Demos Year-to-Year, February Sweeps 2012 Week Four Winners/Losers

We've reached the end of another sweep! For now, one last look at the biggest of the big gainers and losers among adults 18-49. Additionally, there'll be one more year-to-year post looking at the networks as a whole coming up a little later today.

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. America's Next Top Model (W 9-10pm vs. W 8-9pm) -44%
2. American Idol (Th 8-9pm vs. Th 8-10pm) -38%
3. American Idol (W 8-10pm vs. W 8-9:30pm) -36%
4. 30 Rock (Th 8-8:30pm vs. Th 10-10:30pm) -35%
5. American Idol (Tu 8-10pm vs. Tu 8-9:30pm) -33%

The year-to-year drops have been ugly for Idol all season, but they've gotten worse over the course of this February sweep. The show went from just missing this top five list (it was -27% on both nights in week one) to barely getting onto the list last week to pretty much monopolizing it this week. For Top Model to be down this much following a year-ago season that was down so much is almost unimaginable. (This situation has really required me to unearth the full extent of my un____able vocabulary!) The show has gone from near-crown jewel of the network to literally a H8R-sized program in the space of about one calendar year.

Top 5 year-to-year show gainers
1. The Big Bang Theory +39%
2. Modern Family +17%
3. The Middle +13%
4. Primetime: What Would You Do? +8%
5. How I Met Your Mother +6%

Hooray for comedy! That's pretty much all I got.

Top 5 year-to-year timeslot losers
1. The Finder vs. American Idol (Fox, Thursday 9-10pm) -73%
2. Body of Proof vs. 20/20 (ABC, Tuesday 10-11pm) -56%
3. American Idol (Fox, Thursday 8-9pm) -38%
4. Ringer vs. Hellcats (CW, Tuesday 9-10pm) -33%
5. Winter Wipeout (ABC, Thursday 8-9pm) -32%

The bottom three shows have been on or near this list all sweep. The top two certainly didn't do much, but they got pretty rough breaks this week, as The Finder had to endure the dreaded non-Idol-vs.-Idol comparison (and it was leading out of an Idol that was so much weaker to begin with), while as I noted in the Tuesday post, Body of Proof went up against the 20/20 special that pretty much marked the ratings height of the Charlie Sheen drama (at least prior to 2.5 Men's premiere in September).

Top 5 year-to-year timeslot gainers
1. The Voice vs. Chuck/The Cape (NBC, Monday 8-10pm) +272%
2. Last Man Standing vs. No Ordinary Family (ABC, Wednesday 8-8:30pm) +83% 
3. Shark Tank vs. Supernanny (ABC, Friday 8-9pm) +80%
4. Undercover Boss vs. The Defenders (CBS, Friday 8-9pm) +58%
5. Daytona 500 vs. House/The Chicago Code (Fox, Monday 8-10pm) +50%

We almost had a complete recycle of the same five shows that made this list last week. Not sure that's ever happened. The only thing preventing it was my exclusion of original-vs.-repeat comparisons; NBC happened to run a repeat of Minute to Win It last year in Whitney's timeslot, but the gain otherwise would've been big enough to make the list. Anyway, The Voice polishes off a clean sweep of the sweep, easily topping this list all four weeks. It's probably very likely to do so again in May, but I am a bit skeptical the show will be able to come up with anything compelling beyond the blind auditions.

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