Mastodon Mastodon Mastodon Mastodon Mastodon Results of First-Ever TV Body Count Study
Sign Up


    Enable Dark Mode!

  • What's HOT
  • Premiere Calendar
  • Ratings News
  • Movies
  • YouTube Channel
  • Submit Scoop
  • Contact Us
  • Search
  • Privacy Policy
Get In Touch
 Join SpoilerTV
Support SpoilerTV
SpoilerTV.com is now available ad-free to for all premium subscribers. Thank you for considering becoming a SpoilerTV premium member!

SpoilerTV - TV Spoilers

Results of First-Ever TV Body Count Study

21 May 2012

Share on Reddit
Spartacus: Vengeance and Game of Thrones the Deadliest Shows
Funeralwise.com Releases Results of First-Ever TV Body Count Study

PR Newswire

CHICAGO, May 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A Funeralwise.com study counted dead bodies on television shows to measure the role of death in popular culture. The STARZ series Spartacus: Vengeance topped all shows with an average of 25 dead bodies per episode, followed by HBO's Game of Thrones, with 14 dead bodies per episode. The 40 TV series analyzed averaged 132 dead bodies, in total, during a single week for an average of more than 3 dead bodies per episode.

The body count study was conceived by Funeralwise's managing partner, Rick Paskin, when he noticed the large number of killings occurring weekly on a popular television crime show. Seeking to better understand the public's acceptance of death as entertainment, he decided to commission the study. A network of "watchers" was assigned to count the number of dead bodies in 40 separate primetime programs on both broadcast and cable networks.

"We did not find a direct correlation between the body count and viewership, but these programs are definitely popular with the viewing audience," Paskin said. "As a funeral resource, the role of death in modern society is an interesting subject to Funeralwise. We know how difficult it is to get people to proactively plan for their funeral. There is a clear disconnect between the acceptance of death in popular culture and the acceptance of it in reality."

Key findings were:

The deadliest show was the STARZ series Spartacus: Vengeance, with an average of 25 dead bodies per episode. HBO's Game of Thrones was the next deadliest, with 14 dead bodies per episode.
The deadliest broadcast network show was The CW's Nikita, with 9 dead bodies per episode. The CBS series NCIS: Los Angeles was second deadliest, with an average of 6 dead bodies per episode.
CBS was the deadliest network due to having 11 shows selected for the study, by far the most of any network. Five (5) CBS shows were among the top 10 deadliest.

Deadliest shows for non-human creatures were The CW's The Vampire Diaries, with 18 dead vampires per episode, and AMC's The Walking Dead, with 16 dead zombies per episode.

The "safest" shows for humans and other creatures were ABC's Revenge, TNT's Leverage and USA's White Collar, all of which had no dead bodies in the 8 episodes analyzed.

Very few funerals were shown during the programs analyzed.

The body count study was conducted during the first 4 months of 2012 and included 8 recently aired episodes of each series selected for analysis. Funeralwise emphasizes that the study was not statistically based. The shows selected for the study were judged to have content that regularly included the presence of dead bodies. Accordingly, the number of shows in the study varied from network to network. A full report of the study results is available on the Funeralwise.com website at http://www.funeralwise.com/tv-body-count-study-results.

Funeralwise welcomes comments and thoughts on the role of death in popular culture and its impact on how people deal with death in real life. Comments can be posted on the Funeralwise Digital Dying blog at http://blogs.funeralwise.com/dying/2012/05/19/the-deathwashing-of-america-results-from-a-survey-on-tv-show-body-counts/ and the Funeralwise Facebook page at www.facebook.com/funeralwise.

Funeralwise.com offers free, do-it-yourself funeral planning via its website. Aiming to provide "Everything You Need to Know About Funerals," the site also features extensive information on funeral customs, funeral etiquette and grief support.

Source: funeralwise
-
Sign Up for the SpoilerTV Newsletter where we talk all things TV!

30 comments:

  1. klutzy_girl21 May 2012 at 16:25

    Well, that's interesting. And extremely random. 

