What's in a Name?

One of my favorite television critics, Alan Sepinwall, has recently been advocating for the FX show Terriers, which has been doing terrier-bly (see what I did there?) in the ratings. One of the reasons he seems to think people aren't watching the show is the name, saying "It's been stuck with an unfortunate name, one that makes sense if you've seen the show...but does a poor job explaining the what it is to outsiders". That made me wonder if names actually have an effect on the success of a show. Is our attention span so short that we need a name that can sum up the series to us to actually be motivated to watch something? I thought it was stupid at first, but it actually kind of holds up.

Think about some of the most successful shows of the past few years. Most of them, you can figure out the premise by the name. CSI is a show about a CSI unit. The Office is a show about an office. Lost was a show about people who didn't know where they were. How I Met Your Mother is a show about a guy telling his kids how he met their mother. The Walking Dead is a show about zombies. Go back even further. Hell...Friends is pretty much as close to naming a show 'Sitcom' or 'Drama' as you can get!

It goes the other way too. Think about the least successful new shows of this season. Rubicon, Chase, Outlaw, Detroit 1-8-7, My Generation, Blue Bloods. You have no idea what they're about based on their titles. This holds up for most of my favorite not- watched shows of all time: Chuck, Community, Fringe, Arrested Development, Pushing Daises, Freaks and Geeks, Firefly. They all failed to garner a significant amount of viewers.

There are some exceptions to the rule. I watched three seasons of The Big Bang Theory and I still have no idea why it's called The Big Bang Theory, yet it's a huge success. If the name of your show sounds cool, then you have a chance of success, i.e. The X- Files (even though it took a few seasons to garner an audience). If you have enough critical acclaim, you can build an audience. I finally got around to starting Mad Men this week and I had no idea what the show was about (although I figured it involved smoke...) until it was explained to me in the very first shot of the series. Point is, shows that have a title containing a brief description of the very basic premise of the show have a better chance of becoming a hit.