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.