The War of 18-49, America's Got Talent

AMERICA'S GOT TALENT (NBC)

Scheduling history: America's Got Talent has been scheduled on multiple nights in each season since the first, and those nights have almost always been Tuesday and Wednesday. The early part of summer 2012 was a rare exception as the network put Talent on Monday/Tuesday, but even that eventually reverted to the Tuesday/Wednesday setup.

See (who saw) how it all began: Like So You Think You Can Dance, the other summer staple covered so far this summer, America's Got Talent got a big initial sampling. It premiered to 12.4 million viewers and a 4.6/14 adults 18-49 rating on 6/21/06. Week two dropped 17% to a 3.8 demo, then week three rebounded to a 4.1, but from there the show would mostly dip into the low 3's for the rest of the first season.

The best of times: Also like So You Think You Can Dance, the strongest season of Got Talent's run to date was the second one. It was also the only season the show was regularly scheduled on just one night. It only had one airing outside of Wednesday, a season-low 2.6 demo on 7/11/07. Season six was also a standout, up a couple ticks from the previous three seasons. Its 4.6 demo on 7/5/11 was the only time the show's ever matched its series premiere demo on 6/21/06. However, the show has become much stronger on a historical-adjusted basis in the last couple seasons. The summer 2015 season eked out a new series high in Plus (at least for the main night), and the addition of Simon Cowell in 2016 thrusted the show to another level entirely in 2016 and 2017.

The worst of times: Remarkably, season seven with its introduction of Howard Stern really marked the first significant downturn ever for this series, as it was down over 15% on both nights. The last two results airings (on a special Thursday night) were particularly ugly, starting with a series-low 1.9 demo on 9/6/12 and culminating with just a 2.4 for the 9/13/12 finale that was down a third from the 2011 finale. It had a nice rebound on the main night in 2015, but dropped to new series lows for the Wednesday results edition: a 1.6 on 8/12/15, 8/19/15 and 8/26/15. It took another three years to drop to 1.5 for the first time (8/15/18, 8/29/18, 9/5/18). Then 2019 brought a bunch of low-1's, including a 1.1 on 8/21/19 and 8/28/19.

Then vs. now: Every once in awhile you'll hear someone say that NBC should do a regular season edition of America's Got Talent, wondering how this show could linger in the summer with numbers that would be more than acceptable at any time of year. In its early years, this was all about NBC's incredible weakness during the regular season; if it didn't happen during the 2007-08 writers' strike, it seemed like it would never happen. But as Talent continued blowing away its previous career highs in A18-49+ in the late 2010's, the show became too big to contain in the summer. Spin-off America's Got Talent: The Champions debuted in winter 2019.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Summer 2006	Wed 9:00, Wed 8:00	3.46		2.9	4.6	detail
		1	Summer 2006	Thursday 9:00	2.65				2.1	3.5	detail
2	Summer 2007	Wednesday 9:00	3.65	+5%	2.6	4.4	detail
3	Summer 2008		Wednesday 9:00	3.20	-12%	2.6	3.7		detail
			3	Summer 2008	Wednesday 9:00	2.66				2.3	2.9	detail
4	Summer 2009	Tuesday 9:00	3.30	+3%	2.9	3.7	detail
		4	Summer 2009	Wednesday 9:00	2.92	+10%			2.1	3.5	detail
5	Summer 2010	Tuesday 9:00	3.15	-4%	2.6	3.9	detail
		5	Summer 2010	Wednesday 9:00	3.04	+4%			2.5	3.9	detail
6	Summer 2011	Tuesday 9:00	3.48	+10%	2.8	4.6	detail	A-
		6	Summer 2011	Wednesday 9:00	3.17	+4%			2.5	4.1	detail	A-
7	Summer 2012	Tuesday 8:00	2.85	-18%	2.4	3.7	detail	C-
		7	Summer 2012	Tue 9:00, Wed 9:00	2.66	-16%			1.9	3.7	detail	C-
8	Summer 2013	Tuesday 9:00	2.55	-11%	2.2	3.1	detail	B
		8	Summer 2013	Wednesday 9:00	2.41	-9%			2.1	2.9	detail	B
9	Summer 2014	Tuesday 9:00	2.33	-9%	1.8	3.0	detail	B
		9	Summer 2014	Wednesday 9:00	2.11	-12%			1.8	2.4	detail	B
10	Summer 2015	Tuesday 8:00	2.34	+0%	2.1	2.6	detail	A-
		10	Summer 2015	Wednesday 8:00	1.79	-15%			1.6	2.1	detail	A-
11	Summer 2016	Tuesday 8:00	2.44	+4%	2.2	2.8	detail	A
		11	Summer 2016	Wednesday 8:00	2.24	+25%			1.8	2.8	detail	A
12	Summer 2017	Tuesday 8:00	2.62	+7%	2.3	3.0	detail	A
		12	Summer 2017	Wednesday 8:00	2.30	+3%			1.9	3.0	detail	A
13	Summer 2018	Tuesday 8:00	2.09	-20%	1.8	2.5	detail	B
		13	Summer 2018	Wednesday 8:00	1.70	-26%			1.5	2.1	detail	B
14	Summer 2019	Tuesday 8:00	1.52	-28%	1.2	1.7	detail	C
		14	Summer 2019	Wednesday 8:00	1.25	-26%			1.1	1.5	detail	C

