Ah. That makes sense. So we won’t really know if there is a significant fall until the season 6 premiere.
I think there’s enough to say there’s been a significant fall:
I assume the “winter premiere” stuff is that they are running two seasons per year. So the last time they launched a season in winter, they had 8.6 million. But given how much more publicity they’ve had now, a fall off is significant (and was apparently unexpected).
I guess that makes sense. But why isn’t this a winter premiere? Did Season 4 start in the fall, have an intermission, and then a winter premeire and then Seaons 5 starts a year later in January?
Correction to my previous post: While Duck Dynasty is structured in the way I indicated, their convention is to call each portion of shows a season. That is, they do two seasons per year, one in the fall and one in the following winter, with a hiatus of about two months in between, as opposed to having one long season with a hiatus in the middle.
The overall point was unaffected, though, and accurately summarized by you.
ETA: Which is to say, since television ratings vary by time of year (which is whole reason shows are structured this way in the first place), the January premiere of season 5 isn’t comparable to the August premiere of season 4. It’d be comparable to the previous winter premiere, season 3’s in Feb. 2013, and indeed matched that number.
How did the previous fall season premier compare with this seasons August premier? Were there 12 million viewers in each of the last two fall premiers, or did the show grow in ratings from August 2012 to August 2013? If it was 12 - 8.6 - 12 - 8.5 then the pattern holds. If it was less in fall 2012 then you see a graph increasing steadily then peaking in August, and now declining.
When I looked it up I see that the October 2012 premier had only 3.7 million viewers:
So the chart goes 3.7 - 8.6 - 12 - 8.5
That is declining popularity folks. The numbers do not lie. The show was rapidly gaining following from October 2012 all the way through this last season, and now it is down quite a bit from that peak. Its not a case of fall vs. winter, its just a simple graph over time. Unless you want to see it a different way for some reason that is.
This is not supported by the numbers. The fall 2012 premier had 3.7 million viewers, and the winter 2013 premier had 8.6 million. So last year they went up by almost 5 million and this year they went down by about 4 million from fall to winter.
How do you account for this glaring difference if your theory is correct that winter ratings are always less than fall ratings?
I wouldn’t say “always”, but it’s typically the case, yes. Clearly, DD got a lot more popular between fall '12 and winter '13. What we’re seeing now is either decline or stability. We won’t know which until more episodes air this season, and until season 6 debuts in the fall.
In one year the change from fall premier to winter premier was +5 million, the next year the change was -3.5 million. This nor the graph of these numbers resembles anything close to stability. For whatever reason 3.5 million people from its peak popularity have evidently stopped watching the show, or at least stopped making it a priority to watch the premier. You can call what these numbers show ‘stability’ if you like, but then your not using any definition of the word that I’m familiar with.
NCIS, in season 10, lost 5 million viewers between the Jan. 4 episode and the April episodes. Those viewers came right back for the following fall’s premiere. This is the nature of TV ratings, there are predictable dips and swings (sweeps periods, stunt casting, premieres, finales), and unexpected ones. Lots of shows lose viewers in the winter, and get them back in the fall. This is because they generally aren’t losing share, just the rating, because there are fewer people watching television. For television, that is stability.
Your argument is at odds with the shows performance last year. You’re arguing for a trend that was just dis-proven for this show last year. +5 million vs. -3.5 million. Both of those are fall to winter changes for this show. You think A&E is ok with an 8.5 million performance swing from last year to this? Do you think they would call that stability?
:dubious: Am I explaining myself that poorly? A TV show has a life cycle. Some shows debut to strong ratings and keep them for years, but more often (if they survive their first couple of years), they grow their ratings over their early years, then have a period of stable, sustained ratings, that then trail off until the show is cancelled. DD could be in the decline phase, or the stable phase. It doesn’t appear to be in the growth phase.
For an example, here’s the ratings for Big Bang Theory’s season premiere episodes:
1 - 9.52
2 - 9.36
3 - 12.96
4 - 14.04
5 - 14.3
6 - 15.66
7 - 18.99
These aren’t directly comparable, because BBT uses the traditional fall-spring model, as opposed to DD’s split seasons.
Now, CBS could have looked at the episodes in season 5 that pulled ratings in the 12-13 range, and concluded that the party was over, and things were declining. But that’d be premature, wouldn’t you say?
Depends, I’m sure they have sophisticated models that compensate for things like airdate, time slot, head-to-head competition, DVR (live+3, live+5 ratings) lead-in, promotion, and so forth, since this is their business.
Since I’m now doubting my communication skills:
In case it wasn’t clear, the premiere ratings of BBT are directly comparable, because they’ll all around the same day each year. DD premieres are more like the episode-to-episode fluctuation within a BBT season, because the premiere dates are not around the same day each year. Thus, some fluctuation is to be expected, and doesn’t by itself demonstrate waning popularity.
Without share numbers, it’s even harder to make a coherent argument. If all TV ratings were down when comparing August '13 to January '14, then the drop in raw rating figure isn’t that meaningful. Only if people were choosing to watch something else, and if they did so more than is typical for that time of year.
