Winter 2013 Best Case/Worst Case, Thursday

Introductory stuff now at the bottom.

Other Winter 2013 BC/WC: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Fri/Sat/Sun

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The Basics:

	bc	Rank	y2y	Rank	TPUT	Rank	bc/TPUT	Rank
Thursday	9.1	4	-4%	3	33.2	5	28%	3

At -4% year-to-year, Thursday is in a virtual tie with Friday and Sunday for the healthiest night on broadcast this season. The X Factor and NBC's comedies have really struggled, but ABC has been reasonably healthy and CBS has actually grown noticeably with The Big Bang Theory and Person of Interest on the upswing and Two and a Half Men now on the night.

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		1600 Penn (NEW!)	Slot Average
			1.94
			Slot Orig Avg
		Premieres January 10	1.61
Best Case: Don't overreact to mediocre ratings for the one-off preview on December 17. It can hold onto The Office about as well as Parks and Rec did. Maybe even a little better; I mean, it's being screened at the real-life White House! 1.75. Worst Case: The preview showed us how little interest there is here. As weak as the bubble is for NBC's comedies, it won't even get to that point, and it'll only barely hold more than half of The Office. 1.20. Likeliest: I pretty much hated the pilot. I don't rule out that some people may be more into Josh Gad's brand of comedy than I am, but it's hard to believe many people find it special enough that it'll transcend the low-rated culture of NBC Thursday. 1.30.			Occupants
			Parks and Recreation
			1.64	1.67

		American Idol	Slot Average
		Premieres January 17	2.46
		Best Case: Last season was a bit of an "overreaction" by the viewers. Things will straighten out somewhat this year, and the new judges work pretty well. Down just 8% to a 4.50, and it's miraculously the (EDIT: broadcast-only) #1 entertainment show yet again after The Big Bang Theory drops big late in the season. Worst Case: The new judges don't work, and what was once the gold standard in competition reality is now an X Factor-esque trainwrecky mess. Another -32% to 3.33 and squarely below The Voice. Likeliest: I've overestimated the appeal of what I thought were huge names in judging, and I'm pretty sure Idol's new ones aren't huge names in judging. So the drops will continue. I kinda doubt it'll be as steep as last season, but it won't be pretty. I'll say a decline about as big as The X Factor's, -21% to a 3.86.	Slot Orig Avg
			2.70
4.89			Occupants
			The X Factor Thu
y2y	Label
-31%	megahit		2.79	2.77
True2	Sitch
5.37	-9%
2011-12 Slot
Wednesday 8:00

		Do No Harm (NEW!)	Slot Average
			1.45
			Slot Orig Avg
		Premieres January 31	0.97
Best Case: The NBC drama mojo is back. While the critics won't love this show as much as they did last year's occupant of this slot, Awake, the Jekyll/Hyde theme is a little easier to sell in promos and to grasp on the screen. 1.60, ends up building noticeably on 1600 Penn, and a renewal after NBC considers how awful its slot was. Worst Case: It's a worse show than Awake, and it has a worse lead-in than Awake. That's it. Even worse than Rock Center's fall numbers at 1.00. Likeliest: I'm pretty sure this show will end up a casualty of NBC's good fall. Airing after 1600 Penn is a brutal place to be. I'll say it does just a touch better than Awake (which averaged a 1.08), but it'll be impossible to argue it was enough that it truly transcended its situation. 1.15 and done.			Occupants
			Rock Center
			1.02	1.11

		Community	Slot Average
		Premieres February 7	1.36
		Best Case: The new showrunners do a very competent job, and this show's ratings will, as usual, not look all that bad amid the total mess that is the NBC comedy world. 1.40. Worst Case: The new showrunners are about as competent as their parody Twitter feed suggests. 1.05 and an easy cancellation. Likeliest: I'm largely copying what I wrote about the show in the fall BC/WC (when it was skedded on Friday), just adding two tenths to each prediction since this slot is at least a teeny bit better. Last year its -17% was actually the smallest of the veteran NBC comedies. And I'm saying its 19% decline to the same 1.24 as 30 Rock will be relatively small this year. Pathetically, NBC's comedy mess means that average may actually not be a slam dunk cancel by the time we reach the depths of Daylight Saving Time. But ultimately... it shall end.	Slot Orig Avg
			1.39
1.54			Occupants
			30 Rock
y2y	Label
-17%	flop		1.24	1.27
True2	Sitch
1.77	-13%
2011-12 Slot
Thursday 8:00

		Zero Hour (NEW!)	Slot Average
			1.56
			Slot Orig Avg
		Premieres February 14	1.47
Best Case: The promos make this look like a generic National Treasure rip-off, but generic National Treasure rip-offs can draw a decent crowd, and they can also be pretty fun sometimes. The timeslot prevents a real breakout, but it's the show that finally finds the level ABC can live with in this hour. 1.85. Worst Case: If Last Resort couldn't make it, then a show in the same general space except much worse certainly won't make it. New depths for ABC's long-troubled hour. Zero point 99 makes this a literal zero hour for ABC. Likeliest: Maybe I'm just weary from destroying basically every show in the Tuesday and Thursday posts, but for some reason I feel like this might have a puncher's chance. The promos have a bit more potential to appeal to people than did Last Resort's. Still, it's only a puncher's chance, and since I have to make it official, I'd say it's probably gonna be no stronger than its fall counterpart. It finishes a bit behind Last Resort at 1.35.			Occupants
			Last Resort
			1.45	1.51

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CABLE:

Show	Network	Premieres	Avg	y2y
Suits	USA	1/17, 10/9c	1.23	-7%
Anger Management	FX	1/17, 9:30	1.20
Archer	FX	1/17, 10/9c	0.67	+23%
Legit	FX	1/17, 10:30	NEW!

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NETWORK TO WATCH
It's tempting to take NBC since they have three shows premiering on this night in the next month or so, but I'm gonna mix it up a bit and go with ABC. I don't have huge hopes for Zero Hour, but I think there's a small chance it could do OK (at least a less small chance than NBC's new shows have), and I also really want to see if the late-2012 surge by Scandal has legs.

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My extensive Best Case/Worst Case previews from the fall are BACK for the midseason. For the most part, these posts are the same as in the fall. You can refer to the Intro post from last summer to explain most of what you'll see below.

The main difference is that the timeslot info in "The Basics" and in the timeslot portion of each show card now cover the fall 2012 numbers, from September 24 through December 23. (In the Fall Best Case/Worst Case, they covered all of the 2011-12 regular season.) So the slot averages are all across that three-month fall span, and the "Occupants" are things the network aired in the slot this fall.

To avoid covering stuff that's too far down the road, I'm just hitting the January and February premieres here. I tried to figure out how to break these up with a similar number of shows in each post but couldn't really crack it. So I'm just doing one post for each day of the week until Friday, which will cover Friday/Saturday/Sunday.