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now19	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Summer 2006	85	solid(sum)	0.81		71	113	113	81
		1	Summer 2006	65	marg(sum)	0.62		52	86	52	86
2	Summer 2007	97	hit(sum)	0.92	+13%	69	117	114	111
3	Summer 2008	97	hit(sum)	0.92	0%	79	112	112	100
		3	Summer 2008	80	solid(sum)	0.76		70	88	70	70
4	Summer 2009	110	big hit(sum)	1.04	+14%	96	123	106	110
		4	Summer 2009	97	hit(sum)	0.92	+21%	70	116	103	116
5	Summer 2010	112	big hit(sum)	1.07	+2%	92	139	128	139
		5	Summer 2010	108	big hit(sum)	1.03	+11%	89	139	103	139
6	Summer 2011	137	big hit(sum)	1.30	+22%	110	181	169	149
		6	Summer 2011	125	big hit(sum)	1.18	+15%	98	161	146	142
7	Summer 2012	121	big hit(sum)	1.15	-12%	102	157	157	123
		7	Summer 2012	113	big hit(sum)	1.07	-10%	80	157	144	102
8	Summer 2013	121	big hit(sum)	1.15	+0%	104	147	147	114
		8	Summer 2013	114	big hit(sum)	1.09	+2%	100	138	133	119
9	Summer 2014	124	big hit(sum)	1.18	+2%	96	159	159	133
		9	Summer 2014	112	big hit(sum)	1.06	-2%	96	127	127	127
10	Summer 2015	139	big hit(sum)	1.32	+12%	125	155	155	143
		10	Summer 2015	106	big hit(sum)	1.01	-5%	95	125	95	125
11	Summer 2016	168	mega(sum)	1.59	+20%	155	189	175	189
		11	Summer 2016	154	mega(sum)	1.46	+45%	120	195	165	195
12	Summer 2017	214	mega(sum)	2.04	+28%	190	242	217	242
		12	Summer 2017	188	mega(sum)	1.79	+22%	155	241	174	241
13	Summer 2018	191	mega(sum)	1.82	-11%	167	227	227	207
		13	Summer 2018	155	mega(sum)	1.47	-18%	133	191	140	191
14	Summer 2019	159	mega(sum)	1.52	-16%	130	176	174	169
		14	Summer 2019	132	big hit(sum)	1.25	-15%	116	157	120	157

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

Spotted Ratings, Monday 5/30/11

Note: I said in my summer preview post last week that I would continue to do these "What Matters" posts and only do full tables on a few select days. After looking at the weekend ratings, it became clear that "What Matters" will almost always equal "nothing" on Friday and Saturday nights, so I think I'm just going to even do posts at all for Sunday thru Thursday, and only Friday/Saturday should something really interesting happen. Even on Sunday to Thursday it is often a stretch to find something interesting in the broadcast ratings, so I might skip a handful of those as well. It might be worthwhile to try to find a way to incorporate cable into these during the summer months, so I'll think on that some more.

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Bachelorette (2.1) dropped a stout 25% from its post-Dancing premiere last week and was 16% below last year's first "on its own" episode. Not a good start for this season. But the news at 10/9c was better as Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition (2.3) launched pretty well.

• Law & Order: CI (1.1) in its "new to NBC" premiere was three-tenths behind the same episode's premiere on USA 29 days prior but a tick ahead of last summer's "new to NBC" premiere. Law & Order: LA (1.4) perked up to its highest number since May 2.

Above based on preliminary adults 18-49 ratings unless otherwise noted.

Updated for 2010-11: Network 18-49 Averages in the 2000s

Did one of these last year and figured it was worth an update with the 2010-11 regular season officially in the books. NBC rode the Winter Olympics to a tie with ABC last year, the first time in six years they weren't in outright fourth place, but they're back in the gutter this year with no major sporting event to help them.

Summer 2011 Matchups, Sunday

Bold indicates a timeslot change; ALL CAPS indicates a new show.

Previous Summer Matchups: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday

8/7c
Broadcast:
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (R) (ABC)
Big Brother (CBS, 7/10)
America's Got Talent (R) (NBC)
The Simpsons (R) / The Cleveland Show (R) (Fox)

Cable:
Mob Wives (VH1)

Projected A18-49 winner: Big Brother (CBS)

Easy pick here; the only broadcast original will also be the only thing to get beyond a 2.0 demo.

