The Question, Sunday 6/30/13: Can Dexter Keep Killing It in the Summer?

The flagship Showtime drama Dexter quietly had a sensational season in fall 2012, growing double-digits year-to-year pretty much from wire to wire. But with its lead-out Homeland skyrocketing even faster, Showtime has elected to separate the two. Homeland now has the fall responsibility, while Dexter moves to the summer for the first time and has to contend with smaller viewing levels and a much more potent competing drama on HBO in True Blood. Can Dexter keep killing it in the summer? That's The Question for Sunday, June 30, 2013.

Top 10 of the Last 10, Network Seasons

The collective decline in Live+SD ratings makes it hard to fairly compare numbers across seasons. But with the A18-49+ stat, we have the technology! Enter the "Top 10 of the Last 10" lists, which will line up the last ten seasons (2003-04 thru 2012-13) and give us an idea of which shows were strongest after we set the collective decline off to the side. (I'll throw in the raw numbers too, to give a sense of how far ratings have fallen.)

This week, it's a look at networks as a whole, comparing their seasons using only the average of their original non-sports series. Unless you are really interested in Fox, most of this will be pretty boring, but I figured it was worth getting out there!

War of 18-49 Update, Family Guy (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the twelfth overall) of Family Guy on Fox.

Accountability Week, First Two Weeks

This is part two of a look-back on all the predictions made over the course of the 2012-13 season. I will save the planned third part, looking at the best and worst The Question lines, for the end of the summer and include the summer lines in that. (Alternate explanation: I ran out of time in my pre-vacation work-ahead. You decide!) This time, we'll look at my predictions on the posts detailing the First Two Weeks of new shows.

The War of 18-49, Archer

ARCHER (FX/FXX)

Scheduling history: Archer aired its first four seasons on Thursday at 10/9c, with two exceptions: a special sneak preview in September 2009 before the show's official premiere, and a three episode run at 10:30 in fall 2011. It moved to Monday for season five but returned to Thursday in season six.

See (who saw) how it all began: FX first previewed Archer about four months before the official premiere after It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on 9/17/09, in an oddly promoted airing that didn't give away the name of the show (or really anything about it). That got 0.91 million viewers and a 0.5 demo and is not included in the season one average below. Then its official premiere on 1/14/10 about doubled that audience, scoring 1.82 million viewers and a 0.9. And a repeat of the preview at 10:30 had a 0.7. It dropped fast from there, to 0.7 in week two, 0.5 in week three, 0.4 in week four and 0.3 in week five! But after that it finally steadied, getting back to a 0.4 for most of the rest of the season and even perking up to a 0.6 for the season's penultimate episode.

The best of times: In seasons two through four, not only was Archer growing every year, but it was growing faster every year. In season four, it finally became a legitimately strong program in 18-49, breaking through with its first ever 1.0 for the 1/17/13 premiere and hitting a 1.1 three times later in the season.

The worst of times: After a seemingly ill-advised move to Monday in 2014, Archer finally sniffed at its season one ratings again, hitting a couple 0.4's in the second half of the season. It had a couple more 0.4's in the return to Thursday for season six, but the 0.3 in the series' fifth week remained a series low out of the entire FX run. It finally dipped into the 0.2's in its first FXX season in 2017.

Then vs. now: Most of the truly legit comedies on broadcast don't peak right out of the gate, and FX has recognized that. Both of their biggest comedy hits Archer and It's Always Sunny have blossomed after several years of tiny ratings. These shows have always skewed extremely young, so there's probably been some value in them even at their lower levels. But now, FX has built a really strong property, and they don't want to let it go; therefore, it wasn't initially announced as one of the comedies bound for 18-34-centric FXX. If it were all about maximizing 18-34, Archer would certainly be FXX-bound. But clearly the mothership network wanted to keep one of the hottest draws in that demo for itself. However, as the franchise has softened a bit in the last couple seasons, FX finally did announce that Archer would head for FXX. That happened in 2017.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Winter 2010	Thursday 10:00	0.53		0.3	0.9	detail
2	Winter 2011		Thursday 10:00	0.55	+3%	0.4	0.7		detail
3	2011-12		Thursday 10:00	0.68	+24%	0.5	0.8		detail
4	Winter 2013		Thursday 10:00	0.93	+37%	0.7	1.1		detail
5	Winter 2014	Monday 10:00	0.61	-34%	0.4	1.0	detail	D+
6	Winter 2015	Thursday 10:00	0.55	-11%	0.4	0.8	detail	B
7	Spring 2016		Thursday 10:00	0.40	-26%	0.3	0.5	detail	C
8	Spring 2017	Wednesday 10:00	0.26	-36%	0.2	0.4	detail	C+
9	Spring 2018		Wednesday 10:00	0.18	-29%	0.1	0.3	detail
10	Summer 2019		Wednesday 10:00	0.13	-27%	0.1	0.2	detail

