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Only 1.6 Million Viewers, But They Watch Closely

01.18.05 | by Christine C.

HBO is expected to announced this week whether it will renew the Best Television Drama Ever — The Wire, which finished its third season in December. The critically acclaimed — but consistently shut of out of the Emmy’s — series garnered only about 1.6 million viewers per week, about half the number that watched the previous season.

But a drug bust in New York last week proves that viewers take the show very seriously: Like the fictional Baltimore drug ring, members of a Queens drug ring dumped cell phones, making it difficult for investigators to tape their calls, and set up a business to launder drug money. From The New York Times:

Sergeant Rodriguez said several members of the gang were big fans of the HBO show and talked about it constantly. He said that the investigators could catch up on the latest developments in the show, if they hadn’t seen it, when members of the gang talked about it the next day. “If we missed anything, we got it from them Monday morning,” he said.

The investigation, which grew out of another drug case in southeast Queens in 2002, led to the seizure of 43 kilos of cocaine, 18 handguns and nearly a million dollars in cash, officials said.

No word yet on whether politicians have learned valuable lessons about the failing war on drugs.

Posted at 10:01 PM | Permalink | | Email Email | Print Print

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4 Responses to “Only 1.6 Million Viewers, But They Watch Closely”

  1. Interesting. How certain are you that HBO will be making an announcement concerning the Wire this week?

    I find it hard to believe only 1.6 million people are watching this show. I think this is a case of the sampling techniques failing.


    Posted by Machete on January 19th, 2005 at 9:23 am

  2. Not certain at all. I originally read that HBO’s Chris Albrecht would decide by mid-January, but later stories are more vague about the timing of the announcement. I’m not taking this as a positive sign: “I have received a telegram from every viewer of The Wire - all 250 of them,” Albrecht joked during the TV critics’ press tour this month.


    Posted by christine c. on January 19th, 2005 at 4:20 pm

  3. yeah … that one hurt when I saw it. No question where his sentiment lies.


    Posted by Machete on January 19th, 2005 at 5:10 pm

  4. The second season’s DVD came out this week. I had pre-ordered mine from Amazon for around $70 (free shipping). One guess is that HBO is waiting to see how these DVDs sell before commiting to a 4th season. I think it will be a true shame if this show does not come back, nothing on TV approaches it, not even any of the more popular HBO shows.


    Posted by Faisal M on January 25th, 2005 at 6:35 pm