The German word is null. That's right, meine kinder, '30 Rock' -- a critically acclaimed series here in the U.S., what with 38 Emmy nominations and three wins for Outstanding Comedy Series -- earned a big fat zero in the ratings last weekend when the show made its debut on German TV.According to The Hollywood Reporter, the astonishingly low 0.0 rating translates into fewer than 5,000 viewers. It suggests that while Tina Fey's quick-witted humor is a notch above the American average, '30 Rock' may be far too much of a typically American comedy-satire to win over the notoriously hardline German funny bone.
Still, not even ZDF Neo, the subsidiary of the network ZDF that has openly touted '30 Rock' as the key to German ratings magic, was prepared for such scarce eyes on the tube.
Which is a problem: ZDF is hardly a German ratings juggernaut. THR noted that the network's goal is to double its viewership from its present 0.3% market share to 0.6%. That will be a challenge, for not only '30 Rock' but the BBC comedy series 'Taking the Flak' and the action flick 'The Sentinel' also failed to make an impression last weekend on the Deutsch dial.
With the network reportedly spending millions of Euros in an effort to lure new viewers, there may be one more German phrase worth mentioning: Das ist alles nicht gut ("None of this is any good").
Reader Comments (1)
Heffweisen at 12:11AM on Nov 4th 2009
Wrong. as the NY Times corrected: this was NOT the "German TV debut" -- zdfneo is only a dubbed channel NO one has.
30 Rock is on Tuesdays at 9pm (paired with Adult Swim!) on Turner … http://www.tnt-serie.de/
(You'd think AOL would know that!)
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/inevitable-chaos-more-30-rock-in-germany/