The War of 18-49, The Office

THE OFFICE (NBC)

Scheduling history: The series premiered on Thursday after The Apprentice, then moved to Tuesday for the rest of its very short first season and the first half of its second season, then went back to Thursday where it aired for the last 7.5 seasons. It was the 9/8c anchor from the beginning of season four through the end of the run.

See (who saw) how it all began: The Office had a good post-Apprentice premiere, pulling 11.23 million viewers and a 5.0/13 in the demo, but from there it moved to Tuesday and had the much lower-rated Scrubs as a lead-in. It struggled, dropping immediately below a 3.0 and bottoming out at a 2.3 for the season finale on 4/26/05.

The best of times: But between seasons 1 and 2, the turnaround was instantaneous, thanks in part to Steve Carell's ascension in the wake of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and thanks in part to the breakout performance of lead-in My Name is Earl. The show remained consistent from there, peaking in season 4 with an average above a 4.5. The Office broke the 5.0 barrier seven different times in five different seasons, and outside of the post-Super Bowl airing (not included in the average below, but it had 22.91 million viewers, 11.0/28 demo on 2/1/09) none of those were higher than a 5.1.

The worst of times: This is one of those shows like NCIS or House that took many years to finally approach the depths of the first season before it'd really found its audience. Even throwing in the big out-of-timeslot post-Apprentice premiere, that season averaged a 2.95, and no episode in the subsequent six seasons fell below that mark. But the loss of Steve Carell brought the show's first significant decline in 2011-12, with 17 of 24 episodes going sub-3.0 in that season. The show finally went below its 2004-05 low in April 2012, and it spent almost all of the final season below that mark. It got as bad as a 1.7 demo on 4/25/13, three weeks before the series finale.

Then vs. now: As of 2010-11, The Office was down just 17% from its peak season, and that made it another show that, like The Biggest Loser, looked really, really good by comparison as NBC primetime crumbled around it. But everything changed with Steve Carell's departure in 2011, as the show dropped over 20% in each of the next two seasons. Though NBC as a network showed some minor signs of life in 2012-13, The Office's depressed ratings still looked abundantly renew-worthy. But the powers that be opted to get out before things got truly embarrassing.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2004-05	Thu 9:30, Tue 9:30	2.95		2.3	5.0	detail
2	2005-06	Tue 9:30, Thu 9:30	4.15	+41%	3.5	5.1	detail
3	2006-07	Thursday 8:30	4.13	-0%	3.2	5.0	detail
4	2007-08	Thursday 9:00	4.53	+10%	3.6	5.1	detail
5	2008-09		4.27	-6%	3.4	4.9	detail
6	2009-10		3.97	-7%	3.2	4.8	detail
7	2010-11		3.74	-6%	3.2	4.5	detail	B-
8	2011-12		2.77	-26%	2.1	3.9	detail	D
9	2012-13		2.10	-24%	1.7	3.0	detail	D+

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2004-05	72	marginal	1.22		56	123	123	56
2	2005-06	102	solid	1.72	+41%	86	126	106	96
3	2006-07	110	solid	1.84	+7%	85	133	114	104
4	2007-08	137	hit	2.30	+25%	109	154	154	127
5	2008-09	142	hit	2.39	+4%	113	163	163	116
6	2009-10	141	hit	2.37	-1%	114	171	146	121
7	2010-11	147	hit	2.47	+4%	126	177	173	153
8	2011-12	117	solid	1.97	-20%	89	165	165	97
9	2012-13	100	solid	1.68	-15%	81	142	100	142
AVERAGE:		119	solid
CAREER:		1068	star

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.