Demos Year to Year, Friday 2/19/10

(Meet the Fockers vs. Wife Swap/Supernanny/20/20) even

(House (R) vs. Terminator: SCC) -23%
(Kitchen Nightmares (R) vs. Dollhouse) -27%

(Smallville vs. Everybody Hates Chris/The Game) +43%
(Smallville (R) vs. America's Next Top Model (R)) even

Demos Year to Year, Thursday 2/18/10

NBC's out of the mix due to the Olympics, as usual, but CBS is also on the sidelines for this one due to the NCAA bball starting on the year-ago March sweeps evening.

(The Deep End vs. Ugly Betty) -48%
Grey's Anatomy -26%
Private Practice -20%

(Bones (R) vs. Bones) -47%
(Past Life vs. Hell's Kitchen) -67%

(The Vampire Diaries (R) vs. Smallville) -53%
(Supernatural (R) vs. Supernatural) -50%

Demos Year to Year, Wednesday 2/17/10

Another illuminating post full of repeat vs. original comparisons! Perhaps the only thing this endeavor has really illustrated is why I don't do posts like this every day of the season... there'd be a lot of this stuff if not for my sweeps-only rule. The only thing of interest here is that Idol took a 20% hit opposite the Olympics. Anyway, two weeks down, two to go.

(Modern Family (R) vs. Scrubs) -18%
(The Middle (R) vs. Better Off Ted) -19%
(Modern Family (R) vs. Lost 9-9:30pm) -60%
(The Middle (R) vs. Lost 9:30-10pm) -72%
(Cougar Town (R) vs. Life on Mars 10-10:30pm) -38%
(Cougar Town (R) vs. Life on Mars 10:30-11pm) -31%

(Old Christine (R) vs. Old Christine) -38%
(Gary Unmarried (R) vs. Gary Unmarried) -36%
(Criminal Minds (R) vs. Criminal Minds) -42%
(CSI:NY (R) vs. CSI:NY) -39%

(Lie to Me vs. Human Target) -32%
American Idol -20%

(Life Unexpected (R) vs. America's Next Top Model) -71%
(Gossip Girl (R) vs. 90210 (R) -50%

Demos Year to Year, Tuesday 2/16/10

(Lost (R) vs. Homeland Security USA) +7%
(Lost vs. Scrubs (R)) +275%
(The Forgotten vs. Primetime: What Would You Do?) -15%

(NCIS (R) vs. NCIS) -35%
(NCIS:LA (R) vs. The Mentalist) -51%
(The Good Wife (R) vs. Without a Trace) -46%

American Idol -4%

90210 (R) -40%
(Melrose Place (R) vs. Privileged (R)) even

Demos Year to Year, Monday 2/15/10

(The Bachelor vs. Dancing with the Stars) -23%
(Castle (R) vs. Castle) -48%

(HIMYM (R) vs. Big Bang Theory) -43%
(Accidentally on Purpose (R) vs. HIMYM) -51%
(2.5 Men (R) vs. 2.5 Men) -31%
(BBT (R) vs. Rules of Engagement) -10%
(CSI: Miami (R) vs. CSI: Miami) -39%

(House (R) vs. House) -55%
24 -24% (hehe)

(One Tree Hill vs. Gossip Girl) -25%
(Life Unexpected vs. One Tree Hill) -25%
One Tree Hill (8pm vs. 9pm) -25%

Demos Year to Year, Sunday 2/14/10

America's Funniest Home Videos (7pm) -19%
(America's Funniest Home Videos (8pm) vs. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) -30%
(Extreme Makeover: Home Edition vs. Desperate Housewives/Brothers & Sisters) -57%
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (9-11pm vs. 8pm) -37%

60 Minutes -45%
The Amazing Race -10%
(Undercover Boss vs. Cold Case) +79%
(Cold Case vs. The Unit) -22%
Cold Case (10pm vs. 9pm) -28%

The Simpsons -7%
(The Cleveland Show vs. King of the Hill) -4%
Family Guy -11%
American Dad -14%

Demos Year to Year, Friday 2/12/10

Done with NBC comparisons till after the Olympics. Opening ceremony was in play on this evening, though. I think the only useful part of this post is the fact that Fox's encore lineup is still stronger overall than their attempt to establish a sci-fi night last season.

