Was ‘Angry Boys’ A Failure?

After grabbing the attention of an impressive 1.37 million Australians for the broadcast of episode one, ABC’s Angry Boys slowly but surely began bleeding viewers. Now that a couple of months have passed since its debut on our screens, tv writers are throwing around phrases like “ratings failure” – but WAS it actually a failure? Perhaps not, says SMH’s Karl Quinn.

Angry Boys is over at last, but while it left many viewers scratching their heads, it may not have been the ratings disaster it seemed. Wednesday night’s 12th and final episode was watched by 612,000 viewers, an improvement on the 465,000 who watched last week but still less than half the 1.37 million who watched the debut on May 11.

Oh no! But wait, here come the interesting figures/.

The ratings figures reported in mainstream media such as this paper are generally preliminary figures only, recording the audience in the five mainland capital cities as the program goes to air. That’s what the figures cited above refer to.

But the ratings collection agency OzTam also collects viewer information over the seven days that follow a program’s initial broadcast, and on this measure Angry Boys has performed extremely well, frequently drawing an additional 30 per cent more viewers. Last week’s episode, for instance, was watched by an extra 133,000 viewers over the next seven days (to yesterday), taking its total broadcast audience on ABC1 to 598,000. Angry Boys was also broadcast in repeat on ABC2 after the initial broadcast on ABC1. On average, these screenings attracted another 102,000 viewers.

In addition to that, the ABC claims 2.4 million people have watched the first 11 episodes of the series either on its iView online catch-up service or on the Angry Boys website. That’s an average 218,000 views per episode.

All that means that even without regional viewer figures – which can account for a third of total audience – the true figure for last week’s episode of Angry Boys is likely to be roughly double the 465,000 recorded in the overnight figures.

Which ought to cheer the ABC right up. Not that they seem overly upset by the performance of Angry Boys – I received an email from them yesterday excitedly stating the following.

Interest in the DVD and digital soundtrack release of Chris Lilley’s acclaimed 12-part ABC1 series Angry Boys has put it on target to become one of the most successful ABC product releases ever.

Pre-order sales for the 3-DVD set have already eclipsed those received for Chris Lilley’s previous series, Summer Heights High, prior to its release in 2007. And the official Angry Boys Soundtrack, which went on pre-sale last month, has already hit record numbers making it the most successful pre-order digital release by ABC Music. Both the DVD and the digital soundtrack are released nationally on Thursday, July 28.

The series has also proved a popular download on iTunes. To date, it is the most successful selling ABC product on iTunes since ABC began making its content available in 2008.

What did YOU think about Angry Boys? Did it live up to expectations?

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