Demos Year-to-Year, May Sweeps 2011 Week Four Winners/Losers

So ends another session of Demos Year-to-Year. For more on this particular sweep period, see the week one, week two and week three recaps. Those might be more useful than this one for gauging what the real winners and losers of the sweep were, as a lot of stuff doesn't end up airing during the fourth week.

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. Grey's Anatomy -33%
2. The Big Bang Theory (Th 8-8:30pm vs. M 9:30-10pm) -32% 
3. Minute to Win It (Su 8-9pm) -29%
4. Primetime: What Would You Do? -28%
5. Dateline Fri -27% 

Grey's Anatomy getting on this list is much more about what Grey's did last year (an enormous spike in its season finale) than a particularly bad result this year, though this year's result wasn't great. Big Bang and Minute and Primetime have all been on the list before, while Dateline had a bad newsmagazine fluctuation.

Demos Year-to-Year, Wednesday 5/25/11

Last one till premiere week! Will do the week four recap probably tomorrow. (Kind of off-schedule today.)

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 5/26/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• The only original on the first day of summer was So You Think You Can Dance (3.2), up 7% from the 3.0 that started last year's disappointingly-rated season. Decent start, but it will have to keep it up to truly pull off the bounce-back season the franchise could sure use. 

Above based on preliminary adults 18-49 ratings unless otherwise noted.

Summer 2011 Matchups, Friday

Bold indicates a timeslot change; ALL CAPS indicates a new show.

Previous Summer Matchups: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

8/7c
Broadcast:
Shark Tank (R) (ABC)
Flashpoint (CBS)
Friday Night Lights (NBC)
Bones (R) (Fox)

Cable:
WWE Smackdown (Syfy)

Projected A18-49 winner: Flashpoint (CBS)

Sort of a tough call as all of this stuff should hover around the 1.0 mark, but I'll take Flashpoint in a tight one. Last week, though, the repeat of Shark Tank beat it.

The War of 18-49, So You Think You Can Dance

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (FOX)

Scheduling history: Almost every SYTYCD season in the early years aired on Wednesday and Thursday. The only exceptions were season one (Wednesday only) and the show's only regular season campaign in fall 2009 (Tuesday/Wednesday). But it was cut to one night starting in 2012, and it's been a different night each year: Thursday in 2012, Tuesday in 2013, Wednesday in 2014 and Monday starting in 2015.

See (who saw) how it all began: So You Think You Can Dance got a big premiere sampling, garnering 10.30 million viewers and a 4.6/15 among adults 18-49 for its two-hour premiere on 7/20/05. The demo number remains a series high to this day, and for most of the rest of the first season, it appeared those numbers were going to remain far ahead of any other airing; the show dropped an abnormally large 28% to a 3.3 demo in week two, then to a 3.0 in week three. It'd hover around a 3.0 for most of the rest of season 1.

The best of times: But while that 4.6 demo has still gone unmatched, the show had a pretty significant overall upswing in its second season, and it got pretty close to that 4.6 on several occasions in seasons two and three. Those were easily the show's two strongest overall seasons, as the show broke the 4.0 plateau on a dozen different occasions during those two seasons and just once (the aforementioned series premiere) in the other five seasons to date.

The worst of times: What really seems to have derailed this show was Fox's decision to run a regular-season edition. There were concerns when it was announced at the 2009 upfront that it'd get lost among the full-fledged broadcast competition, and that certainly happened. The show got as low as a 1.6 demo on 11/25/09 (Thanksgiving Eve) that season. But that could arguably have been shrugged off if the show made a nice recovery the next summer. Instead, SYTYCD didn't get back on track in the summer of 2010. The season only made insignificant gains from the summer edition and finished down by over 20% from the summer 2009 season, easily the biggest year-to-year drop the show's ever taken. It's since continued downhill, going as low as a 0.4 demo a half-dozen times in 2019.