(Spiderman 2.1 vs. WifeSwap/Supernanny/20/20) -38%

(Surviving Survivor (R) vs. Ghost Whisperer) -64%
(Undercover Boss (R) vs. Flashpoint) -29%
(Numb3rs (R) vs. Numb3rs) -53%

(House (R) vs. Terminator: SCC) +17%
(Kitchen Nightmares (R) vs. Dollhouse) -6%

(Smallville vs. Everybody Hates Chris/The Game) +67%
(Smallville (R) vs. America's Next Top Model (R)) +20%

First Two Weeks, Past Life

Just doing the first two episodes this time, as opposed to the rather arbitrary Human Target method. Despite the vastly different lead-ins, it seems fairer when the lead-in decreases for the second episode because any help from the lead-in for the premiere will be offset in the episode 2 decline. Anybody wants to bitch about it, have at it. At least it means people are reading. :-)

Past Life (Fox)

Sampling: A 2.8 demo is an OK performer in a lot of timeslots, but post-Idol is decidedly not one of them. The 28% retention in the demo out of an Idol lead-in is the worst that I've ever seen, and while there may be worse cases dating back before the widespread availability of TV ratings, I don't know about 'em.

Retention: Just two nights later, with a fairly decent-performing Bones rerun as its lead-in (though said rerun pulled only about 20% of the AI showing), Past Life pulls just a 1.4 demo. That is a 50% drop, which is easily the largest of this season, but not that surprising given the difference in 8:00 shows. I thought anything above 2.0 would be a miracle, but that doesn't make this number any better.

Prognosis: It is tough to get much more DOA with a post-Idol premiere than Past Life, and while the "true test" was supposed to be what it did in its real timeslot, the chances of it holding up were low at best, and it sure didn't hold up. This is not a television program that is going to be airing in the 2010-11 season.

SAMPLING
The Vampire Diaries 6.3*
V 5.2
The Cleveland Show 4.9
NCIS: LA 4.4
Cougar Town 4.4
Modern Family 4.2
Flashforward 4.0
Melrose Place 3.9*

---

Community 3.8
Life Unexpected 3.6*
Glee 3.5
Accidentally on Purpose 3.3
The Good Wife 3.1
Eastwick 3.0
Human Target 2.9
Past Life 2.8

---

The Middle 2.6
The Forgotten 2.6
Mercy 2.3
Trauma 2.2
Hank 2.1
Three Rivers 1.9
The Deep End 1.8
The Beautiful Life: TBL 1.8*
Brothers 1.0

*-Although A18-49 isn't necessarily the "CW demo," in an attempt to put them on a level playing field with the big 4, I've taken the A18-49 premiere number for the CW shows and multiplied it by 3.

RETENTION
The Good Wife +3%
The Deep End even
Accidentally on Purpose -6%
NCIS:LA -7%
Flashforward -8%
Glee -9%
Mercy -9%
Modern Family -10%

---

The Cleveland Show -10%
Three Rivers -11%
Cougar Town -14%
The Vampire Diaries -16%
Human Target -17%
The Beautiful Life: TBL -18%
The Middle -19%
Brothers - 20%

---

Trauma -23%
Eastwick -23%
The Forgotten -23%
Life Unexpected -24%
Hank -24%
V -27%
Community -29%
Melrose Place -31%
Past Life -50%

EXCELLENT (6 points) - NCIS: Los Angeles, Flashforward, Modern Family
GOOD ENOUGH (5 points) - The Vampire Diaries, Cougar Town, Accidentally on Purpose, Glee, The Cleveland Show, The Good Wife
BORDERLINE (4 points) - V, Mercy, The Deep End, Melrose Place, Human Target
IN TROUBLE (2-3 points) - Community, TBL:TBL, Eastwick, Three Rivers, Brothers, Life Unexpected, The Middle, Past Life (3 points), The Forgotten, Trauma, Hank (2 points)

Shows already renewed for 2010-11 are greened, shows already axed are redded, the new show this entry is in blue. If this is your first of these First Two Weeks post, click the "new shows" label and head down to the bottom for more on the method behind this madness.

