The True Top 25, Week Ending 3/17/13 (2012-13 Week 25)

Daylight saving brought the usual collective viewing and ratings downturn, particularly in the 8:00 hour, but most shows were considerably more resilient in the True2 metric (since that's kind of what it's here for). The Big Bang Theory once again won the broadcast week with ease despite a 13% week-to-week drop in raw numbers. In a week with some of the usual scripted contenders in repeats, the next five slots went to reality programs, including the high-rated The Bachelor finale. No broadcast drama cracked a 3.0 raw demo, but The Following and Grey's Anatomy both inched over the 3 True2 mark after accounting for their terrible lead-ins.

The Following (which held very well in its first episode with a Bones repeat lead-in) and Elementary represented the new shows on the list, while a repeat of Shark Tank and a post-Fashion Star episode of Grimm both made it out of a very low-viewed Friday night.

Rank	Name	True2	A18-49	ARank
1	The Big Bang Theory	5.81	4.8	1
2	American Idol Wed	4.20	3.8	2
3	American Idol Thu	3.72	3.1	6
4	The Bachelor finale	3.65	3.5	4
5	The Bachelor ATFR	3.44	3.8	2
6	Survivor	3.15	2.7	8
7	Two and a Half Men	3.10	3.3	5
8	The Following	3.02	2.7	8
9	Grey's Anatomy	3.01	2.6	10
10	Person of Interest	2.99	2.9	7
11	Hell's Kitchen 8pm	2.39	2.1	17
12	Elementary	2.35	2.3	12
13	The Office	2.28	1.9	21
14	Rules of Engagement	2.24	2.1	17
15	Hell's Kitchen 9pm	2.21	2.3	12
16	Shark Tank (R-Fri)	2.18	1.5	37
17	The Biggest Loser	2.17	2.0	19
18	NCIS (R)	2.17	1.9	21
19	Modern Family (R)	2.17	1.8	25
20	The Amazing Race	2.14	2.3	12
21	Once Upon a Time	2.14	2.3	12
22	Family Guy	2.13	2.4	11
23	The Simpsons	2.13	2.2	16
24	Grimm	2.11	1.4	42
25	Parks and Recreation	2.04	1.6	33

Missing the True Top 25 but in the A18-49 list: Glee (t-#19 in A18-49, #26 in True2), Criminal Minds (R) (t-#25 in A18-49, #31 in True2), NCIS: Los Angeles (R) (t-#21 in A18-49, #32 in True2), Celebrity Apprentice (t-#25 in A18-49, #35 in True2), The Cleveland Show 8:30 (t-#21 in A18-49, #40 in True2) and Revenge (t-#25 in A18-49, #43 in True2).

For more on the True Top 25, click to expand.

I created the True Strength number so I could have an objective way of comparing shows across vastly different situations. One of the most fun comparisons to be made is among the biggest shows on TV. What's really the strongest show in a vacuum? Hence my new weekly feature the True Top 25. This will compare shows while accounting for everything so we can see who Truly comes out on top. I include both the A18-49 and the weekly ranking in A18-49 so you can see the changes within the rankings that True Strength makes.

The A18-49 rankings aren't based on Nielsen's "official" broadcast top 25. They're derived from my own spreadsheet just using the big-five networks, so none of the big players on Univision are included. I've also weeded out some weird programming like NFL overruns and sports pre-game shows. Most of that stuff airs largely out of primetime or is strangely split apart, so I don't want to muddle the list with that.

As mentioned on the sports SpotVault pages, True Strengths for sporting events are based on the primetime portion only. Perhaps in future editions I'll try to get the primetime portion only A18-49 into the A18-49 rankings so it'll be a totally fair comparison. 

Here's last week's True Top 25!