Phineas and Ferb Wiki:Newsletter submissions/The Numbers Game: Ten Years in the Making

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After months upon months of speculation, discussion, and anticipation, it finally happened earlier this month: pitchers and catchers reported to baseball's Spring Training! (All the more special for those of us up in the frozen tundra, as this is the first true sign that spring is on its way - groundhogs be forgotten.) And something else is happening also: The Numbers Game! This is the newsletter column that breaks down the numbers of our favorite show, back with some new ones for your perusal.

The long-awaited "Act Your Age" continued Season 4 on Emoticon Monday, Ferb-ruary 9. Along the way, 712 thousand viewers found out what might have been and what actually was, earning a 0.1 rating among Adults 18-49 in the process. Exact numbers for the initial Disney Channel airing on Friday, Ferb-ruary 20 remain a secret to everybody, but based on its lead-in I would estimate it to have been even to slightly up over the previous episode "Lost in Danville / The Inator Method".

But let's try to put that viewership figure in some perspective. I was able to get Phineas and ferb ratings on Emoticon for a short time last year; during that period, none of three new episodes scored higher than 522 thousand. Even the Platypus Day marathon that dominated its week's viewership chart was likewise unable to reach the viewership of this new episode.

Looking at things another way. Emoticon averaged 428 thousand viewers in prime time over the last four weeks, a figure that "Act Your Age" well outpaced. Meanwhile, Disney Channel averaged 1.772 million viewers in the same time period, which neither of the 2015 premieres may have even matched (depending on how well the newest episode actually did). That means about four times as many viewers watched the big channel last month. If you take that 712 thousand figure and quadruple it, that gives about 2.8 million; the last Phineas and Ferb episode to actually draw that well on Disney Channel was the "Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror" all the way back on October 5, 2013. So while I wouldn't necessarily call them great ratings - as it falls short of Emoticon ratings leader Gravity Falls, which drew 1.169 million for its most recent new episode - "Act Your Age" was by no means a straggler.

With no new episodes of Phineas and Ferb scheduled at the moment, The Numbers Game heads into the archives next issue, just in time for Platypus Day 2015, falling this year on Saturday, March 7! And Perry has no shortage of adventures to look back at, but which one will it be? Even I don't know yet. Until then, leave your thoughts down below, go Brewers!, and remember...that the numbers never lie.

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