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now19	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Winter 2010	19				10.66	32	32	14
2	Winter 2011	21				15.73	28	28	20
3	2011-12	29				23.17	34	30	33
4	Winter 2013	44				34.41	53	48	51
5	Winter 2014	33				21.87	54	54	22
6	Winter 2015	33				24.38	46	46	28
7	Spring 2016	28				23.35	37	37	26
8	Spring 2017	21				13.88	33	33	19
9	Spring 2018	17				12.78	26	26	14
10	Summer 2019	14				9.47	21	21	14
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	26

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.

The Question, Wednesday 6/26/13: Will Big Brother Get Bigger?

Tonight CBS enters phase two of its turning on of the summer lights with its three-night spectacular Big Brother. Last season finally snapped Big Brother's improbable growth streak, though at least some of the blame probably belongs with the Summer Olympics derailing the show's early weeks. There's no such excuse this year, though it does get to deal with Fox's potent MasterChef in the Wednesday 8:00 hour. Will Big Brother get bigger? That's The Question for Wednesday, June 26, 2013.

War of 18-49 Update, Parks and Recreation (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the sixth overall) of Parks and Recreation on NBC.

Accountability Week, Best Case/Worst Case

My goal for the 2012-13 season was to get much more heavily into the prediction business. I think the last evolution of ratings analysis is comparing the numbers with the expectation, and I don't want to be afraid of becoming the guy that can generate the most expert expectations.

So this week, I've got a couple posts looking back on the predictions. This is all probably not very good for my credibility, but I'm hoping that holding myself to these numbers will both motivate me to improve as well as give me some pointers on how to improve.

We'll start with all the many Best Case/Worst Case predictions generated over the course of the season. I tried to weed out burn-off numbers that would've deflated the averages, though I may not have gotten all of them. I'll start with some highlights and lowlights of the BC/WC seasons, and then I'll look at some of the larger statistics.

War of 18-49 Flashback, Better Off Ted (ABC, 2009-10)

BETTER OFF TED (ABC)

Scheduling history: Better Off Ted aired on Wednesday alongside NBC import Scrubs for its first run of episodes in spring 2009. ABC then renewed the show but unloaded the rest of the season one order during the summer of 2009, most of it after low-rated summer offering The Superstars. It returned to the pairing with Scrubs at the end of fall 2009, this time on Tuesday.

The Question, Monday 6/24/13: Will Ratings Go Over Or Under... the Dome?

Of all the broadcast networks' scripted offerings this summer, it's Stephen King-inspired Under the Dome that's gotten the most hype. If any of them work, it should be this one. CBS' promotion has been crazy by summer series standards, including a teaser during the Super Bowl in early February! Tonight it premieres after an hour of The Big Bang Theory, TV's best repeater, and it doesn't seem that unreasonable to expect it to grow on that audience.

Over/Under: 2.05.

War of 18-49 Update, How I Met Your Mother (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the eighth overall) of How I Met Your Mother on CBS.

A18-49+: 2006-07 Season Recap

In the spring I did season-by-season recaps of the three old years added to the fold: 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06. I liked those so much that I've decided to do them for every single year of the decade across which A18-49+ era is available. Last week started with 2012-13, and today we loop back to 2006-07.

The links below in each category are to the old theme posts (most 2006-12), but I will update these links as the new theme posts come out over the course of the summer.

The Question, Sunday 6/23/13: Will the Devious Maids Outfox a Broadcast Drama Premiere?