Well, your tactic of backing away, after your confrontational post, certainly isn’t very interesting. Dead silence, although you continue to be active in other threads.
I’ll assume from your silence that you can’t refute anything I cited in my last post. I’ve since found a personal interview with Alan Robertson, Phil and Kay’s oldest son, confirming (although not with a direct quote) that he was already 47 years old in June of 2013. But here’s a new fun fact:
The most premature baby ever to survive was born after a gestation period of 21 weeks and five days, in 2010, in a modern, big-city, children’s hospital. She spent five months in neo-natal care before she was able to be discharged from the hospital. Thank god Germany has a public health insurance system.
Here’s what the article says about the current state of the art:
“Doctors at many hospitals leave babies born at 23 weeks or earlier to die as only nine out of 100 such babies survive. Many that do survive are left with severe disabilities.
Babies born before 22 weeks are thought to have almost no chance of surviving because their lungs, heart and brain are not sufficiently developed.”
This is confirmed by the wikipedia article on fetal viability that states:
“Currently the limit of viability is considered to be around 24 weeks although the incidence of major disabilities remains high at this point. Neo-natologists generally would not provide intensive care at 23 weeks, but would from 26 weeks”
I think it’s safe to assume that rural Louisiana teenagers in 1966 did not have access to facilities that exceed those standards. Since Alan appears to have none of the medical problems associated with premature birth, and since there is no indication that his birth involved any special circumstances, let alone months of very expensive intensive care in a neonatal unit, and accounting for medical advances in the last 50 years, I think it’s fair to assume that he was born after no less than 27 weeks in the womb.
27 weeks after Dec 21, 1965 is June 28, 1966. But the NY Post interview with Alan, where he said he was 47, was published on June 27 2013, and presumably occurred at least a couple of days before that. So even if the interview occurred the day after his 47th birthday (and there’s no indication that it did), either he’s a miracle baby, or his conception occurred before Dec 21, 1965.
Which was Marsh Kay Carroway’s 15th birthday. She apparently married Phil Roberson a little over a year later, after she turned 16.
So, unless all the articles I’ve cited are wrong, the evidence indicates that Phil was having sex with a 14-year old girl, without benefit of marriage, for an indeterminate time, but long enough to get her pregnant before she turned 15.
That is my tactic for backing away. Have a nice day.
Kay Carroway: born 1947
Alan Robertson: born 1965
Do the subtraction.
Huh. That link gives her DOB as December 21, 1950.
Correction: that Wiki is wrong about Kay’s birth year. I see Alan’s birth year depending on the source 1965 or 1966.
I looked in the genealogical tree, which shows 1947. Her real birth date seems to be Dec 21, 1950. Phil in his book apparently (again, according to googling) claims he married her when she was 15. Alan’s birth year, depending on the source, is either 1965 or 1966. So whether he was born in or out of wedlock depends on the exact dates.
Actually, I don’t see any DOBs in the article he linked to, except in the tree. However, if you click on the link in that article for Kay Robertson, you get this:
“Marsha Kay Robertson (née Carroway; born December 21, 1950)[1] aka “Miss Kay”, is an American television personality, best known for her appearances on the A&E reality series Duck Dynasty.”
I’m kind of surprised they haven’t done more to conceal or even falsify the relevant dates, since lying about your age is pretty common in the entertainment business. They do seem to have suppressed the date of their marriage, and of Alan’s birth. Probably someone with better google skills than I have can find them, though.
ETA: the tree in the article cited goes far beyond what I did, and actually gives Alan’s birth year as 1965. If true, that makes it definite that he was conceived while Kay was 14, or possibly even 13, since she didn’t turn 14 until December of 1964.
Whether he was born in or out of wedlock is not interesting, since it’s not a crime. Whether he was conceived in or out of wedlock does involve a crime, namely statutory rape. And unless some very widely reported dates are wrong, he was conceived out of wedlock, to a girl no older than 15 (allowing for a medical miracle), much more probably 14, and possibly as young as 13.
If they indeed married in 1965, then Kay was either 14 or 15. The law that Bricker cited allows parental consent to override the statutory age of consent only for girls 16 and over:
“B. A minor under the age of sixteen must also obtain written authorization to marry from the judge of the court exercising juvenile jurisdiction in the parish in which the minor resides or the marriage ceremony is to be performed.”
I would guess a judge would have to have a pretty good reason to sign off on that — say, a pregnancy, or an actual child.
I will rephrase then.
Her real birth date seems to be Dec 21, 1950. Phil in his book apparently (again, according to googling) claims he married her when she was 15. Alan’s birth year, depending on the source, is either 1965 or 1966. So whether he was conceived in or out of wedlock depends on the exact dates.
That’s an insinuation. The judge may sign off because the bride and the parents agreed. Also - that document is the current law, since 1992. Not the law as it was in 1966. What was it in 1966?