My So-Called Life - Ratings

Ratings

For its original run in the United States, it aired on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET against four top-10 hit sitcoms — Mad About You and Friends on NBC, as well as the popular Martin and Living Single on Fox, undoubtedly contributing to the series' low ratings.

The producers said that they could not fault ABC for the creative freedom and support they gave them during production, as there were probably few networks that would have even put My So-Called Life on the air in the first place. However, it was clear that ABC had tremendous difficulty in effectively promoting the show.

My So-Called Life was produced before the explosion of youth and teen programming. The culture of television would change significantly in the years that immediately followed, most notably with the rise of The WB and UPN, networks that would eventually cater to the teenaged audience My So-Called Life sought, in the late 1990s and early 2000s (decade) (The WB and UPN launched just two weeks and one week respectively before My So-Called Life's run on ABC ended). Holzman never intended the show to be exclusively for teens. This may have been even more confusing for the network in terms of placement and promotion as the show clearly was of interest to a broader audience. In the end, not enough viewers of any age were watching the show during its initial network run. ABC was more focused on larger ratings numbers and wider demographics. Holzman said, "It is one thing to have huge ratings, but it is quite another to have smaller ratings but with an extremely passionate following. I don't understand why the network did not understand that."

In conversations with then ABC President Bob Iger, producers Zwick and Herskovitz told him that by broadcasting My So-Called Life the network was giving a voice to millions of young women who otherwise had no voice on network television. The show was making money for the network, and they told Iger he should keep the show on the air for no other reason than "good corporate works", yet ABC simply could not yet see the economic appeal of an audience of teenage girls. At the end of its first season's run, the series ranked at #116 with a 7.0 rating with 6,678,000 homes tuning in from 1994 to 1995.