Then vs. now: There were a couple reasons behind Fox's decision to bring SYTYCD into the regular season. The first was to take up real estate in a fairly soft development season, and the second was to provide a compatible lead-in to the only really promising thing to come out of their development, the dramedy Glee. I do have to admit that Glee became a substantial success for Fox, but it sure seems like the show's overexposure for that one year had a lot to do with the big drops the next summer. Fox cancelled the second night of SYTYCD after the summer 2011 season. The revamp didn't really slow down the show's bleeding, but the show kept ekeing out a spot on the summer sked. It finally had a somewhat promising trend in 2017, but the ratings are still low, so the fate is up in the air once more.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Summer 2005	Wednesday 8:00	3.18		2.3	4.6	detail
2	Summer 2006	Thursday 8:00	3.72		3.2	4.4	detail
		2	Summer 2006	Wed 8:00, Wed 9:00	3.74	+18%			2.8	4.4	detail
3	Summer 2007	Thursday 8:00	3.68	-1%	3.2	4.3	detail
		3	Summer 2007	Wednesday 8:00	3.47	-7%			2.9	4.4	detail
4	Summer 2008	Thursday 8:00	3.12	-15%	2.1	3.6	detail
		4	Summer 2008	Wednesday 8:00	3.26	-6%			3.0	3.7	detail
5	Summer 2009	Thursday 8:00	3.07	-2%	2.3	3.6	detail
		5	Summer 2009	Wednesday 8:00	3.04	-7%			2.6	3.5	detail
6	Fall 2009	Wednesday 8:00	2.43			1.6	2.8		detail
		6	Fall 2009	Tuesday 8:00	2.33		2.1			2.6	detail
7	Summer 2010	Thursday 8:00	2.43	-21%	1.8	3.3	detail
		7	Summer 2010	Wednesday 8:00	2.37	-22%			2.0	3.0	detail
8	Summer 2011	Thursday 8:00	2.18	-10%	1.6	3.3	detail	C
		8	Summer 2011	Wednesday 8:00	2.26	-5%			1.8	3.1	detail	C
9	Summer 2012	Wednesday 8:00	1.97		-13%	1.5	2.7	detail	C
10	Summer 2013	Tuesday 8:00	1.55	-21%	1.2	2.3	detail	D+
11	Summer 2014	Wednesday 8:00	1.25	-20%	0.9	1.7	detail	C-
12	Summer 2015	Monday 8:00	0.95	-24%	0.7	1.3	detail	D+
13	Summer 2016		Monday 8:00	0.73	-23%	0.5	1.0	detail	C-
14	Summer 2017		Monday 8:00	0.70	-5%	0.5	0.9	detail	B+
15	Summer 2018		Monday 8:00	0.61	-12%	0.5	0.8	detail	B-
16	Summer 2019	Monday 9:00	0.47	-23%	0.4	0.7	detail	C-
17	Summer 2022	Wednesday 9:00	0.29		0.2	0.3	detail
18	Spring 2024	Monday 9:00	0.14		0.1	0.2	detail	D-

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now24	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Summer 2005	78	solid(sum)	0.30		56	113	113	74
2	Summer 2006	92	hit(sum)	0.35		79	108	106	81
		2	Summer 2006	92	hit(sum)	0.35	+18%	69	108	89	106
3	Summer 2007	98	hit(sum)	0.37	+7%	85	114	98	98
		3	Summer 2007	92	hit(sum)	0.35	+0%	77	117	109	88
4	Summer 2008	94	hit(sum)	0.36	-3%	63	109	106	100
		4	Summer 2008	98	hit(sum)	0.37	+7%	91	112	109	94
5	Summer 2009	102	hit(sum)	0.39	+8%	76	120	113	116
		5	Summer 2009	101	hit(sum)	0.38	+3%	86	116	116	93
6	Fall 2009	86	marginal	0.33		57	99	96	92
		6	Fall 2009	83	marginal	0.31		75	92	85	82
7	Summer 2010	86	solid(sum)	0.33	-15%	64	117	107	82
		7	Summer 2010	84	solid(sum)	0.32	-16%	71	107	99	78
8	Summer 2011	86	solid(sum)	0.33	-1%	63	130	130	79
		8	Summer 2011	89	solid(sum)	0.34	+6%	71	122	122	75
9	Summer 2012	83	solid(sum)	0.32	-6%	63	114	102	68
10	Summer 2013	74	solid(sum)	0.28	-11%	57	109	90	66
11	Summer 2014	66	marg(sum)	0.25	-10%	48	90	85	69
12	Summer 2015	56	marg(sum)	0.21	-15%	42	77	77	48
13	Summer 2016	50	marg(sum)	0.19	-11%	34	69	69	48
14	Summer 2017	57	marg(sum)	0.22	+13%	44	73	73	44
15	Summer 2018	56	marg(sum)	0.21	-1%	48	71	66	59
16	Summer 2019	50	marg(sum)	0.19	-11%	41	72	72	45
17	Summer 2022	57	marg(sum)	0.22		45	67	67	51
18	Spring 2024	37	flop	0.14		26	47	42	26

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

War and Strength: Summer at SpottedRatings.com Starts TODAY!

The TV regular season has come to an end, and that means it's time for this blog - which last year was actually more busy in the summer than in the regular season - to kick into a different gear. Here's a quick look at what will be happening this summer:

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 5/25/11: The Death Star Explodes

WHAT MATTERS:

• It's mostly been a year of ~10% declines year-to-year for American Idol, but finale night was very good to the show. It grabbed over 60% of the broadcast eyeballs and was up 12% from last year. It was Idol's second-highest rating of the season, the first time since 2005 that the finale ranked that highly among the season's eps.

