Winter 2013 Best Case/Worst Case, Friday/Saturday/Sunday

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
Friday	5.0	6	-4%	2	29.0	6	17%	6
Saturday	4.2	7	-15%	7	28.9	7	15%	7
Sunday	13.2	1	-4%	1	38.1	1	35%	1

Friday and Sunday are both down a little less than 4% from last year, making them the two healthiest nights of the week. In Sunday's case, the number is largely wrapped up in one departing program, Sunday Night Football, since it usually beats the other broadcasters combined. It finished the season at -2%, while the other networks were each down in the very general vicinity of 10%.

Friday actually had some genuinely good stories in Shark Tank and Grimm, while some other shows like Undercover Boss and ABC's new comedies have done well at least compared to the fall 2011 occupants.

Saturday took the biggest year-to-year drop of any night by a mile. ABC's Saturday Night Football actually ended up finishing pretty close to even (-4%), but Fox's dip into college football provided no real improvement on last year's Cops and reruns, and it seems like much of this -15% comes from repeats and random Saturday night events that were way down from last year (most notably CBS' LSU/Alabama game, down from 7.2 to 4.0).

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		The Job (NEW!)	Slot Average
			1.37
			Slot Orig Avg
		Premieres February 8	1.59
Best Case: CBS begins to realize that putting pricey dramas on this night and losing to ABC is not a very cost-effective plan. The Job looks like a perfect companion to Undercover Boss next season. Just behind Boss at 1.65. Worst Case: Begins in the low 1's, drops down to a 1.0 or lower once Shark Tank makes its presumed return to 8/7c. 1.05. Likeliest: I seriously doubt this is another Undercover Boss because CBS could've found ample better ways to try to get it off the ground. (Sunday after The Amazing Race? Friday after Undercover Boss? Post-Super Bowl???) I don't see it doing as well as the dramas. 1.20.			Occupants
			CSI: NY
			1.25	1.52
			Undercover Boss
			1.68	1.79

		Touch	Slot Average
		Premieres February 8	1.05
		Best Case: For some reason, "It's Kiefer Sutherland" turns out to be a legit reason to renew a show. For most of the season, it looked a lot stronger than The Finder, so it does better than that show did on Friday and vastly improves on Fringe. 1.20. Worst Case: Touch was no stronger than The Finder by season's end. It got a 0.7 in a Friday tryout in September, and it hasn't consistently aired in almost nine months. Way below Fringe at 0.80. Likeliest: I gave it a 1.07 before the season when it was scheduled at 8/7c. Airing after Kitchen Nightmares might be a modest plus since then, but now we have that 0.7 on Friday, a longer hiatus and the collective disappointment of everything else this season. So I have to knock this down. I think it goes sub-Fringe at 0.90.	Slot Orig Avg
			0.98
2.11			Occupants
			Fringe
y2y	Label
	marginal		0.97	1.18
True2	Sitch
1.91	+11%
2011-12 Slot
Thursday 9:00

		The Amazing Race	Slot Average
		Premieres February 17	2.64
		Best Case: The fall edition got either a 2.5 or 2.6 pretty much every week. That is one loyal audience. It averages a 2.56, mirroring the fall edition and dropping just 2% from last spring. Worst Case: With little sports overrun support, it's due for a bit of a crash from the steady season it had last year. Down 15% to a very modest 2.23. Likeliest: I don't really see it holding about even year-to-year for two straight springs. So let's say it mirrors the -11% from the fall and drops to a 2.33.	Slot Orig Avg
			2.92
2.62			Occupants
			The Amazing Race Fall
y2y	Label
-1%	solid		2.54	2.16
True2	Sitch
2.34	+12%
2011-12 Slot
Thursday 9:00

		Golden Boy (NEW!)	Slot Average
			1.25
			Slot Orig Avg
		Premieres February 26	1.33
Best Case: After its 2.0+ premiere on Tuesday, CBS decides they'd be best-served keeping the show on Tuesday, where it settles at a level a little bit better than Vegas. That's good enough! 2.00. Worst Case: It premieres on Tuesday at about the same level as a typical Vegas episode and drops in week two, meaning CBS goes through with the Friday move, and on that night it flirts with Made in Jersey levels. 1.05. Likeliest: Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but my best guess at the show's prospects is how CBS scheduled it. There's an assumption that it'll stay on Tuesday if it does well. But if they really liked it, it'd have been put on Tuesdays permanently from the outset. So I think it'll only get the planned two weeks on Tuesdays and then end up below CSI: NY's numbers in the Friday slot and dunzo. 1.25.			Occupants
			Made in Jersey
			0.95	1.14
			CSI: NY
			1.42	1.57

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SUNDAY CABLE:

Show	Network	Premieres	Avg	y2y
The Walking Dead (fall #s)	AMC	2/10, 9/8c	5.32	+56%
Talking Dead	AMC	2/10, 10/9c	1.09	+100%
Shameless	Showtime	1/13, 9/8c	0.71	+52%
Girls	HBO	1/13, 9/8c	0.46
House of Lies	Showtime	1/13, 10/9c	0.42
Californication	Showtime	1/13, 10/9c	0.39	+57%

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NETWORK TO WATCH
With two new shows on Friday, I'll take CBS. No particular series of interest on Sunday until the spring.

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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.