Last week the tenth episode of the second season on HBO’s True Blood attracted 5.3 million viewers, 20% more people than the previous episode and the best audience HBO has had for any show other than The Sopranos in five years. Looking at the viewership for the first Sunday airing of each episode, True Blood has steadily drawn [...]

Yesterday an article in The New York times highlighted the results of a media industry report from the private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS):
An interesting shift occurred in 2008, the report said. For the first time, consumers spent more time with media they paid for, like books or cable television, than with primarily ad-supported [...]

Earlier this year a new premium cable channel, Epix, was announced as a joint venture between Viacom (Paramount), Lionsgate and MGM. This initiative was formed, at least in part, because of pressure in 2008 by Showtime to lower the fees it paid to these same three movie studios. Initially the new channel’s prospects were met with skepticism, but [...]

Yesterday the nominees for the 61st Annual Emmy Awards were announced. This year amount of the nominees for the Outstanding Drama and Outsanding Comedy were expanded from five to seven. The nominees are as follows:
Outstanding Drama: Big Love, Breaking Bad, Damages, Dexter, House, Lost, Mad Men
Outstanding Comedy: Entourage, Family Guy, Flight of the Conchords, How [...]

Last week the second season of True Blood premiered on HBO, receiving the best audience levels of any show since The Sopranos series finale in June 2007.
It’s difficult to get much audience information on HBO, but I did manage to compile the following list. Nielsen adjusted its ratings measurements of HBO after 2004, so its hard [...]