On average this season, Mad Men had about 20% more viewers. Last season the show grew 62% season over season, indicating that the program’s audience might be topping out.

Unfortunately I don’t have the average season numbers for the 18-49 demographic, so it’s not possible to draw a similar theories about audience growth in this segment, but looking the 25-54 demo there was only an 8% growth this season. Maybe the audience is indeed plateauing.

These numbers, particularly the season averages, might be misleading. Notice how across all demos, both the premieres and the season finales draw much higher audiences and growth rates. This is logical since audiences are much more interested in not only watching the first and last episode of a show, but are also more likely to see it live. Since these ratings are “Live plus Same Day” (Live+SD) for just the initial episode airings, it is theoretically possible that the viewership is higher for the numbers represented in the season average, once accounted for time-shifted viewing on DVRs or through VOD services, or for viewings of other airings. In other words, I bet that the relative difference in between Premiere/Finales and “in-between” episodes is much higher in Live+SD than in Live+7.

UPDATE: According to a recent MediaWeek article, Mad Men overindexes in C3 ratings, indicating that the show’s audience does lean toward timeshifted viewing. This lends more weight to my theory that the audience for “in-between” was probably more even with premieres and finales, once total viewing was accounted for.

In any case, while Mad Men is a very successful and highly admire show, compared to other basic cable shows it is below par in terms of ratings. This finale audience of 2.8 million wouldn’t place it in the Top 25 cable shows. AMC is rightfully promoting that Mad Men is “the most upscale drama in basic cable, with 50% of that demo having household income in excess of $100,000.” A similar pitch was mentioned at the conclusion of last season.

Given last night’s performance and overall viewership during the first two seasons, Mad Men should average just over 2.5 million viewers per episode this season, which would be a substantial improvement for the series but still considerably lower than the 5+ million audiences that top cable series normally pull in.

Regardless of relative audience levels, Mad Men is certainly a success just based on the critical acclaim and awards it has garnered- Mad Men won a Best Drama Emmy in 2008, a first for any basic cable series, and it recently got nominated for again. The show’s success also seems to be spreading within AMC; sister show Breaking Bad recently also got nominated for an Emmy in Best Drama. AMC’s twin nominations place it at the top of the prestigious category.

Outstanding Drama: Big Love, Breaking Bad, Damages, Dexter, House, Lost, Mad Men

Outstanding Comedy: Entourage, Family Guy, Flight of the Conchords, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, 30 Rock, Weeds

Cable has steadily been growing its share of the nominations during the past ten years. At first only HBO used to have a regular stake but during the past two years new players have emerged and this year AMC has two drama nominations, the same as HBO. Cable networks, especially premium cable networks like HBO and Showtime, don’t have to limit or censor their productions like broadcast networks, allowing their dramas to push the envelope further and have a more sophisticated appeal. It also helps that the production budgets for cable productions have grown greatly over the past few years. Not coincidentally, many pundits in the broadcast industry argue that stations and networks need to reclaim their position by consolidating bigger budgets (perhaps through retransmission fees) and investing in better programming.

The broadcast networks have managed to maintain their control over the nominations for Outstanding Comedy, although I do believe that this category is merely lagging and cable will soon also take the majority of the nominations.

This might also be an incomplete picture since comedies fall into other categories. For example The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were nominated in the Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series category, and South Park was nominated for Outstanding Animated Program,