This is interesting Lilah. I hope you don't mind but I have a few things that I feel should be acknowledged when using a data-set like this and which might change the emphasis. If the writers are going with uninterpreted data like these then I can imagine the show getting even less watchable next season. But these are raw data and have not been statistically analysed or inspected for logic. On the other hand TV networks use sweeps-week data to decide on advertising rates so maybe they do think as short-term as this.
I know you are trying not to take sides but one of the discussions going around at the moment is 'why shouldn't SPN have more teen girl characters'. and since there seems to be a preponderance of teen girls (and it seems to be part of your implication) I will take that angle.
My first issue is with The Geekiary - on their site they don't appear to mention the fact that this data shows only 14 or so episodes out of 215 total. It really should be an integral part of their graph (I am well aware of why they chose not to do so but I won't get into that here).
These data also indicate the point at which the ratings were the highest for this season. After Feb 2015 there is a drop off in numbers. Is it significant? Possibly. Significance is something that statistical analysis should be carried out to determine. Is the viewership the 15 year olds who watched the whole show up to date on Netflix and then lost interest watching it live - ie not a particularly stable marketing audience? Is it other viewers fed up with the change in style of the show towards teenagers leaving only the 15 year olds watching? Who knows? (perhaps Mark Pedowitz does considering what he said in the article in Variety last week) This is only a snapshot of data and honestly may not be statistically significant.
Then there are the demographics - for example who are all the 2-5 year old girls watching the show? What is their purchasing power? They are clearly being misrepresented as viewers - their mothers may be watching the show? Are the children and their mothers both being counted, or only one? Do the 2-5 year olds care that there are teenagers on their tvs? Should the writers be writing to this age group since it is there? If the 2-5 year olds watching are actually a bunch of 20-23 year old mothers the n that would skew the data.
The accuracy of the Neilson ratings is starting to be questioned since so many people watch time-shifted and media-shifted versions of tv. On the other hand maybe only traditional tv gets the show the advertising ratings so maybe the two cancel each other out. And I know that they are trying to change their analysis methods to keep up with viewing trends.
This chart only shows live viewing, it would be interesting to see how things change in the live +7 demo - though again it possibly depends on whether total viewers or marketable viewers is important. Is a 15 year-old watching a TV because they have no disposable income - to buy the things that are advertised - more important than a 25 year old who doesn't watch live but who can afford to buy SPN related merchandise, or buy the individual episode on Amazon, and more importantly will ALSO watch Arrow, The Flash and cheaper TV to produce such as Whose line is it anyway?
And finally if you have an audience of a particular age watching a show about adults fighting monsters then ... they are already watching a show about adults .... why would the writers look at these numbers and say 'well clearly the majority of our audience is teenage (girls), they MUST want to watch a show about people their own age let's make it a show about people their own age' ...
I find it interesting that there are no increased numbers of teenage boys on the show. So the writers are not REALLY trying to swing the age of the show lower. Though they may be trying to increase the appeal to the 20-29 year old (straight) male demo .... and look at that on the graph
These numbers may be accurate and the 14 episodes earlier and the 14 episodes later may show the same thing, I don't know because I haven't seen that data, but I have reservations about what this dataset is saying.
I know a good few people who watch SPN - one is in her early twenties, 3 are in their thirties, I am in my early forties and I know 2 who are 50 or older (I don't think any of them will post on your poll but I have) I also know one guy and he is 40 (and gay, though that may not have any relevance to anything being discussed here
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I know enough about statistics to be able to say you have to be careful with them and have to question what a data set might be saying and what it might prove. But I am definitely not an expert on how TV works and how demos can be interpreted so y'all are free to argue with any or all of the points I made here