Two new dramas premiere tonight, an NBC co-production called Crossing Lines and a high-profile busted broadcast pilot Devious Maids on Lifetime. It's not a good sign for Lines that it's shoved off to Sunday relatively on its own, but I still think the Donald Sutherland-led cast and a Got Talent repeat lead-in get it to premiere better than last year's Saving Hope. Devious Maids, from Desperate Housewives' Marc Cherry, seems on-brand for Lifetime and has some hype, so I think it'll do better than its upper-0's Drop Dead Diva lead-in. Ultimately I see both going around 1.0, but I'll give Maids the slight edge since I think Lines has more huge bomb potential.

Spread: Devious Maids beats Crossing Lines by 0.05 points. (Reply with "Devious Maids" if you think Devious Maids BEATS Crossing Lines, or with "Crossing Lines" if you think Crossing Lines TIES/BEATS Devious Maids. Results based on finals to one decimal point.)

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 6/20/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The NBA Finals took over TV one last time with another 25% game-to-game bump for Game 7, and it posted the biggest viewership/demo for anything since the Academy Awards four months ago. Still, it did go 7% below the last Finals Game 7 in 2010 (an 11.4 for Celtics/Lakers).

• This game went 55% ahead of last Thursday's Game 4. Most damaged by that additional competition were the CBS repeats, all down double digits from last week, and USA's combo of Burn Notice (0.9) and Graceland (0.7). And FX had an almost invisible two-episode return from comedy Wilfred (0.3/0.3). That was about even with the low-rated last couple episodes of last season, but it was down nearly half from last season's average and miles behind the Anger Management-inflated year-ago premiere (1.2).

• A couple quick programming notes about Spotted Ratings' Week Off after the bump:

Top 10 of the Last 10, Scripted Newbie Reach Renewals

The collective decline in Live+SD ratings makes it hard to fairly compare numbers across seasons. But with the A18-49+ stat, we have the technology! Enter the "Top 10 of the Last 10" lists, which will line up the last ten seasons (2003-04 thru 2012-13) and give us an idea of which shows were strongest after we set the collective decline off to the side. (I'll throw in the raw numbers too, to give a sense of how far ratings have fallen.)

Last time we looked at the top ten new shows of the last ten years. Today we're going to the other end of the spectrum, looking at the ten lowest-rated big-four new shows to eke out a second season. There are a bunch of criteria I'm applying to try to make this as apples-to-apples as possible. The most important is there are no Friday shows, since many Friday shows would make this list but were hardly "reaches." But I'll say more about the rules (and the Friday shows that would make the list) at the bottom.

The War of 18-49, The Voice

THE VOICE (NBC)

Scheduling history: Season one of The Voice aired mostly on Tuesday, with a couple Wednesday results shows at the end of the season. Since then, it's mostly moved into the regular season and been a Monday/Tuesday fixture. The Tuesday results show has gone back and forth between 8:00 and 9:00 a bunch of times, and it returned to 8:00 starting in winter/spring 2014 to lead into new scripted series.

See (who saw) how it all began: NBC rushed its new singing competition The Voice on the air right at the end of the 2010-11 regular season, looking to get the jump on Fox's similar upcoming The X Factor. And The Voice drew considerable interest right out of the gate, premiering to 11.78 million viewers and a 5.1 demo rating on 4/26/11. Its second week of auditions actually spiked to a 5.7 demo, but it dropped from there to a fairly consistent mid-4's level for the rest of the season, with its Wednesday results shows dipping into the 3's.

The best of times: After the success of season one, NBC was determined to make The Voice a regular season fixture. And like CBS with Survivor, they had some big help: a post-Super Bowl airing. Season two premiered after the big game with a whooping 16.3 demo, and it turned that audience into a massive 6.7 for its regular slot premiere the next day. The audience bailed rather quickly in subsequent weeks, but the early boost meant it was the show's biggest season on the main night in raw numbers.

The worst of times: Most seasons of The Voice have dropped pretty significantly over the course of the season, and that effect has become more pronounced in the show's later seasons. Season 16 in spring 2019 brought the show's most disturbing drops yet, including some journeys into fractional territory for the results episodes on 4/23/19, 4/30/19 and 5/7/19. Its first ever 0.9 on a main night came a year later, on 5/11/20.

