Today, my fall preview kicks off with Sunday 7/6c. It's a pretty low-priority timeslot, and if you can find a mainstay, you keep it there. All of the big 4 have aired mostly the same stuff in this timeslot across the time period I'm following.
ABC
The net has gone for quite some time with mainstay America's Funniest Home Videos, which last year averaged a 2.03 in originals. It will not be leaving anytime soon. The slot is sometimes used for NASCAR overruns or for the first half of two-hour Extreme Makeover: Home Edition events.
CBS
This network also has a mainstay in this timeslot, newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which usually gets major bumps in the fall from football overruns and the typical variance of newsmagazines. The show averaged about a 2.32 during the 2009-10 regular season but because of the above reasons varied more wildly than almost any show in primetime, peaking at a 4.0 and bottoming out at a 1.1.
NBC
This is home to NBC's pregame show Football Night in America. It returns this year. Dateline NBC has historically done most of the lifting when football season is over and should continue to this year. Dateline averaged a 1.09 on Sundays in the regular season this past year.
FOX
This timeslot is generally the home of football overruns (taken to 8pm by postgame show The OT) and animation repeats. FOX occasionally burns off originals in this timeslot, most recently megabombs 'Til Death and Sons of Tucson, both of which averaged less than a 1.0. Apparently American Dad! will join the 7:30 half hour on a regularly-scheduled basis at midseason to free up a spot for animated newbie Bob's Burgers later in the night, but I'm not giving the bold treatment to that plan just yet.
PREDICTIONS
60 Minutes - 2.11 average (-9% from last year)
AFHV - 1.90 average (-6%), 2.1 premiere (-5%)
I did a big post on sports TV ratings recently, so I'll predict the Sunday Night Football ratings on future Sunday posts just for the hell of it, but even I am not enough of a completist to bother averaging ratings for The OT and Football Night in America. Also, I still don't really understand how Nielsen tabulates Football Night in America ratings, which are weirdly broken up into several parts. So I'm not predicting those. Sorry to be a heart-breaker.
WHAT I'M WATCHING
In the fall, usually the tail end of the late football games, and then I often check out the 7pm Sportscenter on ESPN. After football season, nada. You?
For more, see my 2009 post on the hour.
No comments:
Post a Comment