Spotted Ratings, Friday 4/19/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The conclusion of the Boston bomber manhunt heated up right before the beginning of primetime, so all of the big four networks stayed with the coverage throughout prime and pre-empted all entertainment programming. I'm not 100% sure we'll see complete finals due to the lack of ads through most of this, but the prelims lined up in typical news division fashion: NBC (2.4), then ABC (1.8), then CBS (1.4), then Fox (1.1). If we do get complete finals, I'd expect these will all adjust up (once low-rated repeats on the West Coast are stripped out), and I'll post half-hour info next week. Word of the suspect in custody came right around 9:00 Eastern, so it'd be neat to see the extent to which viewers hung on over the last two hours.
• UPDATE: Unfortunately, the special news coverage was counted as sustaining, so finals weren't released. Rather than getting a big boost to usual Friday numbers, the nets will have to settle for not having Friday numbers counted (which is also a good thing). The 10/9c hour did get counted on ABC and NBC, included under the banners of the usual newsmagazines. It's a series high for Rock Center, excluding a debate last season which I personally didn't count as an actual Rock Center episode. This coverage, while also irregular, much more resembled a typical episode of the program.

• As for the entertainment programs:
• ABC pre-empted Happy Endings and Shark Tank, but these should be able to fill in relatively normally since ABC had three Shark Tank repeats scheduled for the 8:00 hour during May sweeps. Happy Endings will probably just run a week longer in that hour (wrapping on May 3), with an extra Shark Tank original creating a two-hour finale on May 17. But all of this is just speculation, and they could opt to "test" that extra Shark Tank somewhere else.
• UPDATE: This will go as speculated: Happy Endings wraps on May 3, and an extra ST on May 17.
• CBS already announced its only scheduled original, Vegas, would be moved to tonight at 8/7c. Presumably that's still on.
• NBC announced earlier yesterday that Grimm was moving to Tuesday 10/9c for its last four originals starting April 30, with the April 19 airing its last on Friday. Now that airing has been bumped to the extra Friday in between, April 26, and it'll still have four originals on the four May sweeps Tuesdays.
• Fox had Kitchen Nightmares repeats, so no skin off their backs.
• And the CW aired Nikita as scheduled, though it was pre-empted in many markets (and may adjust). Dunno if they'll try to repeat it.

FULL TABLE:



Info			Show				Timeslot		True2
	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
20/20	5.71	1.7	+6%	+29%	3/33	+42%	+10%	+36%	2.07
Rock Center	6.84	1.9	+138%	+243%	1/27	+217%	+138%	+31%	2.20
Kitchen Nightmares (R)	2.33	0.8					+14%	-33%	0.95
Kitchen Nightmares (R)	1.77	0.7					-30%	-30%	1.05
Nikita	0.97	0.3	+0%	n/a	8/17	-25%	+0%	-25%	0.37
Oh Sit! (R)	0.70	0.2					+0%	-71%	0.29



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 from previous episode.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous 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.