What is good ratings for an American channel no one has heard of?

I do think it's very British, even London, specific so I'm not surprised the American are struggling. It's hard to know whether they will fall for something that is almost too British (in a Four Weddings kind of way) or just find it too remote (as I suspect I would if it were set in Sweden). I thought with all the RP and large houses they might buy into the Englishness of it - but I guess not, if those numbers are poor ratings.

Perhaps C4 can make it cheaper with few less glossy settings. We don't need massive car parks/forests/under water shots for series 2. And there's no William Hurt fees to pay out for.

Seriously, it must have been one of C4's most successful shows in years. I can't imagine they wouldn't make at least one more series.

Does anyone know what the ratings are for Episodes (the BBC 2 show) on both sides?

To draw comparison, I think the Caitlyn Jenner series is shown on US cable and got sonething like ~4m viewers which was considered good. US TV factor in the age of viewers too, the 21-49 demo being most sought after IIRC.

One more episode - 42 minutes - would be a very abrupt ending.

Well agree, but 4 million viewers is far different from 1 million.

No matter how upscale the demographic is, that tiny figure causes a show cancellation always in the US on any cable channel.

I think people should remember that while Indian Summers and No Offence were both critically acclaimed and rightly so, their ratings both dropped off sharply.

And for Humans, Channel 4 has only released the episode 1 viewing figures, that concerns me.

I'm agreeing with you WAMD, it's just surprising how low US figures are given their population, that even middlingly successful broadcasts get under 5m. Bizarre.

I think anything below 2-3m would be deemed a flop/turkey.

Drastic budget cuts I say!

Just double checked, was wrong in first post. The Channel 4 / AMC budget for series 1 was £12 million, still nearly 2 million an episode though which is a big commitment for Channel 4 on its own. Must be the expensive London location of the shoot.

Channel 4 has to judge whether ratings are sliding as often happens with drama series and will that continue in a second series when the novelty factor is gone.

It's worth remembering that the 7-day consolidated ratings for the first six episodes have all come in at around 4.2m, so there is a decent-sized, stable audience - they're just not watching it live.

Obviously that also highlights an issue with how consolidated figures can be monetised, but the point is that people are actually watching the show even if the overnights don't look like it.

I watch it via my PVR so I must be one of the viewers in the "consolidated" amount.

Several of our friends have been recording Humans and plan to watch the whole 8-episode season after it has finished airing. We record it to watch twice later in the week.

Personally I don't expect it to last beyond two seasons.

I do wonder why it costs 2 million per episode. It's not big on special effects and it appears to be filmed 'locally' (rather than, for example, costly locations outside the UK).

I also think the first couple of episodes were not the best. Although I enjoyed them, the 'action' parts with Leo and the synths could have put some viewers off, as it was hard to work out what was going on at that point. Perhaps the US figures will pick up again as the series progresses.

It's a depressing reflection of audience taste though when the Caitlyn Jenner show picks up four times more viewers than a decent drama.

I don't know the show you mention, but I find it seriously depressing that Mrs. Brown's Boys, which I find moronic, regularly pulls in 9 - 10 million viewers.

Totally agree there ... unbelievable figures for a load of toilet humour nonsense without an ounce of wit. I'd much rather enjoy another three series of the Inbetweeners!

I think with AMC they'll be more concerned about the "quality" of the viewers than raw quantity. So it will depend on the type of people watching. For instance...

I think also that sci-fi is possibly more a lads' thing than something that ladies would usually look out for (I could be way wide of the mark here!) so don't let's lose sight of the fact that the leading actresses are all pretty good looking into the bargain .. particularly Anita/Mia, Niska, Voss, Laura and Mattie (sorry Vera, you're just not really my type!).

If the story ever was to drag (actually I don't think it has at all, which is why so many of us 'can't wait for the next episode') then the visual appeal would probably serve to keep the audience watching.

Do we know yet whether a second season has been commissioned?

It gets less than half a million on Showtime.

Season 4 Ratings

It was doing over a million on BBC2 in the earlier seasons, not sure how the 4th season did.

A 5th Season was announced last month.


They've been in talks about a second series but nothing has been announced.

First of all, knock it off with the all-too-typical British "Americans are stupid" refrain. Americans make stuff a lot smarter and more subtle than this (which is not to insult Humans at all, because I think it is very good series).