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linlighthouse21 May 2012 at 16:32

    Lately the public is finding entertainment in death, monsters, apocalyptic stories, and so forth. I wonder if it has to do with the uncertain times we are living in that we crave these themes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. nellymendezcolon21 May 2012 at 16:46

    vampire diaries got more dead people per episode thats leave supernatural in good spot i think for not be so deadly killing characters (natural or unnatural)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Courtney21 May 2012 at 16:57

    Ha, of course Spartacus is at the top. That show LOVES their body count.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LucAltaiR21 May 2012 at 16:57

    That really doesn't surprise me. Spartacus is like... bodies on bodies on bodies on other bodies.

    ReplyDelete
  6. LucAltaiR21 May 2012 at 17:03

    I actually meant the result. The fact that someone would invest time and resources in such a research does surprise me a little though.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Cathy21 May 2012 at 17:09

    Wow, a lot of dead people and creatures! 25 per episode? That's brutal!

    ReplyDelete
  8. laura334121 May 2012 at 17:24

    I wonder when carsareus.com are going to do a study on POI and how cars he wrecks every week..

    But 25 is quite at bit i'd say..

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jazoey21 May 2012 at 17:30

    18 for TVD? I'd never had guessed the number that high.

    ReplyDelete
  10. JMC0021 May 2012 at 17:39

    18 per episode for vampire diaries has to be a mess up. I have never watched it, but it just doesn't seem accurate. Are they sure they are not confusing vampire diaries with true blood or something. I mean more vampire deaths per episode on vampire diaries than zombie deaths on the walking dead. Never knew that show was like that. 

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ryan Logan21 May 2012 at 17:54

    18 dead vampires per episode in the vampire diaries? that seems like a lot

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rabia Salvatore21 May 2012 at 17:55

    Nikita actually has a lot of people die but there is a big difference with character's the audience knows and the random Division and Gogel people that die on a regular basis. With Vampire Diaries they probably watched episodes that skew the numbers such as The Hybrid (3x02) when Klaus kills 12 werewolves trying to make them hybrids. Not to say TVD doesn't consistently kill off people lol it's definitely a violent show. 

    ReplyDelete
  13. Lissie_Bee21 May 2012 at 18:36

    I thought the same thing about The Vampire Diaries - I don't know if we've seen more than 30 vampires die over the course of 3 seasons, let alone 18 in one episode. That has to have been a mix-up.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Bob21 May 2012 at 18:44

    'Very few funerals were show'
    That would change the dynamic of any show if for every character killed we got a funeral, but I like your thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  15. DarqueMode21 May 2012 at 19:06

    I seriously doubt the data this study found. There is just no way that TVD has 18 vampire deaths per episode. I'm pretty sure there have been long stretches of episodes were 18 vampires total did not die in 5 or 10 episodes. Likewise with their Walking Dead numbers.

    Plus I just do not comprehend the point of the study honestly. 
    - CBS was obviously going to have the most deaths since almost every episode of their cop procedurals starts with a death or multiple death. 
    - Who wants to watch funerals for zombies or vampires? OR for victims of killers that we may not see again in the episode?  
    - Most episodes are about the case and catching the killer and not how the family grieves.

    It just seems like more funerals on TV would do little to alleviate the problem if in fact it is even a problem. The exception of course would be during wartime if they showed funeral's of fallen fighters or at least showed their coffins returning home. THAT does in fact register with most people and puts their deaths in a larger and much heavier context. Unlike a funeral on TV.....

    ReplyDelete
  16. Heather M21 May 2012 at 19:48

    Yeah, that doesn't seem right... Was there maybe one episode that had a huge amount of people dead that brought up the average? Haha... 

    ReplyDelete
  17. Heather M21 May 2012 at 19:49

    Yeah, just thinking it over in my head, I count maybe 1 or 2 dead humans or vampires per episode... definitely not 18. 

