Pokemon DVR Ratings Thread

[JinksChow]

Another update, same old same old. Pokémon is out of top 10, Yokai Watch Jam is in 10th place, yadayadayada.

Thankfully, the rerun episodes are finally over, so we can soon get an idea as to whether this unexpected hiatus gave any short term boosts to viewership ratings.

Also, this isn't related to ratings or anything, but can whichever moderator who's been merging my posts stop doing so? I know this is technically double posting, but the contents of my posts vary greatly (replying to someone else, update on ratings, posting about Detective Pikachu etc.), and by merging them you're just creating a massive text wall. I've seen double posts in other threads that are left untouched, so I would really appreciate it if you can unmerge my posts as well. Thanks in advance.

 

[JinksChow]

We're back guys!

Pokémon is once again airing new episodes on Sundays, so it's finally time to continue the comparison with SM!

We don't see a noticeable bump in ratings for Pokémon (2019), but that could be due to Doraemon overperforming (It got first place in the overall rankings that week, compared to its usual third or fourth place).

One thing of note, is that Pokémon (2019) is super consistent, whereas Pokémon SM is like a roller coaster. This is the tenth episode in a row that Pokémon (2019) got fourth place, which probably means there's a dedicated audience watching the anime. Here's hoping that ratings increase in the coming weeks.

 

[JinksChow]

Comparison in OP has been updated to Episode 24

 

[JinksChow]

Sorry for the lack of updates last week, I was a bit busy and forgot to update the comparison.

In other news, for the first time ever, Pokémon (2019) has finally cracked into the top 3 for weekly anime ratings!

However, this is more the case that one of the usual top 3 (in this case, Anpanman) did not air that particular week, so Pokémon (2019) was able to take its place; if you look at the ratings for that episode of Pokémon (2019), we can find that ratings for the highest ranked episode of Pokémon (2019) is actually among the lowest rated episode for the current series.

As for Pokémon Sun and Moon, ratings for corresponding episodes are once again yoyoing all over the place. (From 34.9 up to 68.4 and back down to 40.7)

 

[JinksChow]

Rankings for episodes 27 - 33 updated in OP.

For a while there, Pokémon Journeys/Pokémon (2019) was dangerously close to slipping into the 40's, but luckily it's picked itself up and is now back in the mid 50's, while even managing to break into the 60's once.

(Interestingly enough, the peak happened during the Go-only episode... Either the audience tuned in for the new OP, or people were interested in the episode.)

During the same span of episodes, Pokémon Sun and Moon mainly hovered in the low 40's, with a single dip to 30's and a single peak to 50's.

As for rankings, Pokémon Journeys/Pokémon (2019) has so far stayed entirely in the top half of top 10, while Pokémon Sun and Moon has mainly been in the bottom half of top 10.

I'll probably be sticking to this format of updates, as in updating for a batch of episodes at once rather than updating every week.

 

[JinksChow]

Rankings for episodes 34 - 39 updated in OP.

For Pokémon Journeys/Pokémon (2019), while there is a bump in ratings for the Alola reunion episode (Episode 37) when compared to the immediately preceding and following episode, the rise is certainly less than expected. During this span of episodes, the series has generally followed the trend of the previous update, which is to say it bounced around in the 50's with a single drop into high 40's and single peak into low 60's.

As for Pokémon Sun and Moon... Remember how I commented that the series is like a rollercoaster in terms of rankings and ratings? Well, that could not be more apparent in this batch of updates, which had most of the episodes hovering around 40 pts, with a rise into 50's for Episode 34 and a MASSIVE SPIKE into 80's for Episode 37. While this might seem out of the blue, this can be easily explained when you look at the episode itself, as it featured the debut of Dusk Form Lycanroc, which also doubled as the first official reveal of the Pokémon by the Pokémon Company.

Anyways, this is the last update before episodes for the current series switch over to the new timeslot. So as a recap, let's just look back and see just how damaging this timeslot change was to the normal viewership of the Pokémon anime series, which is separate from DVR ratings.

During the same span of episodes (1-39), Best Wishes appearance in the top 10 rankings was at 94.9% (37 episodes), XY appearance in the top 10 ranking was at 87.2% (34 episodes), while Sun and Moon appearance in the top 10 ranking was also at 87.2% (34 episodes).

For Pokémon Journeys/Pokémon (2019), its appearance in the top 10 ranking was at a measly 5.1% (2 episodes).

Again, there's always the argument that viewership ratings do not matter, TVTokyo does not care, the anime would keep on airing, etc.

But, you cannot look at these ratings and argue that the timeslot change has been beneficial to the Pokémon anime series. Thankfully, TVTokyo has seemingly recognised this as well and changed the timeslot for the Pokémon anime series to avoid clashing with other popular family-friendly anime series.

Hopefully, this change will be reflected in viewership ratings, and I will be doing the next update once we get ratings for the entire Sword & Shield arc, which funnily enough coincides with the Kanto visit and the start of the Nebby arc back in Sun and Moon, so things should get interesting...