Demos Year to Year, Thursday 2/11/10

(The Deep End vs. Ugly Betty) -43%
Grey's Anatomy -12%
Private Practice -6%

Survivor (8-10pm vs. 8-9pm) +10%
(The Mentalist vs. Eleventh Hour) +37%

(Community vs. My Name is Earl (R)) +35%
(Parks and Recreation vs. Kath & Kim) +35%
The Office -10%
30 Rock -15%
(The Office (R) vs. ER) -63%

(Bones (R) vs. Bones) -25%
(Past Life vs. Hell's Kitchen) -60%

(The Vampire Diaries vs. Smallville) -6%
Supernatural -9%

MTV in W18-34

One of the CW's crown jewels in the "CW demo" of W18-34 is an unscripted show, America's Next Top Model, and it remains that way despite hefty declines in recent cycles. But it's not the only unscripted show that taps successfully into that demo; cable net MTV has a bevy of them. And it's that success (along with similar shows on nets like E!) that has inspired the CDub to try out a couple "docudramas" of their own, called High Society and Fly Girls, which will air after Top Model starting in March. It won't be easy, but if they can generate MTV-esque buzz, they could be among the most successful shows on the net.

Here are a few recent results for MTV shows in W18-34:

Jersey Shore - Don't have a figure on the very low-rated series premiere of a show that in two months became a cultural phenomenon, but the six subsequent episodes averaged a 2.6 W18-34. Even that number isn't indicative of just how big the show got, though. The third-to-last and second-to-last eps got a 3.0 and 2.8 respectively, and then the finale broke out at a staggering 4.7.

Teen Mom - This show replaced The Hills in the Tuesday 10pm hour and did very well; the nine results that I have access to (out of ten total airings) averaged a 3.0 W18-34 and, like Jersey Shore, peaked at a 4.7. That one result I don't have access to was a season low, so it may have brought the average down into the upper-2's, but still impressive.

The Hills - The most recent ten-episode season averaged a 2.8 W18-34, and while I don't have W18-34 numbers going farther back, my impression was that previous seasons did even better.

The City - The spinoff of the above show averaged a 2.3 W18-34 airing in the post-Hills slot. That puts average retention at about 83%.

The Real World - This really old reality show has averaged a 1.8 W18-34 in the first seven episodes of this, its twenty-third season.

America's Best Dance Crew - Not enough data yet on this one to really say much, but its fifth season premiered on January 28 with a 2.3 W18-34 and dropped to a 1.5 last Thursday. My inkling is this will be another mid to upper 1's show like The Real World.

Bringing this back to broadcast, I hope I've illustrated that you probably shouldn't write off the CW's upcoming docudramas just yet. Even The Hills, which has fallen from its highest-rated days, would be right up there with the biggest shows on the CW, and when you can really catch on with something the way Jersey Shore and Teen Mom did, the potential is huge. A 4.7 in W18-34 is unheard of on the CDub these days.

But High Society and Fly Girls will be facing a couple major obstacles, namely the lack of history for this kind of show on the network and the fact that, despite getting a good lead-in by CW standards, they'll be up against the #1 show on TV in American Idol. I would say even if they can find the upper 1's of The Real World, they would be considered OK efforts. For comparison, that'd put them ahead of where the much more expensive Life Unexpected is at right now. (It got a 1.6 this week)

Demos Year to Year, Wednesday 2/10/10

The number of "good" comparisons is so light this week (and probably for most of this sweeps period) that I'm not sure I'll even bother doing my usual weekly recaps. Maybe tomorrow I'll throw together a list of same-show, same-timeslot comparisons, since it won't be all that long of a list.