Then vs. now: The Voice has been nothing short of a game-changer for NBC as a network. Its double season in 2012-13 was pretty much the only big reason why the network became somewhat competitive again. And like other reality staples of the past, it's helped the network create a scripted supporting cast as well, boosting shows like The Blacklist, Chicago Fire and eventually a megahit in This Is Us.

It's had a tendency to keep raising questions about its long-term viability because it drops so much in the second half of the season, but it also keeps answering those questions by premiering very well. Overall, the show has mostly stuck pretty close to the rate of league average decline, which is perfectly fine for something of this size (but a worse trend than many of the other reality staples). Unless it can start on an upward trajectory again, the ultimate story seems to be that The Voice's assist to NBC was a miniature version of what Idol did for Fox. But given where NBC was a few years ago, that's not at all insignificant.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Spring 2011	Tuesday 9:00	4.58		3.3	5.7	detail
2	Spring 2012	Monday 8:00	4.82	+5%	3.5	6.7	detail
		2	Spring 2012	Tuesday 9:00	3.61				3.1	4.4	detail
3	Fall 2012	Monday 8:00	4.38		3.7	4.8	detail
		3	Fall 2012	Tuesday 8:00	4.08				3.0	4.9	detail
4	Spring 2013	Monday 8:00	4.14	-14%	3.2	5.2	detail
		4	Spring 2013	Tuesday 8:00	3.79	+5%			2.8	4.6	detail
5	Fall 2013	Monday 8:00	4.02	-8%	3.3	5.1	detail	B
		5	Fall 2013	Tuesday 8:00	3.65	-10%			2.5	4.7	detail	B
6	Spring 2014	Monday 8:00	3.55	-14%	3.0	4.7	detail	C
		6	Spring 2014	Tuesday 8:00	3.18	-16%			2.5	4.1	detail	C
7	Fall 2014	Monday 8:00	3.35	-17%	2.5	4.1	detail	C
		7	Fall 2014	Tuesday 8:00	3.07	-16%			2.3	4.1	detail	C
8	Spring 2015	Monday 8:00	3.08	-13%	2.3	4.1	detail	C+
		8	Spring 2015	Tuesday 8:00	3.02	-5%			2.0	4.1	detail	C+
9	Fall 2015	Monday 8:00	3.12	-7%	2.6	3.5	detail	B+
		9	Fall 2015	Tuesday 8:00	2.80	-9%			2.1	3.7	detail	B+
10	Spring 2016	Monday 8:00	2.50	-19%	2.0	3.4	detail	C
		10	Spring 2016	Tuesday 8:00	2.34	-22%			1.6	3.1	detail	C
11	Fall 2016	Monday 8:00	2.50	-20%	2.0	3.3	detail	B
		11	Fall 2016	Tuesday 8:00	2.52	-10%			1.8	3.4	detail	B
12	Spring 2017	Monday 8:00	2.22	-11%	1.8	3.1	detail		B
		12	Spring 2017	Tuesday 8:00	2.02	-14%			1.5	2.6	detail	B
13	Fall 2017	Monday 8:00	2.10	-16%	1.7	2.6	detail	B-
		13	Fall 2017	Tuesday 8:00	2.04	-19%			1.7	2.7	detail	B-
14	Spring 2018	Monday 8:00	1.94	-13%	1.5	2.8	detail	C+
		14	Spring 2018	Tuesday 8:00	1.70	-16%			1.2	2.4	detail	C+
15	Fall 2018	Monday 8:00	1.73	-18%	1.4	2.1	detail	C+
		15	Fall 2018	Tuesday 8:00	1.67	-18%			1.4	2.2	detail	C+
16	Spring 2019	Monday 8:00	1.50	-23%	1.1	2.1	detail	C-
		16	Spring 2019	Tuesday 9:00	1.21	-29%			0.9	2.1	detail	C-
17	Fall 2019	Monday 8:00	1.31	-24%	1.1	1.7	detail	C+
		17	Fall 2019	Tuesday 8:00	1.29	-22%			1.0	1.6	detail	C+
18	Spring 2020	Monday 8:00	1.42	-5%	0.9	1.8	detail	B
		18	Spring 2020	Tue 8:00, Tue 9:00	1.03	-15%			0.9	1.4	detail	B
19	Fall 2020	Monday 8:00	0.97	-26%	0.8	1.2	detail	C
		19	Fall 2020	Tuesday 8:00	0.98	-25%			0.7	1.1	detail	C
20	Spring 2021	Monday 8:00	0.84	-40%	0.6	1.1	detail	C-
		20	Spring 2021	Tue 9:00, Tue 8:00	0.78	-24%			0.6	1.0	detail	C-
21	Fall 2021	Monday 8:00	0.83	-14%	0.7	1.1	detail	B+
		21	Fall 2021	Tuesday 8:00	0.83	-15%		0.7	1.1	detail	B+
22	Fall 2022	Monday 8:00	0.67	-19%	0.6	0.7	detail	B-
		22	Fall 2022	Tuesday 8:00	0.65	-21%		0.6	0.7	detail	B-
23	Spring 2023	Monday 8:00	0.55		0.4	0.7	detail	B-
		23	Spring 2023	Tuesday 9:00	0.48			0.4	0.5	detail	B-
24	Fall 2023	Monday 8:00	0.52	-23%	0.4	0.6	detail	C
		24	Fall 2023	Tuesday 9:00	0.51	-22%		0.4	0.7	detail
25	Spring 2024	Monday 8:00	0.42	-24%	0.2	0.5	detail	C
		25	Spring 2024	Tuesday 9:00	0.37	-24%		0.3	0.4	detail

