Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 9/12/12: The III Factor

WHAT MATTERS:

• We've got what I would call our first severe underperformance of the new season, and it's season two of The X Factor. It inched up in finals but still trailed the year-ago premiere by 23%. Responders went 5-1 picking "Under" my first huge miss, but even most of them saw the show going a lot higher than this. Clearly the so-called "Britney Spears Effect" was basically meaningless and greatly out-weighed by the general negative momentum for the singing competition genre. This 3.4 level was about where X settled at the very end of last season.

• Meanwhile, NBC's move of a The Voice hour to Wednesday worked pretty well. That rating was well below the Monday/Tuesday premieres, but it routed X Factor head-to-head in the 8:00 hour. (It went 2.9/3.7 in the 8:00 hour while X went 2.6/2.9.) X Factor picked up at 9:00 after The Voice was over (3.7/3.9). The 8:00 -> 9:00 discrepancy was clearly more than it would've been without The Voice; last season's premiere breakdown was 3.7 -> 4.6 -> 4.5 -> 4.7 when there was much more competition at 9:00.

• NBC rounded out its evening with the penultimate evening of America's Got Talent, riding The Voice lead-in to its best numbers since early July. They then previewed new comedy Guys with Kids, which considering the lead-in discrepancy I'd say did about the same as Monday's "meh" The New Normal preview.

FULL TABLE:

Info			Show				Timeslot		True2
	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
The Middle (SR)	3.61	0.9					-10%	-25%	0.86
Suburgatory (SR)	2.93	0.9					+0%	-40%	1.10
Modern Family (SR)	3.69	1.3					+0%	-35%	1.44
Suburgatory (SR)	2.77	1.0					+0%	-44%	1.12
Revenge (SR)	2.48	0.6					-37%	-57%	0.71
Big Brother Wed	6.19	2.1	+0%	n/a	2/9	-28%	+0%	-26%	2.33
Criminal Minds (SR)	5.54	1.2					+0%	-27%	1.16
CSI (SR)	6.49	1.3					+53%	+18%	1.38
The Voice Wed	10.89	3.4	-15%	n/a	3/3	n/a	-47%	+172%	3.49
America's Got Talent Tue	11.05	2.9	+21%	n/a	7/16	-24%	-71%	-3%	2.56
Guys with Kids	6.25	2.2	n/a	n/a	1/1	n/a	-76%	+29%	1.93
The New Normal (R)	3.80	1.3					-86%	-13%	1.21
The X Factor Wed	8.73	3.4	n/a	n/a	1/1	-23%	+131%	+178%	3.44
Oh Sit!	0.88	0.4	+0%	n/a	2/7	n/a	+0%	-20%	0.48
Supernatural (SR)	0.71	0.3					+0%	-40%	0.32

KEY (click to expand)

Viewers - The total number of viewers (age 2+, in millions) that watched the program.
A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Last - A18-49 percent difference fromious episode.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for theious episode.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.
y2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to its rating a year ago.
TLa - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one week ago.
Ty2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one year ago.
True2 - The second edition of True Strength, a metric that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in. PRELIMINARY CALCULATION. For finals, see SpotVault.

(R) - Repeat.

Much more detail on these numbers at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.