(A Charlie Brown Valentine vs. Scrubs (R)) +100%
(The Middle vs. Scrubs (R)) +142%
(Modern Family vs. Lost (R)) +156%
(Cougar Town vs. Lost (R)) +80%
(Ugly Betty vs. Life on Mars) +14%

Old Christine +10%
Gary Unmarried +4%
Criminal Minds even
CSI: NY -6%

(Mercy vs. Chopping Block) +29%
(Law & Order: SVU (R) vs. Life) -29%
(Law & Order: SVU (R) vs. Law & Order) -18%

(Human Target vs. Lie to Me) -26%
American Idol +4%

(Life Unexpected (R) vs. ANTM) -58%
(Gossip Girl (R) vs. 90210 (R)) -25%

Demos Year to Year, Tuesday 2/9/10

Too many repeats for there to be much of anything useful here, and it'll only get worse once the Olympics start. But hopefully the next couple original-filled days and the few days after the Olympics will justify this endeavor.

(Lost (R) vs. Homeland Security USA) +21%
(Lost vs. Scrubs (R)) +355%
(The Forgotten vs. Primetime: What Would You Do?) +5%

(NCIS vs. NCIS (R)) +46%
(NCIS:LA vs. The Mentalist (R)) +46%
(The Good Wife vs. Without a Trace (R)) +48%

The Biggest Loser -8%
(The Jay Leno Show vs. Law & Order: SVU) -53%

American Idol (8-9pm) +15%
(Past Life vs. American Idol (9-10pm)) -72%
American Idol (8-9pm vs. 8-10pm) +6%

(90210 (R) vs. Reaper) -67%
(Melrose Place (R) vs. 90210 (R)) -25%

Demos Year to Year, Monday 2/8/10

(The Bachelor vs. Dancing with the Stars) -33%
Castle -17%

(How I Met Your Mother vs. Big Bang Theory) +6%
(Accidentally on Purpose vs. HIMYM) -8%
2.5 Men +19%
(Big Bang Theory vs. Rules of Engagement) +62%
CSI: Miami -9%
HIMYM (8pm vs. 8:30pm) +6%
BBT (9:30pm vs. 8pm) +67%

Chuck +5%
Heroes -38%
(The Jay Leno Show vs. Medium) -56%

House +6%
24 -8%

(One Tree Hill vs. Gossip Girl (R)) +175%
(Life Unexpected vs. One Tree Hill (R)) +80%

Demos Year to Year, Friday 2/5/10

Not even going to bother with Sunday's Super Bowl-fueled numbers. If it were a February vs. February situation I would, but since I'm comparing to the last sweeps period and would be comparing the Super Bowl to some random March Sunday, I just don't think there would be anything educational therein.

(Supernanny vs. Wife Swap) +15%
(Shark Tank vs. 20/20 special edition) -25%
20/20 -10%

Ghost Whisperer -15%
(Medium vs. Flashpoint) +5%
Numb3rs - 13%

(Law & Order (R) vs. Howie Do It (original and R)) -17%
(Dateline vs. Friday Night Lights) +25%
(The Jay Leno Show vs. Dateline) -8%
Dateline (9pm vs. 10pm) +15%

(House (R) vs. Terminator: SCC) +20%
(Kitchen Nightmares vs. Dollhouse) +13%

(Smallville (2hrs) vs. ANTM (R-2hrs)) +50%

ABC Family in W18-34

Yesterday I posted this list of The CW shows' averages in their target demographic, women 18-34:

The Vampire Diaries: 2.8 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Gossip Girl: 2.7 W18-34, average of 12 originals
America's Next Top Model: 2.6 W18-34, average of 11 originals
One Tree Hill: 2.3 W18-34, average of 14 originals
90210: 2.3 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Melrose Place: 1.5 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Supernatural: 1.5 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Smallville: 0.9 W18-34, average of 10 originals

And though I don't have any ad rates to look at, I thought I'd post some recent results for ABC Family, which also targets W18-34. I used to be a somewhat frequent watcher of ABC Family back in the Kyle XY days and loved their extremely offbeat The Middleman, so I feel I have at least some grasp on what their ratings are like.