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now24	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Spring 2011	180	big hit	0.68		130	224	201	146
2	Spring 2012	204	megahit	0.77	+13%	148	284	284	161
		2	Spring 2012	153	big hit	0.58		131	186	135	186
3	Fall 2012	208	megahit	0.79		176	228	199	199
		3	Fall 2012	194	big hit	0.73		142	233	190	233
4	Spring 2013	197	big hit	0.75	-4%	152	247	228	176
		4	Spring 2013	180	big hit	0.68	+18%	133	218	195	209
5	Fall 2013	213	megahit	0.81	+3%	175	271	271	175
		5	Fall 2013	194	big hit	0.74	+0%	133	250	250	212
6	Spring 2014	189	big hit	0.72	-4%	159	250	250	170
		6	Spring 2014	169	big hit	0.64	-6%	133	218	196	175
7	Fall 2014	199	big hit	0.75	-7%	149	244	244	167
		7	Fall 2014	182	big hit	0.69	-6%	137	244	244	196
8	Spring 2015	183	big hit	0.70	-3%	137	244	244	155
		8	Spring 2015	180	big hit	0.68	+7%	119	244	232	172
9	Fall 2015	214	megahit	0.81	+8%	179	240	240	220
		9	Fall 2015	192	big hit	0.73	+5%	144	254	240	199
10	Spring 2016	172	big hit	0.65	-6%	137	233	233	137
		10	Spring 2016	161	big hit	0.61	-10%	110	213	206	151
11	Fall 2016	204	megahit	0.78	-4%	163	269	269	180
		11	Fall 2016	206	megahit	0.78	+7%	147	278	278	204
12	Spring 2017	181	big hit	0.69	+6%	147	253	253	163
		12	Spring 2017	165	big hit	0.63	+2%	122	212	212	155
13	Fall 2017	192	big hit	0.73	-6%	159	240	240	183
		13	Fall 2017	186	big hit	0.71	-10%	156	246	246	186
14	Spring 2018	178	big hit	0.67	-2%	136	254	254	138
		14	Spring 2018	155	big hit	0.59	-6%	114	215	215	138
15	Fall 2018	182	big hit	0.69	-5%	147	217	214	155
		15	Fall 2018	175	big hit	0.67	-6%	144	228	228	183
16	Spring 2019	157	big hit	0.60	-11%	119	221	221	125
		16	Spring 2019	127	hit	0.48	-18%	96	216	216	113
17	Fall 2019	160	big hit	0.61	-12%	132	212	212	148
		17	Fall 2019	158	big hit	0.60	-10%	117	193	190	157
18	Spring 2020	173	big hit	0.66	+10%	116	220	188	124
		18	Spring 2020	125	hit	0.48	-1%	113	166	166	115
19	Fall 2020	150	big hit	0.57	-6%	124	190	190	140
		19	Fall 2020	151	big hit	0.57	-4%	109	175	168	140
20	Spring 2021	131	hit	0.50	-24%	96	172	172	109
		20	Spring 2021	120	solid	0.46	-4%	87	149	144	123
21	Fall 2021	162	big hit	0.62	+8%	137	212	212	143
		21	Fall 2021	162	big hit	0.61	+7%	129	214	214	137
22	Fall 2022	157	big hit	0.60	-3%	141	169	157	162
		22	Fall 2022	153	big hit	0.58	-6%	131	171	171	155
23	Spring 2023	130	hit	0.49		98	174	162	113
		23	Spring 2023	113	solid	0.43		101	117	117	115
24	Fall 2023	136	hit	0.52	-13%	108	158	158	121
		24	Fall 2023	134	hit	0.51	-12%	103	171	171	140
25	Spring 2024	110	solid	0.42	-15%	66	137	137	108
		25	Spring 2024	97	marginal	0.37	-14%	84	108	108	105

