Demos Year-to-Year, February Sweeps 2011 Week One Winners/Losers

I should have done this long ago, probably, but from now on the top 5 lists are going to consist of original-vs.-original comparisons only.

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. CSI: NY (F9-10pm vs. W10-11pm) -42%
2. Fringe (F9-10pm vs. Th9-10pm) -38%
3. Super Bowl's Greatest Commercials (F9-10pm vs. W8-9pm) -31%
4. The Good Wife -29%
5. Private Practice -24%

The top three show losers are all Friday imports. CSI: NY was a mainstay on this list in November, while Fringe has the misfortune of its Friday "death slot" slip corresponding with its big surge around this time last year. The Good Wife continues to have ratings issues (though its big drop is relative to a series-high 3.1 last year) while Private Practice is seeing its performance relative to lead-in Grey's Anatomy begin to erode. (Grey's was down just 4%.)

Top 5 year-to-year show gainers
1. Dateline NBC (F9-11pm vs. F9-10pm) +27%
2. Modern Family +24%
3. Parks & Recreation (Th9:30pm vs. Th8:30pm) +4%
4. Super Bowl XLV +3%
5. NCIS +2%

Very few shows actually escaped the week making gains on the year-ago numbers, but credit Dateline for a pretty big two-hour performance by Friday standards, while Modern Family continues to build big as in November and perhaps benefit a bit from all the Idol viewers fleeing Fox at 9:00. The Super Bowl's small percentage gain was still enough to make it the most-viewed show ever. Parks is mostly benefiting from the post-Office slot (though decreasingly so) and NCIS keeps chugging along. The ninth-year program unfathomably has something of a chance at a second straight series-high season.

Top 5 year-to-year timeslot losers
1. Human Target vs. American Idol (Fox, Wednesday 9-10pm) -76%
2. V vs. Lost (ABC, Tuesday 9-10pm) -64%
3. Live to Dance vs. Old Christine/Gary Unmarried (CBS, Wednesday 8-9pm) -62%
4. Glee vs. American Idol (Fox, Tuesday 8-9pm) -54%
5. Mike & Molly vs. The Big Bang Theory (CBS, Monday 9:30-10pm) -42%

Idol's move to Wednesday/Thursday is probably gonna make the show a mainstay on both the timeslot losers list for the hours it's vacated and the timeslot gainers list for where it is now. Glee is one of TV's very biggest shows but it's on the list because it has the misfortune of being compared against an Idol airing that hit double digits. CBS' reality show Live to Dance was a total disaster which CBS is happy to be rid of after this week, and the net will shift to timeslot gains here next week when Survivor returns. all the entries in this top 5 are comparisons vs. big hits of yesteryear. Mike & Molly had a significantly weaker 2.5 Men lead-in and didn't do nearly as well as Big Bang, while V is actually the brightest spot (or perhaps more accurately, least dark spot) on ABC Tuesday but it doesn't look at all favorable compared to last year's Lost originals.

Top 5 year-to-year timeslot gainers
1. American Idol vs. Human Target (Fox, Wednesday 8-9pm) +236%
2. American Idol vs. Bones (Fox, Thursday 8-9pm) +127%
3. Winter Wipeout vs. The Deep End (ABC, Thursday 8-9pm) +92%
4. 30 Rock/Outsourced vs. The Jay Leno Show (NBC, Thursday 10-11pm) +91%
5. Harry's Law vs. The Jay Leno Show (NBC, Monday 10-11pm) +55%

This is the last time we'll ever see comparisons vs. the year-ago Jay Leno Show, so I guess it's nice to see NBC finally making some really meaningful gains on it. (The show was still a little stronger in November, plus NBC struggled with the likes of Chase and The Apprentice in November, so making major gains was often difficult.) Throw in two more doses of Idol airing in a couple timeslots where it didn't last year, and you're left with probably the biggest success story of these five; though The Deep End was a true disaster, for Wipeout to nearly double it while facing Idol (which The Deep End never did) is a pretty impressive thing.

Here are this week's daily posts:
Thursday | Friday | Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday

Didn't do recaps last February, so no year-ago recap links. (And this may be the only one of this sweep as the year-ago Winter Olympics loom. We'll see how many original-vs.-original comparisons actually exist.)