Secret Life of the American Teenager (airs Monday 8pm starting January 4, opposite One Tree Hill and The Bachelor): 3.1 -> 2.4 -> 1.9 -> 2.4 -> 2.1

Premiere aside, these numbers are actually below average for Secret Life based on what limited info I have from previous seasons. Several summer episodes were north of 2.5, though it could be those were just the best numbers of the season since they were the ones that got press releases. Still, this 2.4 average for this season would make it a pretty average CW show, and it's beaten One Tree Hill heads up the last two weeks (which were a 2.2 and 2.0 respectively). A lot of people will say "OHHHH this just shows you what a piece of crap the CW is. A show on a small cable net is right with 'em," and maybe there's something to that, but on the other side, it's not like ABC Family could do this with anything. Secret Life is the kind of show that has completely redefined ratings for its network. It got about three times what the other originals on the net were getting when it premiered (at least in total viewers, don't have "better" numbers going back that far). That's pretty amazing.

Make It or Break It (airs Monday 9pm starting January 4, opposite Life Unexpected and The Bachelor): 1.7 -> 1.5 -> 1.4 -> 1.5 -> 1.3

Make It or Break It has survived, and will probably continue to survive, basically on its ability to retain better out of ratings phenomenon Secret Life than a lot of the ABC Fam veterans that were tried in the 9:00 hour. It seems to generally get in the neighborhood of 2/3 of Secret Life's W18-34.

Greek (airs Monday 10pm starting January 25): 1.1 -> 1.1

Greek, meanwhile, has survived for several years now with painfully low total viewer numbers but an extremely well targeted audience. So while many people want to write it off because it retains less than half of MIoBI's total viewers, the retention is a lot better in W18-34, so it may not be completely dead yet.

Might do an updated version of this if something interesting happens in the future, but I thought it'd be nice to at least stack them up against the CW's shows. They are, perhaps sadly, surprisingly competitive with that net.

Demos Year to Year, Thursday 2/4/10

Yes, it's the return of my regular year-to-year comparisons. I'm gonna do the posts for February sweeps and compare them to last year's March sweeps. The reason I only do these posts during sweeps periods is because those are usually the times when you can count on original programming, and I don't want to get mired down in a lot of original-vs.-repeat comparions, but during the wonky March sweeps of 2009 that was devised to get around the digital conversion (which ended up getting delayed from February anyway), there were actually a lot of reruns running around. The February vs. March thing is also going to suck in a couple other cases, since a lot of unscripted shows will be at different points in the season and the Winter Olympics will be in the mix for more than half of the period.

To see how rough this will be, all you have to do is look at this post, where there are a mere three same show, same timeslot comparisons. So I'll have to bite the bullet here a lot of the time, but hopefully something useful will come out of it.

(The Deep End vs. Ugly Betty) -24%
(Grey's Anatomy vs. Grey's (R)) +181%
(Private Practice vs. Private (R)) +154%

(Surviving Survivor special vs. Survivor) -37%
CSI -40%
(The Mentalist vs. Eleventh Hour) +14%

(Community vs. My Name is Earl) +5%
(Parks and Recreation vs. Kath & Kim) +28%
The Office -16%
30 Rock -22%
(The Jay Leno Show vs. ER) -68%

(Bones vs. American Idol) -57%
(Fringe vs. Hell's Kitchen) -41%

(The Vampire Diaries vs. Smallville (R)) +138%
(Supernatural vs. Supernatural (R)) +38%

Looking at The CW with "The CW Demo"

I've done a lot of posts about the prices per 30 second spot for shows on the big 4, but I've always left out The CW for one reason: anyone who follows TV ratings has heard that the target audience of the CW is women age 18-34, not the broader adults 18-49 of the other four. Many people think that a broadcast network zoning in on that kind of niche is far too narrow a goal, but it is what it is. What we generally don't see is these W18-34 numbers looked at in much detail. Total viewers and adults 18-49 are still the numbers most readily available, and they are still the numbers generally used to analyze the network, fairly or unfairly. But I've gone through the final numbers provided by the great TravisYanan and put the W18-34 numbers together, just to try to get a sense of how strong the various shows are in the CW's demo this season. These numbers are all through the week ending 1/31.