• The ABC comedy finales were down year-to-year, but most of the drops weren't awful considering last year's finales weren't up against the last week of Idol. Cougar Town's one-hour finale took the only huge year-to-year drop. And Happy Endings had its best 10:30 result yet.

Summer 2011 Matchups, Thursday

Bold indicates a timeslot change; ALL CAPS indicates a new show.

Previous Summer Matchups: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday

8/7c
Broadcast:
Wipeout (ABC, 6/23)
The Big Bang Theory (R) / Rules of Engagement (R) (CBS)
Community (R) / 30 Rock (R) (NBC)
So You Think You Can Dance (Fox, 5/26)

Cable:

Projected A18-49 winner: So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)

This one's really close between Wipeout and Dance, with Wipeout having a slight (less than 0.2) edge based on last year's Thursday numbers, but I'll go with Dance because I think Wipeout may drop a bit more due to its heavy recent exposure. Last year ABC running Wipeout on Thursday was a bit of an audible because they wanted to help along the early promising returns from Rookie Blue, so only five originals actually aired on Thursday. Not sure if that number will be higher this year.

Demos Year-to-Year, Tuesday 5/24/11

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 5/24/11: Reality Overload

WHAT MATTERS:

• Almost everything that was original was reality. American Idol led, but its one-hour ep was lower than any of its Wednesday results this season. Historically, the show has always been weaker when it's had to air on an irregular night, but typically those irregular nights haven't come during finale week. Still, the show is down just three tenths from last year's performance finale.

• The evening's only scripted original was Glee, which ended its second season on a very good note thanks in part to the Idol lead-in. It was up 28% from last week and previously hadn't even broken a 4.0 since March. Like Idol, it's only barely down year-to-year (but last year's finale aired outside of sweeps).

• Dancing with the Stars ended what has mostly been an incredible season of double-digit year-to-year gains with another one, building by 18% year-to-year and 31% from last week's Tuesday show in its season finale. As last year, the show was just about on par with the final performance show of the night before.

• The Biggest Loser was above average but (at just +7% week-to-week) had one of its smaller finale spikes historically. The arrival of Idol probably helped with that. Leading out was The Voice, hitting easily a new series low, but I won't cry for it till I see how it rebounds once it's out of this crazy reality shuffle.

Summer 2011 Matchups, Wednesday

Bold indicates a timeslot change; ALL CAPS indicates a new show.

Previous Summer Matchups: Monday | Tuesday

8/7c
Broadcast:
The Middle (R)/The Middle (R)
Big Brother (CBS, 7/13)
Minute to Win It (NBC, 6/1)
So You Think You Can Dance (Fox, 6/1)

Cable:
Melissa & Joey/STATE OF GEORGIA (ABC Family, 6/29)
Are We There Yet? (TBS, 7/27)

Projected A18-49 winner: Big Brother (CBS)

ABC Family branches out to a third evening of original programming. The race for the demo crown should be close here; last year, SYTYCD averaged a 2.37 demo on Wednesday to Big Brother's 2.58.

Demos Year-to-Year, Monday 5/23/11

The comparisons for these last three days will be kinda weak-ish thanks to CBS' decision to run mostly repeats on the last three days of the sweep.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 5/23/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• For the second straight week, the cancelled guys flexed a little muscle, with The Event up a solid 23% in its series finale to its best numbers since before its long hiatus and The Chicago Code cracking the 2.0 mark for the first time in 2.5 months. Will this be enough to get some other network interested? I'm not absolutely ruling it out, but I should note that this was the weakest competition either of them ever faced.

• Minute to Win It was another weak show to suddenly put up its best numbers in months. Perhaps this at least demonstrates the already-renewed show can pull a reasonable filler number if it's kept away from American Idol.

•  The Bachelorette was even with last season's two-hour premiere, but that was leading out of a much stronger year-to-year Dancing with the Stars. DWTS dominated the evening and was slightly above average despite airing for just one hour.

Demos Year-to-Year, Sunday 5/22/11

Summer 2011 Matchups, Tuesday

Bold indicates a timeslot change; ALL CAPS indicates a new show.

8/7c
Broadcast:
Wipeout (ABC, 6/21)
NCIS (R) (CBS)
America's Got Talent (NBC, 5/31)
Masterchef (Fox, 6/7)

Cable:
Pretty Little Liars (ABC Family, 6/14)

Projected A18-49 winner: Wipeout (ABC) 

Wipeout and Got Talent will only briefly go head-to-head (I just count June 21 and 28), and if there's some Wipeout fatigue from the regular season run, it might be Got Talent that comes out on top for those couple weeks. I look for it to edge out Masterchef, though.

Demos Year-to-Year, Friday 5/20/11

Summer 2011 Matchups, Monday

Bold indicates a timeslot change; ALL CAPS indicates a new show.

