"Mama's Family" ratings on i Network boad well for DVD releases! (1 Viewer)

Check out this article about the debut of "Mama's Family" on the i Network (formerly PAX). The show has been receiving huge ratings, which I'm sure will help the release of future seasons past this month's Season 1.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060815/en_tv_eo/19771

To find the i Network in your area, check here: http://www.ionline.tv/

The phrase "huge ratings" is open to interpretation. And it doesn't mean today what it meant in, for instance, 1964.

The article says "Mama's Family" averaged 830,000 viewers. I'm not sure how many homes that equals. Let's say 500,000.

With the U.S. population about to hit 300,000,000, 830,000 viewers is a whopping one-fourth of 1% of the population. That's hardly anything to get excited over.

Also, it's very unlikely that even these hardcore "Mama's Family" viewers are DVD buyers. In fact, the article makes this snide comment:

"Viewership for the sixth and final episode fell to 917,000. It aired at 10:30 p.m., and presumably fell victim to lights-out restrictions at assisted-living facilities."

Anyway, my point is "huge ratings" is a relative term. Relative to the other shows on i, the ratings are impressive. But in the whole scheme of things, it's barely a blip.

I love "Mama's Family," and hope the DVDs are successful; but this article is really no reason to feel encouraged.

personally, I hope "i" reruns Mama's Family to death. Why? the ONLY Warner sitcoms that seem to do well on DVD are the ones that are played to death in reruns. Friends, Fresh Prince, Full House, while Gilligan's Island isn't played much now, for 20-30 years it was.... Even Night Court, which at one time used to be shown to death in syndication in the early 90's (but not so much since), didn't quite make it on DVD. So I hope that incessant airing of Mama's Family does the trick and we can get more than the first season.

Actually those ratings are pretty good by comparison. Adult Swim on Cartoon Network reguarly trumpants ratings numbers around 800,000 for most of their popular shows. Family guy on occassion even hits upwards of 1,000,000. So it's a pretty good showing for a show as old as Mama's Family. I'm impressed.

For a show this old and obscure, any publicity is good publicity. If Yahoo does a report on Mama's Family, that certainly couldn't hurt matters.

I wouldn't call Mama's Family that obscure, the show was on TBS up until a few months ago. It's had a pretty healthy shelf life for a 1980's sitcom that wasn't Cosby or Cheers

On second thought, you are correct. It's just that when people talk about old shows, they easily mention Cosby/Cheers, etc....but how often do you hear Mama come up?! LOL

All I can say is "whatever it takes" to get more than one season of a good show. I am sick of these damned one season only cop outs!

Anyone think we could see Season 2 in time for the Christmas rush?

I watch it every weekday, so I hope that's good.

I think that would be a bit of a rush. If S1 does well, then maybe a February/March release. But pushing out another season three months after the first? Plus we don't want it to be lost in the glut of Christmas releases...all high profile.

Still waiting for the review of running times.

Has anybody seen any reviews for this,or is it too early?

Let me just say this once: if they screw this up in any way, I'll be saying things that'll make Mama sound like Mother Teresa.

I just did a search on DVD Basen for any reviews and came up empty. If anything, I'd give it a while more before reviews start popping up. This isn't a major release and it's a relatively obscure TV show. Not going to help it's cause at all.

I should get a copy to review in the near future, I am looking forward. While it's not one of my favorite series, Mama's Family has always been good entertainment and I would definately love to own both the NBC and syndication episodes.

When TBS aired Mama's Family,they would show the first season epsiodes (not sure about other season episodes)out of order.Let's hope they are shown in their proper order,and are uncut.

The tapes provided to the i network are syndicated cuts, sorry. Hopefully that doesn't bode badly for what Warner will use on their DVDs...

The reasons for my concern are:

1. The running time listed on the box, divided by 13, equals about 21 minutes.
2. There is a credit for "Telepictures Distribution" on the box.
3. This was an independent production, not produced by Warner Bros. or a company they acquired.

As for the shows being out of order --- at least with DVDs, you can watch them in the correct order, even if they're not laid out on the DVDs that way.

I have a strong feeling these will be cut, syndicated versions --- which registers a strong NO SALE with me.