The Vampire Diaries: 2.8 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Gossip Girl: 2.7 W18-34, average of 12 originals
America's Next Top Model: 2.6 W18-34, average of 11 originals
One Tree Hill: 2.3 W18-34, average of 14 originals
90210: 2.3 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Melrose Place: 1.5 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Supernatural: 1.5 W18-34, average of 12 originals
Smallville: 0.9 W18-34, average of 10 originals

What Sells on CW?

Now the most important question here is whether the CW actually sells ads based on that number. I've heard it, but since I don't have W18-34 numbers for the 2008-09 season, I can't verify it the way I did in my viewers vs. demo posts. But I can still look at the price-per-spot numbers:

ANTM: $93,343
Gossip Girl: $59,316
One Tree Hill: $55,636
90210: $53,605
Melrose Place: $49,019
Vampire Diaries: $38,966
Smallville: $33,090
Supernatural: $32,928

Here's one example that should show the conventional wisdom of my Peetooplus posts doesn't apply: if we look at A18-49 original averages in 2008-09, which in the above link about viewers vs. demos was shown to correlate relatively well with ad dollars for the big 4, Gossip Girl had a 1.39 and Supernatural had a 1.33. So Gossip Girl's only about 5% stronger in A18-49, but the ad money is about 80% more. Unless there was some extremely drastic speculation going on, it would seem A18-49 is not the thing setting these numbers. And it's certainly not total viewers, since Supernatural is actually the stronger show there. Is W18-34 the thing setting them? I don't know for sure, but whenever Ad Age gives us another list of ad rates for fall 2010, I may take another look at that question. Let's assume for now that it does, since it clearly isn't the other stuff.

The Newbies

Clearly The Vampire Diaries' going rate of less than $40k per was way too low, and it should fetch a considerably higher rate next season. But is it far and away the hugest thing that the CW has ever come up with, as many claim? In W18-34, not really; it's only a tick ahead of Gossip Girl, and GG has been down considerably this year; meaning last season it was (probably) a better draw than TVD. If they were an A18-49 network like the rest of 'em, the upper 1's that TVD has pulled in would look pretty rosy, but that may not matter all that much. That said, The Vampire Diaries' upper 2's in W18-34 is by no means anything to be ashamed of; the only thing it's guilty of is being even stronger in the numbers that are both more accessible to most ratings followers and probably less relevant to the people that count.

So where does that leave the other newbies on the net, Melrose Place and Life Unexpected? In the A18-49-based Renew/Cancel Index on TVByTheNumbers, Melrose is dead in the water, but in reality, it's basically on par with Supernatural in the CW demo. And that show is widely considered very likely to return. I'm not so sure Supernatural should be a slam dunk, based on its ad money and the fact that it's doing less than 60% of the W18-34 numbers of the net's crown jewels (including its own lead-in), but even if it is, Melrose probably looks weaker to CW execs because its average is largely front-loaded. The recent trend has not been favorable, and low 1's in W18-34 have been common in the latest originals, while Supernatural has pulled a 1.5+ in both of its 2010 originals. Supernatural also probably gets a pass on some level because it faces brutal scripted competition, particularly the huge W18-34 draw Grey's Anatomy.

Meanwhile, this is the three week track for Life Unexpected in W18-34: 2.5 -> 1.9 -> 1.7. The show is, suffice to say, considerably weaker now than all those rich kid shows (except Melrose Place) for which LUX was supposed to signal the beginning of the end. The Bachelor provides bigger W18-34 competition than almost anything those other shows have faced in originals, and ABC Family's lineup is also in the mix in early 2010, but the show has still dropped from lead-in One Tree Hill the last couple weeks (it's gone 2.2 -> 2.2 -> 2.0 in LUX's three weeks). So I think its position is a little murkier than some would like to believe, and a renewal may be more based in critical acclaim than anything else. It's difficult to peg the prospects of something in the upper 1's arena because there's almost no precedent, just a big dropoff from OTH's 2.3 average all the way down to the 1.5 of Supernatural and Melrose Place. I'm interested to see where they go.

