If you watched the premiere of Defiance on Monday night, and if you posted about that on a social networking site, you were not alone. Not only did one of Syfy‘s biggest and most ambitious undertakings to date bring in record viewership numbers, it won the night in “social exposures,” which sounds like an unfortunate middle school incident but is actually a good thing for the show and for the network.
To celebrate, we have a featurette with showrunner Kevin Murphy and star Grant Bowler talking about the pilot (not TOO spoilery, but best watched after you’ve seen the premiere) entitled “Shooting the Shtako” (yes it means what you think it means), and the press release with all of the numbers, for you digit heads out there.
Featurette: Defiance – Shooting the Shtako: Pilot
[youtube]http://youtu.be/B5ZYMzmLPkM[/youtube]
NEW EARTH. NEW RULES. NEW RECORDS!
SYFY’S TRANSMEDIA EVENT DEFIANCE MOST-WATCHED SCRIPTED SERIES PREMIERE AMONG ADULTS 18-49 SINCE 2006
2.7 MILLION TOTAL VIEWERS, 1.4 MILLION ADULTS 25-54 AND 1.3 MILLION ADULTS 18-49
MORE THAN SIX MILLION GAMEPLAY HOURS WORLDWIDE
RECORD NUMBER OF SOCIAL EXPOSURES
NEW YORK – April 16, 2013 – New Earth. New Rules. New Records. Syfy’s groundbreaking transmedia event Defiance became the channel’s most-watched scripted series premiere among Adults 18-49 (1.3 million) since 2006 (Eureka).
Defiance also delivered Syfy’s top performance in total viewers (2.7 million) and Adults 25-54 (1.4 million) since 2009 (Warehouse 13) during its two-hour telecast on Monday, April 15 from 9-11PM (ET/PT). While averaging a 2.0 HH rating, Defiance also averaged 479,000 Adults 18-34, the most for a scripted series premiere since 2006.
Since launching worldwide on April 2nd, the Trion Worlds game Defiance has seen players log more than six million hours of gameplay.
Defiance ranked among the top five scripted cable shows in social activity on premiere day, earning 59K social exposures to rank as Syfy’s best series premiere day and its most social scripted telecast ever. It outperformed HBO’s Game of Thrones and The Newsroom, FX’s The Americans, TNT’s Falling Skies and MTV’s Teen Wolf on their respective premiere days. In addition, Syfy Sync – Syfy’s second screen tablet offering – posted its best day ever in uniques and visits as well as the 2nd best performance in page views.
Defiance became Syfy.com’s best series premiere day ever in uniques, page views and visits, while ranking as the #1 section of Syfy’s Digital Portfolio across key metrics.
Defiance is NBC Universal’s biggest day-and-date launch ever, premiering in over 55 countries on April 15th and 16th including the UK, Canada, Germany and France.
Beginning next Monday, April 22, Defiance will assume its regular 9PM time period, followed on Monday, April 29 by the season return of Warehouse 13 at 10PM, comprising Syfy’s Powerful Mondays programming bloc.
Defiance’s luminous cast includes Grant Bowler, Julie Benz, Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran, Jaime Murray, Graham Greene and Mia Kirshner. Set in the near future, Defiance introduces an exotically transformed planet Earth, its landscapes permanently altered following the sudden – and tumultuous – arrival of seven unique alien races. In this somewhat unknown and unpredictable landscape, the richly diverse, newly-formed civilization of humans and aliens must learn to co-exist peacefully. Each week, viewers will follow an immersive character drama set in the boom-town of Defiance, which sits atop the ruins of St. Louis, Missouri, while in the game, players will experience the new frontier of the San Francisco Bay area.
The series is executive produced by Kevin Murphy (Desperate Housewives, Caprica, Hellcats), who also serves as showrunner, Michael Taylor (Battlestar Galactica) and Rockne O’Bannon (Farscape). Scott Stewart (Legion, Priest) directed the pilot; Michael Nankin serves as supervising producer/director on the series. Defiance is produced by Universal Cable Productions.
Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 98 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast Corporation.(Syfy. Imagine greater.)
Congratulations to everyone involved in the show, and to everyone who watched and enjoyed it, because things are looking good. You can check out our spoiler-free review of the first three episodes here.
Defiance, starring Grant Bowler, Julie Benz, Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran, Jaime Murray, and Graham Greene, airs Mondays at 9/8c on Syfy.