 

[Dogasu]

But, you cannot look at these ratings and argue that the timeslot change has been beneficial to the Pokémon anime series.

You cannot look at these ratings and argue that the timeslot change has hurt the Pokémon anime series, either. And that's because DVR Ratings are just that - DVR Ratings. Nothing more, nothing less.

Again, DVR Ratings are not the same as overall viewership ratings. To get that information you'd need to combine live TV ratings, DVR Ratings, YouTube streams, Hulu streams, and Amazon Prime streams. And none of these operate inside a vacuum, either. Do the TV ratings go up in the weeks when the DVR ratings go down? What do the streaming numbers look like now compared to even a year ago? How many of the YouTube views come from the direct links posted by the anime's official Twitter account?

There are so many factors at play here that going "Well the DVR ratings are down, guess nobody likes the Pokémon anime anymore" is completely disingenuous.

 

[JinksChow]

You cannot look at these ratings and argue that the timeslot change has hurt the Pokémon anime series, either. And that's because DVR Ratings are just that - DVR Ratings. Nothing more, nothing less.

Again, DVR Ratings are not the same as overall viewership ratings. To get that information you'd need to combine live TV ratings, DVR Ratings, YouTube streams, Hulu streams, and Amazon Prime streams. And none of these operate inside a vacuum, either. Do the TV ratings go up in the weeks when the DVR ratings go down? What do the streaming numbers look like now compared to even a year ago? How many of the YouTube views come from the direct links posted by the anime's official Twitter account?

There are so many factors at play here that going "Well the DVR ratings are down, guess nobody likes the Pokémon anime anymore" is completely disingenuous.

Except I was not talking about DVR ratings in that statement, I was talking about ratings from Video Research Ltd. I was comparing ratings from Video Research Ltd for different series. (And yes, demographics have big changes in-between different series, that's why a comparison in viewership ratings is also not the full picture, also rise in streaming means tv viewership is in decline, etc etc)

And yes, we don't have ratings for every possible way to view the anime, but there is clearly a point where we have enough data to make a conclusion. I've used two publicly available sources for viewership comparison, and I have even stated in a previous post that the comparison, at the very least, "show rise and fall of interest within the platform itself". If that's the case, then whether or not that trend extends outside of DVR and TV (as per Video Research Ltd) is up to interpretation.

Finally, I never said "DVR ratings are down, guess nobody likes the Pokémon anime anymore", putting words in someone else's mouth is disingenuous.

But fine, to be pedantic and absolutely clear-cut, how about I reframe my statement as such:

The timeslot change has caused tv viewership of the Pokemon anime to drop to never-before-seen levels, however this does not mean other venues of viewing the Pokemon anime have seen a drop in numbers as well; now that TVTokyo is switching the Pokemon anime to a new timeslot, tv viewership might finally get a bump, but this does not mean other venues of viewing the Pokemon anime would see a rise in numbers as well

 

[JinksChow]

So... it's been quite some time since I updated this thread, but now DVR ratings for Episodes 40-54 have been updated for both series in the OP.

Comparing corresponding episodes for Pokémon (2019) (or Pokémon JN, as it's now more commonly abbreviated as) to Pokémon Sun and Moon, it would seem that JN is starting to stagnate against SM. (Side Note: Episode 40 and 41 for JN were unable to rank mainly due to sudden influx of Kimetsu no Yaiba; like seriously, half of the top 10 ranking was just that show)

Also, it occurred to me that we might need a benchmark for ratings, so I might add a column to compare the ratings of Pokemon against a consistent performer (e.g. Doraemon or One Piece). However, since interest for this thread is not high, I'll probably put this off until I can motivate myself to do another update in a few months time.

 

[JinksChow]

Ok, so I previously said I would update the OP in a few months time, but I've actually gone ahead and updated Episodes 55-57, as well as added comparisons against Doraemon and One Piece, for both series.

Unfortunately, since TVGuide overhauled its website, some of the weekly data for Pokemon SM before Episode 18 have been lost; I've done some extrapolation to the best of my abilities, but those weeks have been labelled with question marks to indicate incomplete data.

However, with this added comparison, there is actually some new conclusions which we can draw, namely:

1. The rollercoaster performance from Pokemon SM in the first 57 episodes is more to do with Doraemon just not airing in those particular weeks (For some reason, Doraemon took a lot of breaks in 2017). If we compare Pokemon SM against One Piece, its performance is slightly smoother, though not without its ups and downs.
2. Due to the immense popularity of Jujutsu Kaisen and the final season of Attack on Titan, episodes after Episode 50 for Pokemon JN have been seeing unusually low ratings. However, even if we weighted the ratings against Doraemon as a benchmark, we can see that ratings for Pokemon JN are still quite low.
3. If we plot the performance of Pokemon SM and JN against Doraemon and One Piece, the trendline for SM is actually slightly upwards while JN is trending downwards, even before the timeslot change.

Of course, please note that there are other venues for viewing the Pokemon anime, so what we are seeing here is merely a sample of the entire target audience. As such, we cannot conclusively say that the trends seen here apply to all of Japan.