First Two Weeks, Human Target

First, here's how I'm doing this. I'm taking the series premiere, which aired on a Sunday at 8pm, and the series' fourth episode, which aired on a Wednesday at 8pm. I think these are the first two episodes that give us an indication of "true strength," as the show did better in terms of raw numbers during two post-American Idol episodes but that's mostly just because of the lead-in. So while jumping from the first to the fourth episode may seem like cheating, since a lot of shows drop a longer way over that period, I think it's offset by the extra sampling it got in episodes 2 and 3, so it's as good an analog as I can get with a show that aired four episodes in four different timeslots.

Sampling: Human Target got some bad luck when the NFL moved the Fox game on championship Sunday to the early afternoon, meaning its lead-in was the low-performing 24 finale. (EDIT: the 24 finale was a rerun, which is kinda important to note.) It premiered against some big competition, including a football-boosted 60 Minutes and the Golden Globes, but it still managed a decent 2.9 demo. Not great, but not necessarily a damning number, especially considering the circumstances.

Retention: Two and a half weeks later, the show aired again in the 8pm hour, this time managing just a 2.4 demo. That's a fairly standard 17% drop, again not great but not necessarily damning.

Prognosis: A couple of very average numbers puts this thing right in the "borderline" category on my system. On Fox, where the standard for scripted shows is above-average, I think it can probably be bumped a little below that. Based on recent shows in this timeslot that were in that 2.4 area (Lie to Me, which was barely renewed, and the axed Back to You) it could definitely go either way, and that's assuming it keeps the 2.4 going forward. Since there's a good chance that it won't keep the 2.4, that takes the prognosis downward. I'm saying this is a one-season show.

SAMPLING
The Vampire Diaries 6.3*
V 5.2
The Cleveland Show 4.9
NCIS: LA 4.4
Cougar Town 4.4
Modern Family 4.2
Flashforward 4.0
Melrose Place 3.9*

---

Community 3.8
Life Unexpected 3.6*
Glee 3.5
Accidentally on Purpose 3.3
The Good Wife 3.1
Eastwick 3.0
Human Target 2.9
The Middle 2.6

---

The Forgotten 2.6
Mercy 2.3
Trauma 2.2
Hank 2.1
Three Rivers 1.9
The Deep End 1.8
The Beautiful Life: TBL 1.8*
Brothers 1.0

*-Although A18-49 isn't necessarily the "CW demo," in an attempt to put them on a level playing field with the big 4, I've taken the A18-49 premiere number for the CW shows and multiplied it by 3.

RETENTION
The Good Wife +3%
The Deep End even
Accidentally on Purpose -6%
NCIS:LA -7%
Flashforward -8%
Glee -9%
Mercy -9%
Modern Family -10%

---

The Cleveland Show -10%
Three Rivers -11%
Cougar Town -14%
The Vampire Diaries -16%
Human Target -17%
The Beautiful Life: TBL -18%
The Middle -19%
Brothers - 20%

---

Trauma -23%
Eastwick -23%
The Forgotten -23%
Life Unexpected -24%
Hank -24%
V -27%
Community -29%
Melrose Place -31%

EXCELLENT (6 points) - NCIS: Los Angeles, Flashforward, Modern Family
GOOD ENOUGH (5 points) - The Vampire Diaries, Cougar Town, Accidentally on Purpose, Glee, The Cleveland Show, The Good Wife
BORDERLINE (4 points) - V, Mercy, The Middle, The Deep End, Melrose Place, Human Target
IN TROUBLE (2-3 points) - Community, TBL:TBL, Eastwick, Three Rivers, Brothers, Life Unexpected (3 points), The Forgotten, Trauma, Hank (2 points)

New touch: shows already renewed for 2010-11 are greened, shows already axed are redded. Looks pretty accurate so far!!! The new show each post will be in blue.

If this is your first of these First Two Weeks post, click the "new shows" label and head down to the bottom for more on the method behind this madness.