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 6/19/13

WHAT MATTERS:

•  The Stanley Cup Finals returned to broadcast at a tick behind Game 1's rating. It continued the series' blistering year-to-year growth pace, though an apples-to-apples comp is not available since last year's game 4 was on cable.

• Several returns on cable:

War of 18-49 Update, Two and a Half Men (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the tenth overall) of Two and a Half Men on CBS.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 6/18/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• A classic overtime Game 6 of the NBA Finals took the series into the stratosphere, going 35% above Sunday's fifth game. It was actually over a point behind the last Game 6, when the Heat were knocked out two years ago, but it was well ahead of other recent sixth games. And this time, the result set up a Game 7 on Thursday. Double digits seem very possible.

• America's Got Talent was even in a move to 8:00, and sagging The Voice perked up and posted a pretty encouraging finale against the NBA. It was flat with the finale from last spring.

• Apparently it mattered that ABC Family newbie Twisted had previewed last week's episode months earlier, as it grew from 0.5 to 0.7 in week two. Lead-in Pretty Little Liars held tight at a strong 1.3.

War of 18-49 Update, American Idol (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the twelfth overall) of American Idol on Fox.

Spotted Ratings, Weekend Roundup (6/14-6/15/13)

WHAT MATTERS:

• The weekend's top program was Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals over on NBCSN (3.96m, 1.5). It continued the Cup's torrid year-to-year growth pace, as the two NBCSN games more than doubled last year's NBCSN games (0.6 and 0.8 for Games 3 and 4).

• Zese clocks were back with the microscopically-viewed two-hour return of Zero Hour on Saturday, and ABC will add 666 Park Ave to the burn-off mix starting next Saturday.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 6/17/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Voice got a fairly typical 10%ish week-to-week bump for its performance finale. This result was a few ticks below the fall performance finale (4.2 on 12/17/12) but about in line with last spring's final ep (3.8 on 5/7/12). Week two of The Winner Is preview became the latest week two grower among the summer entries, up by a tick.

• Last week's second ep grower Mistresses, however, gave back the growth in week three and returned to its premiere level.

• The Stanley Cup Finals moved to cabler NBCSN for Games 2 and 3. Monday's Game 3 had 4.00m viewers and a 1.6 demo rating. Haven't seen a Game 2 demo yet but the viewership was almost identical (3.96m).

• TNT had a second straight night of distressing post-premiere drops as Major Crimes (0.7) and King & Maxwell (0.4) each shed a couple ticks, and MTV's Teen Wolf (0.7) also took a dive.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 6/16/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Game 5 of the NBA Finals dropped a bit from Game 4. The last of the year-to-year comparisons saw this game go -17%, though it wasn't a decisive game this year.

• There were some weak results elsewhere, including the Miss USA competition, down 28% from last year's (which was not against the Finals). HBO brought back True Blood (2.4), which finally took a noticeable ratings dip (down nearly 20% from last year), while TNT's Falling Skies (1.0) took a dive-bomb in its second week back. Let's see where these two end up when the NBA is out of the way next week.

