The War of 18-49, Grey's Anatomy

GREY'S ANATOMY (ABC)

Scheduling history: Grey's Anatomy has been one of TV's strongest shows on two different evenings, starting with two seasons on Sunday after Desperate Housewives. It really became established as a standalone hit when ABC moved it to Thursday night in the fall of 2006.

See (who saw) how it all began: Grey's Anatomy is yet another of those major hits of today that didn't start out as a huge network priority.  It was a midseason replacement for legal drama Boston Legal, which had spent most of the 2004-05 season to date in the 10:00 post-Desperate Housewives slot. Boston Legal's retention of the breakout hit had been far from great, so Grey's Anatomy got a whirl on 3/27/05, when it drew 16.25 million viewers and a 7.2/18 in the demo. Retention out of Desperate Housewives was a reasonable 67% on that evening, which looks better than the two thirds that Brothers & Sisters usually holds, since Housewives had such incredible raw numbers at the time.  But while the 7.2 demo looked pretty solid, here's something fairly amazing; it remained a series low until the middle of season four, for well over two and a half calendar years. The first season finale on 5/22/05 found a whooping 9.8 in the demo.

The best of times: Until the breakout performance by Undercover Boss in 2010, Grey's Anatomy was known as 'the last show to get a long-term boost from the Super Bowl.' The post-SB numbers were substantial: 37.88 million viewers and a 16.5/38 in the demo, easily the best in recent years until Boss got comparable ones in 2010 (38.65m, 16.2/38). And the long-term boost was tangible, both within season 2 and beyond.  It averaged an 8.45 in its pre-Super Bowl season 2 airings and a 10.06 in those after that airing, an increase of nearly 20%, and it went from a really good retainer of the Housewives audience to something that built on the show by noticeable amounts. Then came the somewhat risky move from the Housewives lead-in on Sundays to Thursdays, a historically troublesome night for ABC. But it was another really good season, in fact the strongest average season overall in a regular timeslot. The best run during season 3 was in February 2007, when it posted four straight results with double digit demos, including an 11.6 on 2/22/07 which was the series' highest-rated telecast outside of the post-Super Bowl airing. Overall, the show broke double digits nine times, eight of which came in February; four in February 2006, four in February 2007, and the season 3 premiere in September 2006.

The worst of times: Since its heights in seasons 2 and 3, the show's trend was consistently downward, with each season dropping more than the league average for nearly a decade. But season 11 was impressive, dropping just barely more than league average even in a move to 8/7c. It hit a new series low is a 1.9 on 4/2/15. And it never even fell back to that 1.9 in season 12, growing in A18-49+ for the first time since season three. It's hit raw series lows each of the last four seasons (including a 1.0 on 2/13/20).

Then vs. now: Though Grey's got weaker after its megahit heights, it's still noteworthy that the show significantly slowed its rate of decline, allowing it to run many years longer than its fellow mid-aughts megahits Desperate Housewives and House. Even a decade into its run, it was not that far from being the top-rated drama on broadcast. In fact, it actually got that honor in the official Live+7 rankings for 2013-14, in which Grey's benefits from airing no in-timeslot repeats. I would argue that's an artificial benefit, but it's still an achievement to be close enough for that to make the difference. It was Scandal's heat, rather than Grey's cooling, that got the show its first timeslot downgrade in 2014-15. It moved to ABC's long-troubled Thursday 8/7c hour so the network could launch a new Shonda Rhimes drama after Scandal, but it has held up exceptionally well in that transition.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Spring 2005	Sunday 10:00	8.09		7.2	9.8	detail
2	2005-06		Sunday 10:00	9.14	+13%	7.2	11.3		detail
3	2006-07	Thursday 9:00	9.32	+2%	7.6	11.6	detail
4	2007-08		Thursday 9:00	7.16	-23%	5.1	8.8		detail
5	2008-09		Thursday 9:00	5.73	-20%	5.0	7.4		detail
6	2009-10		Thursday 9:00	4.82	-16%	3.5	6.7		detail
7	2010-11		Thursday 9:00	4.10	-15%	3.2	5.4	detail	C+
8	2011-12		Thursday 9:00	3.56	-13%	2.8	4.5	detail	B
9	2012-13		Thursday 9:00	3.10	-13%	2.6	4.4	detail	B-
10	2013-14		Thursday 9:00	2.69	-13%	2.3	3.4	detail	B-
11	2014-15	Thursday 8:00	2.38	-12%	1.9	3.1	detail	B+
12	2015-16		Thursday 8:00	2.22	-7%	2.0	2.8	detail	A
13	2016-17		Thursday 8:00	2.06	-7%	1.7	2.6	detail	A
14	2017-18		Thursday 8:00	1.93	-6%	1.5	2.3	detail	A-
15	2018-19		Thursday 8:00	1.56	-19%	1.3	1.9	detail	B-
16	2019-20	Thu 8:00, Thu 9:00	1.28	-18%	1.0	1.5	detail	B
17	2020-21	Thursday 9:00	1.02	-20%	0.7	1.3	detail	B+
18	2021-22		Thursday 9:00	0.62	-38%	0.5	0.8	detail	C-
19	2022-23		Thursday 9:00	0.44	-29%	0.4	0.6	detail	C
20	Spring 2024		Thursday 9:00	0.43	-4%	0.3	0.6	detail	B-

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now24	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Spring 2005	199	big hit	0.75		177	241	177	241
2	2005-06	225	megahit	0.85	+13%	177	278	204	244
3	2006-07	247	megahit	0.94	+10%	202	308	292	242
4	2007-08	216	megahit	0.82	-13%	154	266	266	212
5	2008-09	190	big hit	0.72	-12%	166	246	246	196
6	2009-10	171	big hit	0.65	-10%	124	238	238	192
7	2010-11	161	big hit	0.61	-6%	126	212	212	142
8	2011-12	151	big hit	0.57	-6%	119	190	174	174
9	2012-13	147	hit	0.56	-2%	123	209	209	147
10	2013-14	143	hit	0.54	-3%	122	180	180	138
11	2014-15	142	hit	0.54	-1%	113	184	184	131
12	2015-16	153	big hit	0.58	+8%	137	192	192	158
13	2016-17	168	big hit	0.64	+10%	139	212	204	163
14	2017-18	176	big hit	0.67	+5%	134	214	214	173
15	2018-19	164	big hit	0.62	-7%	135	200	197	138
16	2019-20	156	big hit	0.59	-5%	128	185	185	175
17	2020-21	158	big hit	0.60	+1%	110	209	209	130
18	2021-22	123	solid	0.46	-22%	96	153	151	127
19	2022-23	104	solid	0.39	-15%	89	129	129	101
20	Spring 2024	112	solid	0.43	+8%	92	148	148	105
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	165	big hit
CAREER:		CAREER:	3306	icon

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.