%, giving the Simpson family a 47% share of the show’s dialogue. The most watched episode had 16.2 million viewers and the least watched had 6.2 million viewers. But even the most loyal "Simpsons" viewers can't know everything about the beloved series, which premiered 25 years ago, on Dec. 17, 1989 — so here's a collection of those lesser-known tidbits. I started teaching The Simpsons at the college level in 2000, and in the years since, I've encountered many students who had not been allowed to watch The Simpsons as children. And it even guessed billionaire businessman Donald Trump would become US President – an idea which would […] I have no proof for the cause of this decline in the average Nielsen rating of a top 30 show, but intuitively it must be related to the proliferation of channels. The more recent seasons have averaged less than 5 million viewers per episode, more than an 80% decline since the show’s beginnings. The show’s longevity, and the fact that it’s animated, provides a vast and relatively unchanging universe of characters to study. I wrote code to parse the available episode scripts and attribute every word of dialogue to a character, then ranked the characters by number of words spoken in the history of the show. I split the graph into two segments using the show dimension that I created to identify the Family Guy an Simpsons … The results are pretty good, and should be at least slightly entertaining to fans of the show. As far as the demo rating goes, The Simpsons was followed by Bob's Burgers, amazingly enough. Although the ratings data looks bad for The Simpsons, it doesn’t tell the whole story: TV ratings for individual shows have been broadly declining for over 60 years. American Idol may be the most popular show in all of TV — the Wednesday editions have averaged 25.8 million viewers while the ones on ... 3.9 million), and The Simpsons (3.6 million). Full data for the top 30 shows by season is available here on GitHub. FBI's Big Relationships Will 'Evolve' In 2021, But Where Do Maggie's Loyalties Lie? The location data is a bit messy to work with—should “Simpson Living Room” really be treated differently than “Simpson Home”—but nevertheless it paints a picture of where people spend time in Springfield: at home, school, work, and the local bar. The 2020 American Music Awards were hit by a big rating and total viewership decline from last year, ... as “The Simpsons” scored a 1.5 rating and 4.7 million viewers. Season 30 has been a pretty fun one for Simpsons viewers, with showrunner Al Jean and his team of writers coming up with fun ways to look back at the show's history and reference old jokes. The sitcom is a satirical parody of the middle class American lifestyle. Well, it was watched by a whopping total of 10.2 million viewers, which is the kind of massive audience that the long-running comedy has rarely pulled out in the past three decades. Fox's NFL Postgame also rocked out, holding onto 31.07 million audience members, with a 9.4 demo rating. Back on January 4, 2015, the episode "The Man Who Came to Be Dinner" aired as a follow-up to the Wild Card game where the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Detroit Lions, and the poorly reviewed episode was watched by 10.62 million people. The beloved family comedy actually had its biggest night in 5 years, and its latest episode was watched by around 5.33 million people, with a 2.2 demo rating. It’s easier for an animated show to scale to hundreds of recurring characters; without live-action actors to grow old or move on to other projects, the denizens of Springfield remain mostly unchanged from year to year. TV viewers in the 1950s had a small handful of channels to choose from, while modern viewers have hundreds if not thousands of choices, not to mention streaming options, which present their own ratings measurement challenges. The Simpsons' Golden Age produced plenty of fantastic songs, some of which might have been forgotten over the last two decades. 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