The War of 18-49, America's Next Top Model

AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL (UPN/The CW)

Scheduling history: America's Next Top Model has aired most of its run to date on Wednesdays, with most of those shows airing in the 8/7c hour. Only its first two were on another night, Tuesday, until it was moved off of Wednesday for the first time in eight years in fall 2012. Since then, it's been part of the CW's Friday filler mix, sometimes airing on a weeknight in the late summer.

See (who saw) how it all began: The series premiere of Top Model scored a 1.5 demo on 5/20/03. Yes, folks, this is another series that debuted in the summer and went on to become its network's signature reality series, also counting American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and Survivor. And that's not even including America's Got Talent, which is still a summer show, but many might call that NBC's signature reality series. Anyway, back on track: Top Model rose to a 2.1 demo in week 3 and remained in the upper 1's and low 2's for season 1, including a 2.3/7 for the finale.
 
The best of times: Top Model's best cycle by far was the second, the only cycle to average a 3.0+ (or anywhere close) and the only one to break that plateau with any frequency. The show peaked with 7.64 million viewers and a 3.8/10 in the demo on 2/24/04. Strangely, the show dropped from that peak and only got a 2.8 for the finale, a number that several subsequent finales would top. After that second season, the show's next seven cycles all averaged mid-2's demos, a pretty nice run of consistency.

The worst of times: It took almost six calendar years for the show to drop to its first season levels again. And now it's miles below those levels, with the spring 2011 season getting below the 1.0 demo for the first time and actually averaging slightly below a 1.0. But that was only the beginning of Top Model's problems, as the show then dropped another 35%+ in each of its next three cycles. That left the show at an embarrassingly low level in spring 2012, dropping as far as a 0.4 A18-49 rating on 5/9/12 and 5/23/12. The show then hit many more 0.4's after its move to Friday and fell to a couple 0.2's during the Friday run: on 8/23/13 and 10/30/15.

Then vs. now: Top Model has had one of the quickest falls from grace I can remember, especially for a show that had previously held up for so long. In just two years, it went from one of the strongest shows on the CW to one of the weakest, and that's really saying something considering how far many other shows on the net were falling. For a long time, there was a sense the show was relatively expensive by reality standards; in the first few years of the CW's existence, the net would regularly schedule Top Model reruns and claim they had to do it to keep the show economically viable. That apparently wasn't entirely truthful, as the CW has since dropped those regular reruns, but it sure seemed like this show's time was about up. If the show hadn't been renewed so early (on February 24, before the complete debacle that was Cycle 18 even began), it may have already been over.

However, the show held up somewhat reasonably in its move to Friday in fall 2012. While it remained among the network's lower tier, that performance on a Friday was good enough to get a few more years out of the franchise. The end finally came in fall 2015, even though the show hadn't gotten meaningfully weaker since it began its filler role.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Summer 2003	Tuesday 9:00	1.85		1.5	2.3	detail
2	Spring 2004		3.01	+63%	2.2	3.8	detail
3	Fall 2004	Wednesday 8:00	2.35		1.8	2.9	detail
4	Spring 2005		2.36	-22%	1.8	3.0	detail
5	Fall 2005		2.45	+4%	2.1	2.9	detail
6	Spring 2006		2.37	+0%	2.1	2.8	detail
7	Fall 2006		2.52	+3%	1.9	3.0	detail
8	Spring 2007		2.52	+6%	2.0	3.0	detail
9	Fall 2007		2.31	-8%	1.5	2.6	detail
10	Spring 2008		1.94	-23%	1.7	2.3	detail
11	Fall 2008		1.97	-15%	1.7	2.3	detail
12	Spring 2009		1.77	-9%	1.4	1.9	detail
13	Fall 2009		1.51	-23%	1.3	1.8	detail
14	Spring 2010		1.51	-14%	1.2	1.7	detail
15	Fall 2010		1.30	-14%	1.1	1.5	detail	C+
16	Spring 2011	Wed 8:00, Wed 9:00	0.98	-35%	0.9	1.1	detail	D-
17	Fall 2011	Wednesday 9:00	0.85	-35%	0.7	1.1	detail	F
18	Spring 2012		0.53	-46%	0.4	0.7	detail	F
19	Fall 2012	Friday 8:00	0.51	-40%	0.4	0.6	detail	C-
20	Fall 2013		0.44	-14%	0.2	0.6	detail	C+
21	Fall 2014	Mon 9:00, Fri 9:00	0.38	-14%	0.3	0.4	detail	C
22	Fall 2015	Wed 8:00, Fri 9:00	0.37	-2%	0.2	0.6	detail	B

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Summer 2003	42	solid(CW)	0.70		34	52	34	52
2	Spring 2004	74	hit(CW)	1.25	+78%	54	94	54	69
3	Fall 2004	58	hit(CW)	0.97		44	71	44	71
4	Spring 2005	58	hit(CW)	0.97	-22%	44	74	54	74
5	Fall 2005	60	hit(CW)	1.01	+5%	52	71	57	71
6	Spring 2006	58	hit(CW)	0.98	+1%	52	69	62	69
7	Fall 2006	67	hit(CW)	1.12	+11%	50	80	69	80
8	Spring 2007	67	hit(CW)	1.12	+15%	53	80	66	80
9	Fall 2007	70	hit(CW)	1.17	+4%	45	79	76	79
10	Spring 2008	59	hit(CW)	0.99	-12%	51	70	57	70
11	Fall 2008	65	hit(CW)	1.10	-6%	57	76	57	76
12	Spring 2009	59	hit(CW)	0.99	+0%	47	63	60	63
13	Fall 2009	54	hit(CW)	0.90	-18%	46	64	53	64
14	Spring 2010	54	hit(CW)	0.90	-9%	43	60	57	60
15	Fall 2010	51	hit(CW)	0.86	-5%	43	59	51	59
16	Spring 2011	39	solid(CW)	0.65	-28%	35	43	43	35
17	Fall 2011	36	solid(CW)	0.61	-30%	30	47	38	47
18	Spring 2012	22	flop	0.38	-42%	17	30	21	25
19	Fall 2012	24	solid(CWFri)	0.41	-33%	19	28	19	28
20	Fall 2013	23	solid(CWFri)	0.39	-4%	11	32	32	27
21	Fall 2014	22	solid(CWFri)	0.38	-4%	18	24	24	24
22	Fall 2015	24	solid(CWFri)	0.41	+9%	13	40	26	20

*- For this winter's War of 18-49 updates, the A18-49+ is based on a projected league average, calculated by applying the league average's current year-to-year trend (thru 1/3/16) to the final 2014-15 average. This should help make these numbers compare more fairly with fall seasons past.

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