Second, you have no context in which to interpret these ratings on AMC. AMC -- notwithstanding all the attention it gets because it has had some hugely critically-acclaimed and award-winning shows -- is a small cable channel in the US market with small ratings as a norm. Also, unlike in the UK where number of total viewers matter, in America the important rating is the age 18-49 demographic, which is represented in audience share percentage. Sunday's episode of Humans on AMC got a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demo, which is DOUBLE the 18-49 rating of the episode of the series that aired after it on Sunday night, Halt And Catch Fire. HACF is fully an AMC production so it no doubt costs AMC a lot more money than the portion of Humans' budget that Channel 4 isn't paying. Bottom line: Humans is good "value for money" for AMC. I can't imagine that AMC executives will be anything other than delighted to co-fund a season 2, and probably look forward to having the show well beyond season 2.

Is it though? AMC is only a basic cable network. Aside from The Walking Dead, which gets utterly insane ratings for basic cable, ratings that would be great for a broadcast network, I don't think that AMC tends to get great ratings for anything.

Mad Men and Breaking Bad only usually got a couple of million or so per episode.


You may not have heard of AMC, but have you heard of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead? All three are AMC original dramas.

Yes, that's correct. It had a dark side to the story but there was also humour as well. It was a very well balanced storyline, very clever.

4mill for a US cable channel is seriously proper.

The Americans is amazing and doesn't get quite that, and that's up for Emmey's.

Fwiw The Americans also struggles to get 1 mill live - it's all about time-shifting nowadays.

I don't understand the budget, 90% of E7 was filmed in the bloody kitchen.

Big cast though.

Breaking Bad yes. Never seen it but I hear it's amazing so it's interesting that it's the same channel as Humans.

The figure of 4m was what was hoped for the Caitlyn Jenner programme but it only had 2.73m viewers.

With AMC, if they are happy with a programme they'll still be interested in Humans being renewed. They renewed Hell on Wheels after season one even though the ratings weren't as good as hoped and it eventually garnered great viewing figures even though it was shown on Saturday nights which in the US is not a good night for television viewers. It will be ending next yea,r but made it to season 5 because it became so popular.

Couldn't watch this last episode live, and have only just caught up. I thought it was a really good episode, a bit slower than last week perhaps but still a lot happening. George and Odi was so sad I wonder if Hobb will find whatever it is in Odi's memory that was going to make George bash his head in when he thought he couldn't be fixed? Hopefully that will keep him from destroying Odi. I thought it was interesting to see the dynamics between the concious synths and the family when they were all grouped together. I'm hoping next week will give us a final answer on Hobb's motivation; was he telling the truth to Fred when he said he wanted to help or was he telling the truth to Karen when he said he'd help stop the others? Or was he lying to both of them and really he has a whole different plan. I can't see Max being dismissed as junk as they were caught by Hobb who already knows all about them, he saw Max on the bridge with Leo last week, he knows he's an advanced synth too.


I've been assuming that the rain on the window triggered a memory of rescuing Leo from the car (as Mia was trying to fight through the Anita code) and she thought she had to take Sophie to keep her safe, then presumably at some point on the walk either Mia came to her senses or Anita took back over and they came back home. It would be good to have actual confirmation though, but I'm not sure they'll fit it in to the final episode.


Leo does come across as very stroppy, I'm not sure I'd call him likeable but I certainly feel a fair amount of sympathy for him and I do find his character understandable given what's happened in his life. Niska I actually do like.


I loved how when that police car showed up her first reaction was to grab a weapon! I think she's brilliantly played as a mixture of hard and vulnerable; in any fight or flight situation she always picks fight, but you can see how it comes from her being scared, and when she feels safe and not under threat her softer side comes out.


None of the older male characters in this (George, Hobb, David Elster) have alzheimers, Georges's slight memory loss was caused by a stroke.



Like others my first thought with Fred's hand thing was that it was something Hobb had done to track him (given that Hobb said he had a way to find them), but I'm not entirely sure. The first time he did it was right before the helicopter showed up, and the second time was just before the police car so it could be that he was just sensing the radio signals from them or something. I also noticed that him and Niska were both doing exactly the same thing when plugged in charging. I guess we'll find out next episode.

All the synths do the fourth finger thing when charging. Fred was different in the garden because he kind of stopped as well as the hand thing - and in the garden his mouth was also moving, though he didn't do that the second time in the house I don't think. Hobb also said he had a way of finding out where they synths were - what would that be if it wasn't that he'd somehow wired up Fred?

I assume the fourth finger is just to show the synths are working. I noticed Niska smile when she reactivated Odi and his fourth finger moved.


Less than half a million and it's made it to 5 series - so there's hope for a second series of Humans yet.

Showtime and HBO are premium cable channels, you pay a separate subscription for them, so half a million is quite good. Much like Sky Atlantic being happy with 60,000 people watching Mad Men. AMC is basic cable and many basic cable shows in the US get cancelled if audience drops below 2 million.

Channel 4's is financially weak as a kitten still, (they just dumped the NFL rights, which are not expensive).

Please nobody have a canary if Humans is not renewed.