As internet fans ready themselves for Season 6 of LOST, blogs and message boards explode with theories regarding the conclusion of the series in its final season. But will the show’s loyal following draw enough views to push ABC past NBC in primetime network views? Here, we examine ratings from the week of 1/11/2010 and viewership results from the first five seasons of LOST to see just how big a pull the show will need to lift itself into the top ten.

TV by the Numbers tracks television metrics on a daily basis to report ratings on broadcast and cable programming. Between broadcast networks, CBS and Fox still rank highest with NBC and ABC trailing behind.

Nielson TV Ratings: (Week of January 11):
1 AFC DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF-SA(S) – CBS (30,569,000 viewers)
2 AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY – FOX (29,936,000 viewers)
3 AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY – FOX (26,393,000 viewers)
4 AFC DIV-PLF-POST-GAME-SU(S) – CBS (25,807,000 viewers)
5 NCIS – CBS (20,845,000 viewers)
6 TWO AND A HALF MEN – CBS (17,266,000 viewers)
7 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS(S) – NBC (16,982,000 viewers)
8 NCIS: LOS ANGELES – CBS (15,596,000 viewers)
9 MENTALIST, THE – CBS (15,375,000 viewers)
10 60 MINUTES – CBS (15,775,000 viewers)

Using the metrics above as a performance guide, we can approximate the performance requirements for LOST’s season premiere. Dan Owen of Dan’s Media Digest utilized Nielson metrics to visually track the ratings results from the first five seasons of LOST:

One can see a decline in viewership as the show progressed (and, depending on who you ask, became either more convoluted or rad). Even with the non-recurring top ten shows removed, LOST would still have to outperform all of Season 5 to get into the top ten. But though LOST may not bring in the views it once garnered, ratings may be ultimately unimportant to the fans of the show during its final season. LOST blogger, Docartz, commented in his blog on how the final season will be a network success even if ratings aren’t up to par:

For those of you who dismiss news of LOST’s wobbling ratings as inconsequential – you’re good, you don’t need to be here. For the rest, let’s take a closer look at the widely publicized ratings trickery and what it means – or better yet, doesn’t mean – for LOST’s future. Most of the fuss seems to come from a lot of very creative (read that as ’shady’) number reporting from a couple of networks, ABC and FOX. FOX is exploiting an overlap trick to inflate their numbers. The trick is, they run their programs over which earns them an artificial share at the turn of the hour or half hour. ABC will soon be doing the same with LOST, and in fact already did to some degree with their claim that 20-million viewers tuned in for LOST’s premiere, when the actual number of live viewers was somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 million. LOST posted its lowest numbers for a premiere, ever – yet LOST won the key demographic of 18-49, which is cool if you are selling advertising, which we are not. What does it all mean for us? Nothing.

So LOST would need a pretty remarkable opening to blip ABC back on the ratings radar. Either way, it’s a certainty that the final season’s premier will at least satisfy its current contingent, and you can be sure I’ll be one of many fans annoying the rest of the world with endless LOST banter:

As NBC’s late night drama unfolds, it’s interesting to watch celebrities like Patton Oswald (team Conan) and Jerry Seinfeld (team Leno) take sides. Both Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno have been vocal about their opinions, but mostly via TV and the news. As far as I can tell, neither comedian has a personal Twitter account, although both have official Twitter accounts (most likely not maintained by themselves) for their TV shows.

Twitter Sentiment is an application that tracks sentiment behind various keywords on Twitter. It is a useful tool, and although it’s not as effective as manually pouring through Tweets, it can give a general sense of how Twitter users feel about a particular subject.

The below graph shows the ratio of positive to negative Tweets where Conan is mentioned

Tweets about Conan seem to be a little more negative than positive, but it’s close. Compare that with this chart, which shows the ratio for Tweets about Leno

According to this chart, there are 3 times as many negative Tweets about Leno as there are positive. But as is the case with many of these tools, the real story might not be so simple. It’s entirely possible that there are simply more Conan fans on Twitter.