A few years back, Seven commissioned some
research into why the ratings of drama (particularly crime drama)
were dropping over the course of long series which had continuous
storylines. It showed that if a viewer misses two episodes of series,
they’re unlikely
to return to it, believing they’ve missed too much
of the story.

So why did Seven break this rule with its US series, 24? Even allowing for the disruptive nature of the Big Brother final night just over a week ago, 24
has lost a truckload of viewers in the past two to three weeks, turning it
from a revived hit into a wobbler. The numbers are down from around one
million when it started to a low of 698,000 last week, and back up to
898,000 last night, and it’s now running behind Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope on the ABC and Cold Case on Nine.

Three Sundays ago, Seven showed two episodes of 24
on Sunday night. Not only was this an unsuccessful experiment,
because the audience presumably didn’t know about the temporary switch
of timeslot from Monday to Sunday, but it seems to have wounded the
show. So by ignoring their own research and playing two episodes
on a “special” different night, Seven sabotaged the show. All the fans
who missed the double episode are now “unlikely” to come back to 24.