    ReplyDelete
  18. varjotvirva21 May 2012 at 20:35

    It's kind of interesting, yet very random ... and also ... Vampire Diaries with an average of 18 dead vampires per episode? Seriously, this might be another interesting aspect to this study, because ... did I even notice that? No. (And also, I don't quite believe this number as well Oo) The deaths I notice in TVD are the ones more important to the story ... meaning the characters more important to the story.
    But still, I absolutely do not believe it's 18 dead vampires per episode. With 66 episodes so far that'd be 1188 dead vampires so far and even if you don't just take the vampires but also every other person on the show, including those that "died" more often so far, I don't think 1188 living beings died until now.

    That being said: How reliable is this body count for the other shows? XDD

    ReplyDelete
  19. lostrocks4ever21 May 2012 at 23:37

    kinda random. interesting to read though. what was the point of this study?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Astrophil22 May 2012 at 19:59

    So.... Any of you Vampire Diaries fans want to help us out with a re-count?  Since 18/episode sounds impossible unless one episode had a ridiculous number of deaths to throw off the average, I'd love to hear what a new tally would turn-up. 

    ReplyDelete
  21. C P23 May 2012 at 22:06

    For me, I just like monster stuff. Got nothing to do with the times we're in. I've just always liked the type of shows I like since I was 11. 

    ReplyDelete
  22. C P23 May 2012 at 22:08

    How did they get 18 dead vamps per episode? I watch this show and haven't noticed this.

    Nikita makes sense. Killing a lot of the enemy's guards, etc. 

    ReplyDelete
  23. C P23 May 2012 at 22:10

    Yeah, I always say Supernatural and Vampire Diaries are in competition in how many people they can kill, but neither show gets that much dead. 

    ReplyDelete
  24. C P23 May 2012 at 22:12

    Exactly. I think they watched the rare heavy body count episodes. 

    ReplyDelete
  25. C P23 May 2012 at 22:14

    If certain shows had funerals for random characters that would be weird though and there would be constant funerals on some. lol

    ReplyDelete
  26. Linlighthouse23 May 2012 at 22:42

    I like horror more than I ever did. I guess it's the feeling that, while you're watching, you feel like you're in it. Then when the show is over, you are so pleased that you survived.

    ReplyDelete
  27. prpleight24 May 2012 at 03:55

    There were a couple o episodes that included mass killings.  Off the top of my head I remember one ep with a wolf pack getting killed (though I don't *think* it was on screen)  Another ep where a pick died because the attempt to turn them in to hybrid Werewolf/Vampire creatures failed.   Given that the average was counted using only 8 episodes (rather than a full season) it's possible...depending on the time period covered in the study.  (Study seems like an awfully weighty word for this particular survey.)

    ReplyDelete
  28. GuinevereDeRaymaeker24 May 2012 at 10:01

    There was this one episode where they killed an entire horde of werewolves to make them hybrids but they died anyway. So I don't think It's only 'Vampires'

    ReplyDelete
  29. C P24 May 2012 at 17:45

    I don't like the horror aspect (gore and scares), but I like rooting for characters I like and the other aspects of the shows. Drama, action, family, etc. I watch more than one genre. I like supernatural creatures and magic stuff but also certain crime shows though I think it's over done, and I am looking forward to watching Arrow on CW in the fall. 

    Any show I like I can get right into. Just when the main characters are in constant danger like in a supernatural type show I worry more about the characters when watching and when not watching I'm excited for more. 

    ReplyDelete
  30. Linlighthouse24 May 2012 at 19:33

    I do like rooting for characters I like, and just studying characters in general. And like you say, when they're in danger, it's all the more compelling. My current favorites are in the horror/gore family: The Killing, Fringe, Grimm, American Horror Story--but I also watch The Good Wife, Community, and Parks and Rec. Not scary at all, but interesting characters.

    ReplyDelete

NOTE: Name-calling, personal attacks, spamming, excessive self-promotion, condescending pomposity, general assiness, racism, sexism, any-other-ism, homophobia, acrophobia, and destructive (versus constructive) criticism will get you BANNED from the party.