8/7c
Broadcast:
The Bachelorette (ABC, 5/23), Bachelor Pad (ABC, 8/8)
How I Met Your Mother (R)/Mad Love (R) (CBS)
America's Got Talent (R) (NBC)
Masterchef (Fox, 6/6)

Cable:
The Secret Life of the American Teenager (ABC Family)
Eureka (Syfy, 7/11)

Projected A18-49 winner: The Bachelorette (ABC)

Masterchef mostly had unexciting ratings (low 2's in the demo) when leading off the night last season. This year, it won't start off the year with a post-Hell's Kitchen sampling and will have to lead off two nights. Meanwhile, Eureka is the rare scripted show on an "adult" cable network to air at 8/7c. I'd expect that will keep it squarely behind the already-stronger Warehouse 13 which airs after it.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 5/22/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• Many of the Sunday staples have wrapped up their seasons, but there were plenty of originals floating around. Family Guy topped 'em all, but the Celebrity Apprentice (up 20% from last week in its season finale) and the resurrection of the Billboard Music Awards were close behind. Most of Fox's animation was slightly down from last week on finale night.

• The Jesse Stone movies continue to redefine the word "old-skewing" with each one that airs. The latest Tom Selleck movie, Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost, averaged just a 1.3 demo but had 13.93 million viewers! That means only about twelve percent of the audience was in the adults 18-49 demo. The performance meant CBS was way out ahead in the viewership race but way behind everyone in the demo race. You do occasionally see a network finish first in one metric and fourth in the other, but usually not by such huge margins in both cases at the same time.

Spotted Ratings, Friday 5/20/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• The CW got a weak showing from the two-hour finale of Supernatural, weirdly hitting an outright low.

• At 8:00, Kitchen Nightmares dominated with its second-highest number of the season on finale night. Flashpoint was way down from its weird spike last week while Friday Night Lights picked up a tick.

• The unscripted battle from 9:00 to 11:00 went the best for ABC, with Primetime: WWYD? and 20/20 up and Dateline down.

Demos Year-to-Year, Thursday 5/19/11

I should note that since the Idol Thursday airings occur in a different sweeps week than the Wednesday airings, those comparisons have all been off by a week. So Idol's -23% is actually relative to the season finale (the week 4 Wednesday airing last year). It's actually +3% vs. the penultimate results show from last season.

First Two Weeks, How'd We Do in 2010-11?

This is a look at how I did at predicting new shows' fates based on just the first two weeks. I might have one last "What a Shitty Year For New Shows" post up in the fairly near future, but the in-depth analysis of the merits of the system itself is probably not gonna come till toward the end of the summer.

For now, I'll just look at my "eye test" evaluations from each of the articles linked in the "system" recap below (in other words, what I subjectively predict at the end of the "Prognosis" section). These are more interesting because I actually made myself pick one way or the other, so there's not a big morass of "borderline" shows that I could not possibly be completely wrong about.

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 5/19/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• It was finale night for most of the big four. The only real standout in a good way was The Office, up 18% from last week and 12% year-to-year as it brought in a cavalcade of guest stars. It and Bones (3.2) were the only season finales to finish with above-season-average numbers. Bones was also significantly up year-to-year thanks to its move to the post-American Idol slot.

• The Big Bang Theory and Grey's Anatomy both got week-to-week bumps but were hugely down (over 30%) year-to-year. In the case of Grey's, it just has the misfortune of going up against the show's huge finale of last year, a number so improbable it actually inspired me to write the Finale Spike post. Big Bang continues to suffer from its Thursday move, meanwhile.

• Several other finales got zero or almost zero bump week-to-week: Bones, The Mentalist, Parks & Recreation, Rules of Engagement and Wipeout. But a couple of these non-bumps come with caveats. The Mentalist aired two hours rather than one and, in posting just a 2.5 at 9:00, perhaps illustrated why exactly CBS kept it in its 10:00 slot. Parks & Recreation aired for an hour at 10:00 and took a big dip at 10:30 (2.4 -> 2.0).

Demos Year-to-Year, May Sweeps 2011 Week Three Winners/Losers

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. Friday Night Lights -38%
2. The Big Bang Theory (Th 8-8:30pm vs. M 9:30-10pm) -38% 
3. Primetime: What Would You Do? -37%
4. Gossip Girl -36% 
5. CSI: NY (F 9-10pm vs. W 10-11pm) -36%

This top 5 is usually headlined by shows that have had adverse timeslot moves (see perennial contenders Big Bang and CSI: NY) so it's interesting to see a trio of same-timeslot shows this time. Friday Night Lights was more about last year's "big" result (a surprising week two uptick to a 1.3) rather than this year's result being anything out of the ordinary (0.8). Gossip Girl didn't get much of a spike for its season finale this year. And Primetime: What Would You Do? has been weakening all season. Once a short-order run of specials (running a combined 17 episodes in its first three seasons), WWYD? got used in a full-season capacity in 2010-11 (tonight's finale will be its 25th this season alone) and has really worn down over the course of that full season. I'd look for it to revert back to its short-order duty next year.

