The War of 18-49, The Simpsons

THE SIMPSONS (FOX)

Scheduling history: The vast majority of The Simpsons' run has come on Sunday. The show was on Sunday in its short first season all the way back in early 1990, then moved to Thursday for the next four years, then went back to Sunday for fall of 1994 and has been on that evening for the over two decades since.

See (who saw) how it all began: Like other posts for Law & Order and ER, The Simpsons is a show for which I'm unfortunately missing a ton of information. As with those two shows, I start tracking in 1999-00, the first year in which I have any reasonable amount of data. But I did see some numbers on the series premiere on 1/14/90. I saw a couple conflicting reports, so this really should be taken with a pretty massive grain of salt, but the number I'm going with is 24.53 million viewers and a 12.4/26 demo. I also saw a higher demo number that could be right. (I went with the lower one since it seemed to match the number of viewers better.) Either way, the premiere was one of the biggest in Fox history.

The best of times: Unlike ER and L&O, which seemingly peaked around the time I started getting data, I don't really know for sure on The Simpsons, so all I can really say is that the best seasons of data I have were from that period, circa 2000. The best regular in-timeslot data I have is the 9.9 and 10.4 demos scored by the one-hour show on 2/16/03 advertised as the 300th episode. (Though they were actually the 302nd and 303rd in broadcast order.)

The worst of times: The Simpsons has mostly gone downhill since then, though it's stayed close to even after accounting for the league average decline. Season 27 set a new series low with a 1.0 demo on 4/3/16, and went fractional for the first times on 4/2/17 and 5/21/17.

Then vs. now: Of all the shows we've looked at (certainly all the big-four shows), The Simpsons is probably the most meaningful to the entire history of its network. Fox started in the 1986-87 season, so The Simpsons began in the fourth year of the net's nearly three decades of existence, and it's still going strong today. The mid-aughts were the last time the show took a year-to-year drop massively more than the league average. That's not bad at all over that long a period of time (though the NFL lead-ins have probably helped), and the show remains a really viable primetime player because it's still so strong in the younger male demos. Like Law & Order, it's proven that the key to longevity isn't necessarily staying at the very top of the primetime heap, as The Simpsons hasn't been close to those levels in many years. But thanks to its staying close to even, it should remain near the top in the numbers that matter most of all: ad dollars.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
11	1999-00	Sunday 8:00	7.47		5.8	9.7
12	2000-01		Sunday 8:00	7.75	+4%	6.4	9.8		detail
13	2001-02		Sunday 8:00	6.13	-21%	4.2	7.5		detail
14	2002-03		Sunday 8:00	6.45	+5%	4.7	10.4		detail
15	2003-04		Sunday 8:00	5.08	-21%	3.2	7.8		detail
16	2004-05		Sunday 8:00	4.50	-11%	3.4	5.6		detail
17	2005-06		Sunday 8:00	4.65	+3%	3.5	5.6		detail
18	2006-07		Sunday 8:00	4.26	-8%	3.0	5.4		detail
19	2007-08		Sunday 8:00	3.97	-7%	2.9	5.7		detail
20	2008-09		Sunday 8:00	3.38	-15%	2.5	6.2		detail
21	2009-10		Sunday 8:00	3.36	-1%	2.4	6.9		detail
22	2010-11		Sunday 8:00	3.21	-4%	2.3	5.7	detail	B
23	2011-12		Sunday 8:00	2.87	-11%	1.9	5.4	detail	C+
24	2012-13		Sunday 8:00	2.49	-13%	1.7	4.2	detail	C+
25	2013-14		Sunday 8:00	2.22	-11%	1.2	4.6	detail	B-
26	2014-15		Sunday 8:00	2.15	-3%	1.1	4.7	detail	C+
27	2015-16		Sunday 8:00	1.74	-19%	1.0	3.6	detail	C+
28	2016-17		Sunday 8:00	1.76	+1%	0.9	3.5	detail	B+
29	2017-18		Sunday 8:00	1.43	-19%	0.8	3.3	detail	B
30	2018-19		Sunday 8:00	1.20	-16%	0.5	3.2	detail	C
31	2019-20		Sunday 8:00	0.94	-22%	0.5	2.1	detail	C
32	2020-21		Sunday 8:00	0.70	-25%	0.3	1.7	detail	C+
33	2021-22		Sunday 8:00	0.66	-6%	0.3	1.3	detail	B
34	2022-23		Sunday 8:00	0.55	-18%	0.2	1.5	detail	C+
35	2023-24		Sunday 8:00	0.49	-9%	0.1	1.8	detail	C

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now24	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
11	1999-00	155	big hit	0.59		121	202	139	141
12	2000-01	161	big hit	0.61	+4%	133	204	133	144
13	2001-02	143	hit	0.54	-12%	98	174	163	98
14	2002-03	147	hit	0.56	+3%	108	238	185	140
15	2003-04	125	hit	0.47	-15%	79	192	185	108
16	2004-05	110	solid	0.42	-12%	84	138	138	111
17	2005-06	115	solid	0.43	+4%	86	138	128	96
18	2006-07	113	solid	0.43	-1%	80	143	141	119
19	2007-08	120	solid	0.46	+6%	88	172	142	88
20	2008-09	112	solid	0.43	-6%	83	206	150	96
21	2009-10	119	solid	0.45	+6%	85	245	153	89
22	2010-11	126	hit	0.48	+6%	90	224	146	98
23	2011-12	121	solid	0.46	-4%	80	229	165	89
24	2012-13	118	solid	0.45	-3%	81	199	180	100
25	2013-14	118	solid	0.45	0%	64	244	154	85
26	2014-15	128	hit	0.49	+8%	65	279	238	77
27	2015-16	119	solid	0.45	-7%	69	247	103	76
28	2016-17	144	hit	0.54	+20%	73	286	114	73
29	2017-18	130	hit	0.49	-9%	77	297	125	78
30	2018-19	126	hit	0.48	-3%	58	340	143	58
31	2019-20	114	solid	0.43	-9%	57	261	107	76
32	2020-21	109	solid	0.41	-5%	53	271	262	54
33	2021-22	130	hit	0.49	+19%	51	259	231	55
34	2022-23	128	hit	0.49	-2%	52	354	331	54
35	2023-24	130	hit	0.49	+2%	37	474	285	37
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	127	hit
CAREER:		CAREER:	3163	icon

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