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

As I usually do with my year-to-year posts, at the end of each week I take a look at the biggest of the big gainers and losers among adults 18-49. You can click the "y2y summaries" label to see the various forms those have taken in past sweeps. This time, back to looking at the top 5 gainers and losers.

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. Chuck (F 8-9pm vs. M 8-9pm) -47%
2. America's Next Top Model (clips) (W 9-10pm vs. W 8-9pm) -43%
3. Fringe (F 9-10pm vs. Th 9-10pm) -42%
4. 20/20 -30%
5. The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now? -29%

Just spitballing here, but here's a theory: perhaps as television franchises head into the toilet, the non-essential "specials" that come along with them become even less important. Case in point: the fast-declining The Biggest Loser and even faster-declining America's Next Top Model both saw their Thanksgiving Eve specials (one a clip show, one a "Where Are They Now?") take even bigger drops than the seasons as a whole generally have. 20/20 was crushed on Friday at 10/9c by a couple shows up at least 25% year-to-year. (See below.)

Top 5 year-to-year show gainers
1. Dateline (F 10-11pm vs. F 9-10pm) +33%
2. How I Met Your Mother +26%
3. Blue Bloods +25%
4. Modern Family +24%
5. Rules of Engagement (Th 8:30-9pm vs. M 8:30-9pm) +24%

It's not every day I have to leave a 20%+ gainer off one of these show lists, but it happened this week with The Big Bang Theory (+23%). This "year of the comedy" saw yet another six comedies up double-digits year-to-year in this last week of November.

Top 5 year-to-year timeslot losers
1. You Deserve It vs. Dancing with the Stars/Skating with the Stars (ABC, Monday 9-10pm) -58%
2. Nikita vs. Smallville (CW, Friday 8-9pm) -43%
3. Movie: Beneath the Blue vs. The Vampire Diaries (R) / Nikita (R) (CW, Thursday 8-10pm) -43%
4. The Good Wife vs. Undercover Boss (CBS, Sunday 9-10pm) -42%
5. Terra Nova vs. House (Fox, Monday 8-9pm) -39%

I can honestly say that I did not expect anything to ever be down 58% from a timeslot that involved Skating with the Stars. Of course, there's a chunk of high-rated Dancing in there too, but it's still a pretty anemic start for You Deserve It. Apparently CW viewers would rather just watch repeats of The Vampire Diaries than a movie with one of its stars. And we've seen the other three before.

Top 5 year-to-year timeslot gainers
1. Dateline vs. Harmony (Prince Charles film) (NBC, Wednesday 10-11pm) +100%
2. The X Factor vs. Human Target (Fox, Wednesday 8-9pm) +86%
3. Last Man Standing vs. No Ordinary Family (ABC, Tuesday 8-8:30pm) +59%
4. 2 Broke Girls vs. Rules of Engagement (CBS, Monday 8:30-9pm) +59%
5. Fringe vs. The Good Guys (Fox, Friday 9-10pm) +57%

Most of these have been big gainers throughout November, with even a Thanksgiving Eve-depressed X Factor continuing to build huge on Fox's year-ago weak Wednesday lineup. The only newbie is Dateline, whose surprising Friday showing also topped the show list.

Here are this premiere week's daily posts, in case you missed any:
Thursday | Friday | Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday

And here are the previous recaps of this same week:
2009 | 2010