Demos Year-to-Year, Wednesday 5/18/11

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 5/18/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• The biggest mover of the evening was Law & Order: SVU, well above average for its season finale and becoming another of those rare primetime shows to triple the rating of its lead-in. (By my count, this has only been pulled off by Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, The Office and Celebrity Apprentice among entertainment programs this season).

• Another good late-season story has been The Middle, posting its highest number in almost three months with Survivor out of the way, but it's been on an upswing lately anyway. The show appeared to be wearing down against the heavy competition but is now almost back to season-average levels.

• The only big decliner was Cougar Town, but that's fairly expected considering it faced Idol. It tied a series low and had its worst-ever Modern Family retention.

Upfront Answers, The CW

Last week, I did a series of pre-upfront posts called "Upfront Questions" in which I posed one question for each night of the schedule. My post-upfront coverage is called "Upfront Answers," in which I take a look at how they addressed my questions.

Demos Year-to-Year, Tuesday 5/17/11

Fall 2011 Matchups

I did this last year too just to give some perspective on how these shows match up rather than just look at each network in a vacuum. This is just some quick reaction and basically a CliffsNotes version of my big hour-by-hour preview coming up late this summer. Timeslot changes are in bold, new shows are in CAPS.

MONDAY
8/7c 
Dancing with the Stars (ABC) vs. How I Met Your Mother/2 BROKE GIRLS (CBS) vs. The Sing-Off (NBC) vs. TERRA NOVA (Fox)

This timeslot was fairly boring last fall with lots of returnees, but it'll be much more interesting this year because of the Terra Nova shakeup. There's also that whole "How will two head-to-head musical competitions hold up?" issue.

Demos Year-to-Year, Monday 5/16/11

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 5/17/11: Breaking Bad

WHAT MATTERS:

• CBS had the best night, with all three shows up double digits in their season finales. The biggest mover of the three was The Good Wife, up 20% from last week in what'll be its last airing on Tuesday.

• NBC also had good things to report, with The Biggest Loser up three tenths and back to above its season average and The Voice holding about steady after its big drop last week. There was definitely reason to worry after all the negative reaction to the battle rounds, but this was a good hold.

• A special airing of Breaking In dropped by 41% from its much-lower-than-usual Raising Hope lead-in and was down 43% from its last post-Idol airing. It's now dead beyond any doubt, I would think. I was interested in how it would do because I like studying big lead-in changes, but I didn't have any expectations that it'd make Fox change its mind. I think it had to be at probably around a 2.0+ to get them to think about it. I predicted a 1.5 and figured that anything above that would mean the show was at least stronger than it had appeared to be, for whatever that would've been worth. Instead... it's about as strong as it appeared to this retentionista, maybe a little weaker.

Upfront Answers, CBS

Last week, I did a series of pre-upfront posts called "Upfront Questions" in which I posed one question for each night of the schedule. My post-upfront coverage is called "Upfront Answers," in which I take a look at how they addressed my questions.

Upfront Questions, The CW

Note: The Bloggerpocalypse FINALLY restored my last draft of this post from last Thursday, so I'm reposting it so I'll have something to link to for tomorrow's CW Upfront Answers. I didn't update any of the content, so I still don't "know" that One Tree Hill/Nikita are renewed or about CW's surprising pickup of CBS pilot Ringer, for example.

This week, I'm gonna add my voice to the slew of pre-upfront articles out there with "Upfront Questions," in which I break down each night of the current schedule. THIS IS NOT A PREDICTION. I'm just listing the potentially returning puzzle pieces each network's got on the nights they last aired, then laying out what I see as the issues the schedulers have to deal with on each night. Rather than commit to one possibility, I'll try to help with the range of possibilities and considerations. Since I'm not really that interested in development, I think that's about the best I can do. Next week I'll do "Upfront Answers" posts and take a look at how they addressed my questions.

Shows in green are already renewed for next season. The ones in BOLD are (in my opinion) very likely to return to their current timeslots. The ones with a question mark (?) have genuine doubt about their renewal.

Demos Year-to-Year, Sunday 5/15/11

Spotted Ratings, Monday 5/16/11 Up, Up and... Away Anyway

WHAT MATTERS:

• 13 of 14 programs were up from last week. The highlights included How I Met Your Mother (up a stout 19% from last week and breaking a 3 for the first time in almost two months), House (up 17% from last week to its best number in over two months) and Castle (which hit an outright season high and tied its second-highest rating ever). 

• Mike & Molly and Hawaii Five-0 are reportedly but not officially renewed yet. Just in case CBS wanted more data (can't imagine they did), they were up double-digits in their finales but still well below their season averages.

• Also rising were three canceled shows: The Event, Mad Love and The Chicago Code. None of those rises are compelling enough to make their networks reconsider their decisions.

