The finale for Lost drew in 13.5 million viewers, which is very good for a long running series conclusion these days. However, the finale didn’t even come close to approaching the tens of millions that watched the conclusions of other shows, like M*A*S*H, Friends and Cheers.

“After months of fan anticipation and network hype, Sunday evening’s show was the most-watched Lost episode in more than two years, but still pulled in fewer viewers than episodes of some popular continuing series,” writes Shira Ovida. “For example, an average of 16 million people watched last week’s installment of CBS Corp. drama NCIS.”

The sixth and final season of Lost saw an a average of 11.6 million viewers per week, nearly a quarter below the peak of the series during the 2006-2007 season. The end of Lost and 24 is expected to put an end to shows with longer story arcs, as they are more expensive to make and worth less in syndication.

“You knew that it wouldn’t even come close [to the final episodes of M*A*S*H or Friends],” said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture, at Syracuse University. “Even though Lost proved that an audience will pay attention to something really complex, you can’t expect too many people who didn’t at least have some familiarity with the show to stick with it for 2 ½ hours.”

The final episode was preceded by a two-hour retrospective with interviews from cast, crew and production personnel. Air time during the finale cost $900,000 for 30 seconds, which some companies used to specifically target the Lost audience: Target promoted $10.99 smoke detectors with ads that featured the malevolent “smoke monster” from the show and the retrospective episode had text messages from fans thanks to Verizon Wireless.

ABC billed the end of Lost as a TV event with a highly dialed in audience. Such occurrences, along with sporting events like the Super Bowl, have become very important to advertisers because the audience is less likely to skip advertisements.

Source: Wall Street Journal