 

[JinksChow]

Ratings and comparisons for Episodes 58-60 have been updated in the OP, both JN and SM are just holding steady at the moment.

 

[JinksChow]

Ratings and comparisons for Episodes 61-65 have been updated in the OP.

Thanks to the Jujutsu Kaisen anime finishing its TV run, rankings for Pokemon JN have somewhat recovered. However, the comparison with Doraemon shows that there is little change to its relative popularity. In addition, what's more worrying is that Iris's return (Episode 65) had negligible effect on ratings and failed to boost Pokemon JN into the weekly top 10 of Video Research Ltd's viewership rating, as opposed to the Alola gang's return (Episode 37) which gave a considerable spike in ratings and landed Pokemon JN in 10th place on Video Research Ltd's viewership rating. Conversely, Pokemon SM continues to do its own thing and bounced around in ratings for the equivalent period of episodes

I'll do my next update once ratings for the second episode of Project Mew (Episode 71) comes out, hopefully Gary's return gives a much needed boost.

 

[JinksChow]

Ratings and comparisons for Episodes 66-71 for JN and Episodes 66-71 for SM (since SM71-72 is a double episode and have the same ratings) have been updated in the OP.

In celebration of the announcement of Dawn's upcoming return, let's look at the DVR ratings for Gary's return shall we?

From a cursory look, it seems that ratings for JN are now back on an upward trend, and the episode with the highest rating is actually Gary's second episode! (Gary's first episode was just middle of the road, so you win some and you lose some.) Whereas for SM, it appears that ratings are still bottoming out at the low 40's, with the two standouts occurring in weeks where Doraemon was on hiatus, thus artificially boosting ratings.

Here's hoping that Dawn's return boosts JN's ratings even more! However, I cannot for the life of me figure out why they would delay Dawn's return until after the Olympics...

The opening ceremony for the Olympics is scheduled to be July 23, while the closing ceremony is scheduled to be August 8. Dawn's return is literally airing on the same day as the opening ceremony! Why is the anime going on a break for undisclosed period of time for the Olympics, just as the Olympics are about to end?!

 

[KenzeyEevee]

Ratings and comparisons for Episodes 66-71 for JN and Episodes 66-71 for SM (since SM71-72 is a double episode and have the same ratings) have been updated in the OP.

In celebration of the announcement of Dawn's upcoming return, let's look at the DVR ratings for Gary's return shall we?

From a cursory look, it seems that ratings for JN are now back on an upward trend, and the episode with the highest rating is actually Gary's second episode! (Gary's first episode was just middle of the road, so you win some and you lose some.) Whereas for SM, it appears that ratings are still bottoming out at the low 40's, with the two standouts occurring in weeks where Doraemon was on hiatus, thus artificially boosting ratings.

Here's hoping that Dawn's return boosts JN's ratings even more! However, I cannot for the life of me figure out why they would delay Dawn's return until after the Olympics...

The opening ceremony for the Olympics is scheduled to be July 23, while the closing ceremony is scheduled to be August 8. Dawn's return is literally airing on the same day as the opening ceremony! Why is the anime going on a break for undisclosed period of time for the Olympics, just as the Olympics are about to end?!

I dont know lol. One week isnt a lot, but still

 

[JinksChow]

I usually don't do quick updates for this thread, but the recent 1-hour special which gave us the first look at Dawn's upcoming return in JN (Right Before Summer Vacation 1-Hour Special!) actually appeared in the Video Research Ltd's Weekly Top 10 viewership rating, coming in at 9th place with 2.2 points.

While this may not seem much, keep in mind that this is actually only the 3rd time that Pokemon JN has actually appeared in Video Research Ltd's Weekly Top 10, with the other 2 times being JN007 (this episode was able to rank mainly due to airing during the last week of December, thus most other anime are on break) and JN037 (which featured the return of the Alola gang). In addition, this is the 1st time it's appeared since the time slot change.

Hopefully, this means the audience in Japan is actually hyped for Dawn's return to the JN anime, and that they'll somehow decide to tune in to JN074-075... rather than watching the Olympics.

 

[JinksChow]

Ratings and comparisons for Episodes 72-81 for JN and SM have been updated in the OP.

Looking at JN074-075 and the episodes following, it does look like Dawn's return provided a small boost in ratings. However, this can only be seen when comparing against One Piece, and it appears that ratings for JN are holding steady in the low 50's.

For SM, the ratings for this batch of episodes are mostly in the high 30's.

 

[JinksChow]

Ratings and comparisons for Episodes 82-92 for JN and SM have been updated in the OP.

Thanks to Kimetsu no Yaiba S2, the absolute ratings for JN has absolutely plummeted. However, if we look at the relative ratings to Doraemon and One Piece, we can see that JN has actually performed pretty consistently, with ratings even picking up starting from the second DP arc.

For SM, the ratings for this batch of episodes mostly range around mid 30's to mid 40's. Unfortunately, since the the old website has been taken down, data for SM ratings would start to become spotty from this point onwards. As such, this thread may soon become just a ratings thread for JN, and I will input data for SM ratings whenever they are available.