Upfront Answers, ABC

Last week, I did a series of pre-upfront posts called "Upfront Questions" in which I posed one question for each night of the schedule. My post-upfront coverage is called "Upfront Answers," in which I take a look at how they addressed my questions.

Demos Year-to-Year, Friday 5/13/11

Demos Year-to-Year, Tuesday 5/10/11

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 5/15/11: Survivor Survives Wives

WHAT MATTERS:

• The night was dominated by the finale of Survivor, which took a much bigger penultimate-to-finale spike than usual. It was up 29% week-to-week. It was down just 5% year-to-year with the reunion down just 6% year-to-year, some of the best year-to-year comparisons the show's had all season. What does that mean? It most likely means that any damage that appeared to be inflicted on the show this season can be largely attributed to regularly facing American Idol for the first time. Breaking 3.0 against the Death Star is not to be trivialized, and this rating only validates that it was another very solid season for this franchise, moreso than it might have appeared. (Even though I didn't really like it creatively...)

• The two-hour season finale of Desperate Housewives was up two ticks from last week but down 23% from last year's one-hour finale.

• Despite the added competition, most other stuff was about even week-to-week. This was bad for Celebrity Apprentice, whose result last week was weak partly due to airing in the low-HUT 8:00 hour. This week, it doesn't have that excuse, but it definitely makes sense that the Survivor competition would hurt it most of all. Should have a big finale spike next week.

Upfront Answers, Fox

Last week, I did a series of pre-upfront posts called "Upfront Questions" in which I posed one question for each night of the schedule. My post-upfront coverage is called "Upfront Answers," in which I take a look at how they addressed my questions.

Upfront Answers, NBC

Last week, I did a series of pre-upfront posts called "Upfront Questions" in which I posed one question for each night of the schedule. My post-upfront coverage is called "Upfront Answers," in which I take a look at how they addressed my questions.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 5/14/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• As the release of another Pirates of the Carribean movie looms, ABC got an above-average Saturday movie result from a rebroadcast of 2007's At World's End (1.4).

• Fox's regional baseball coverage (1.1) did much worse than their usual Cops/America's Most Wanted lineup.

Above based on preliminary adults 18-49 ratings unless otherwise noted. | Full table forthcoming later.

Spotted Ratings, Friday 5/13/11

WHAT MATTERS:

• The finale of Smallville did relatively impressive business, picking up 63% from its penultimate episode and tying a season high. This was kind of expected considering the show once had such a big fanbase and was comparable to ER's 71% rise in its final episode. (Might do another edition of my Finale Spike post sometime in the near future.)

• Probably the only two results that could possibly mean anything for renewal purposes on this last pre-upfront Friday were those of the CSI: NY and Blue Bloods season finales. Both rose in the finals (and have since been reportedly renewed), but CSI: NY was still below average. Blue Bloods recovered after some down results recently to hit its biggest numbers in almost two months. Also on CBS, Flashpoint surprisingly upticked two-tenths from its fairly soft premiere last week.

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 5/12/11 (with full table)

WHAT MATTERS:

• Grey's Anatomy was the only show to hit an outright season/series low on the evening, though it still slightly edged Bones for the timeslot lead (since its share was bigger than Bones' at the same rating).

• The only big movers were Wipeout, Rules of Engagement and CSI in its season finale, all up double-digits, but those performances were just rallies from recent ugly results and were still among their worst showings of the season.

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 5/11/11 (with full table)

WHAT MATTERS:

• This post got eaten during the Bloggerpocalypse and still hasn't been restored, so I'm redoing this. Anyway, the gist of my talk then was about how Better with You went into decision time on a surprisingly good note while Happy Endings didn't really, but I said I wouldn't be too surprised if the buzz (which had ABC high on Happy Endings) held up. And it has; Happy isn't ending after one season, while Better is without a season 2.

• Also remarked on the poor showing in the last pre-decision rating for Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. Still don't know the verdict on that one yet.

Demos Year-to-Year, Thursday 5/12/11

Demos Year-to-Year, May Sweeps 2011 Week Two Winners/Losers

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. Minute to Win It -59%
2. American Dad! (Su 7:30-8pm vs. Su 9:30-10pm) -47%
t-3. Fringe (F 9-10pm vs. Th 9-10pm) -45%
t-3. One Tree Hill (Tu 8-9pm vs. M 8-9pm) -45%
5. America's Next Top Model (W 9-10pm vs. W 8-9pm) -41%

Four of these five were in the top 5 last week. Minute to Win It has been slaughtered against the reality gauntlet, Fringe from a move to Friday, and OTH for no apparent reason. Top Model's also been way down, but that's particularly hurt this week by a non-finale vs. year-ago finale comparison. Joining the list is American Dad!, which didn't air last week. It has suffered greatly from its move to Sunday at 7:30 (where the viewing levels are much lower and there's no big Family Guy lead-in).