The War of 18-49, Parks and Recreation

PARKS AND RECREATION (NBC)

Scheduling history: Through five seasons, Parks and Recreation was almost always been a bottom-of-the hour show. It did get a handful of tries leading off the 10:00 hour during the 2010-11 season, but the vast majority of its eps have come at either 8:30 or 9:30. That changed in a big way as it led off the Thursday lineup in fall 2013, but it returned to 8:30 at midseason. The final season was the first that didn't air on Thursday, with back-to-back episodes in the Tuesday 8:00 hour.

See (who saw) how it all began: Parks and Rec premiered on April 9, 2009 as part of a big evening of late-spring launches the week after ER came to an end. Where better to premiere a so-called Office sister show than in between two episodes of The Office? The 8/7c edition of The Office scored a 3.4 demo, the 9/8c edition got a 3.9, and in the middle was the Parks and Rec series premiere with a nothing-special 6.88 million viewers and 3.0 demo. The show dropped into the low 2's in subsequent weeks but was usually able to build on its My Name is Earl lead-in, which was (despite Earl being on its last legs) good enough for a renewal.

The best of times: Even though it didn't premiere till midseason, season #3 was the strongest for Parks and Rec, as NBC finally tried the seemingly inevitable pairing and threw it after The Office for that season. The season three premiere hit a series high 3.2 demo on January 20, 2011. But even that represented a significant loss from its The Office lead-in (a 4.5 on that night), and the gap between the shows didn't really narrow as the spring wore on.

The worst of times: Season six saw Parks finally take a major drop from its relatively consistent adjusted level across the first five seasons. It moved to the lead-off role for the first time and had to face The Big Bang Theory head-to-head. Its return to 8:30 at midseason provided a brief boost, but ultimately it returned to its low-1's level from the fall. It dipped below 1.0 with a 0.9 rating on 4/17/14, but it never again went below that threshold in the final season.

Then vs. now: If there was a hope that Parks would emerge as an heir apparent to The Office from a ratings standpoint, it never really happened. But despite the lows in season four, Parks and Rec arguably felt as healthy as ever. Its numbers at 8:30 were very close to what it'd been pulling there two years prior, despite other NBC comedies like Community and The Office taking major tumbles. And a league average-ish decline in season five saw the show get even safer, mostly due to an epic collapse of NBC's comedy department. But season six was the show's toughest task yet; it led off a night with incompatible (and ultimately very weak) new comedies and dueled with The Big Bang Theory, the hottest sitcom since Friends left the air. That was all a decent excuse for its major ratings collapse, but the drop was still enough for NBC to take it off the fall schedule in its final season.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2008-09	Thursday 8:30	2.35		2.0	3.0	detail
2	2009-10		2.07	-12%	1.8	2.3	detail
3	2010-11	Thursday 9:30	2.40	+16%	1.8	3.2	detail
4	2011-12	Thu 8:30, Thu 9:30	1.84	-23%	1.6	2.1	detail
5	2012-13	Thu 9:30, Thu 8:30	1.62	-12%	1.3	2.0	detail	B-
6	2013-14	Thu 8:00, Thu 8:30	1.16	-28%	0.9	1.5	detail	C-
7	2014-15	Tuesday 8:00/8:30	1.33	+15%	1.0	1.6	detail	A-

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2008-09	78	marginal	1.31		66	100	100	66
2	2009-10	74	marginal	1.24	-6%	64	82	75	78
3	2010-11	94	marginal	1.59	+28%	71	126	126	79
4	2011-12	78	marginal	1.31	-18%	68	89	89	72
5	2012-13	77	marginal	1.29	-1%	62	95	81	76
6	2013-14	62	flop	1.03	-20%	48	80	69	53
7	2014-15	79	marginal	1.33	+29%	59	95	89	95
AVERAGE:		77	marginal
CAREER:		541	staple

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.