War of 18-49 Update, NCIS (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the tenth overall) of NCIS on CBS.

A18-49+: The New Shows Post

The A18-49+ theme posts combine all of the individual season info in one specific category, allowing us to line up the last eleven seasons of collective Live+SD ratings declines on a relatively apples-to-apples basis. In future seasons I will update these pages with the new season numbers and updated info on the longevity of the new shows.

For people who followed the first iterations of these posts back in Spring 2012, there will be a lot of text copied over. The only completely "new" stuff is some tweaks to the sections discussing the new shows' longevity, plus a table involving the recently introduced Career A18-49+ at the end.

War of 18-49 Update, The Big Bang Theory (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the sixth overall) of The Big Bang Theory on CBS.

The Question, Sunday 6/16/13: Can True Blood Hold Off the Bleeding Again?

Nothing on TV these days has settled into a ratings groove quite like HBO's vampire drama True Blood. It's amazingly continued to hold onto virtually the same ratings over the last three seasons, even though the buzz and critical acclaim seem to have waned. Last season was as consistent as it gets on TV, with every single rating falling somewhere from 2.6 to 2.9. It's back for another bite tonight. Can True Blood hold off the bleeding again? That's The Question for Sunday, June 16, 2013.

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 6/13/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Game 4 of the NBA Finals was the best of all worlds for ABC; the rating itself took a significant upswing, making it the first game of the series within single digits year-to-year. The result ensured the series is going at least six games (with Game 6 up against The Voice's finale on Tuesday). And it seemed to take a chunk out of almost every competing program, at least on broadcast.

• More resilient was USA's combo of Burn Notice (1.19) and Graceland (0.80), both of which were virtually even with last week. And TBS had a pretty decent return from sophomore sitcom Sullivan & Son (0.91), which actually outrated most of the spring episodes of Men at Work in the timeslot.

Top 10 of the Last 10, New Scripted Shows

The collective decline in Live+SD ratings makes it hard to fairly compare numbers across seasons. But with the A18-49+ stat, we have the technology! Enter the "Top 10 of the Last 10" lists, which will line up the last ten seasons (2003-04 thru 2012-13) and give us an idea of which shows were strongest after we set the collective decline off to the side. (I'll throw in the raw numbers too, to give a sense of how far ratings have fallen.)

Today, the top 10 scripted newbies of the last decade. It's quite an eclectic list; some went on to sustained success and are still big nearly a decade later, some flamed out quickly, and some... didn't even get renewed for season two?!

War of 18-49 Update, Army Wives (2012-13)

Let's take a look at the 2012-13 season (the seventh overall) of Army Wives on Lifetime.

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 6/12/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• This may go down as a game-changing night for the NHL. The Stanley Cup Finals kicked off with an epic game that ran till around 1:00 ET and more than doubled last year's Game 1 rating. It was the most-watched Stanley Cup Game 1 since 1997. It didn't appear to benefit or suffer much from the extreme length, as it peaked in the 11:00 half-hour and had actually dropped below the full game average by the end.

• Still not yet sure if it means anything since it started so low, but The American Baking Competition became an extremely rare show to grow in week two and then again in week three.

• USA welcomed back the fast-deteriorating Royal Pains (0.71) and Necessary Roughness (0.65) Wednesday lineup for a third summer. It's hard to believe that the first airing of this combo just two years ago saw the shows pull 1.4 apiece.

The War of 18-49, White Collar

WHITE COLLAR (USA)

Scheduling history: White Collar debuted back in the days when USA Network was still programming high-priority shows on Fridays. It led out of the final episodes of Monk on Friday, then took a one-month break before returning on Tuesday. It stayed on Tuesday through season four, consistently airing at 9:00 in the summer and 10:00 in the winter. The last two seasons marked a return to airing entirely in the broadcast regular season, on Thursday at 9/8c.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 6/11/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• One of the most crowded nights on broadcast got even moreso as ABC's Game 3 of the NBA Finals showed up on the night and posted similar ratings to the first two games despite the game being a massive blowout. That meant the smallest year-to-year deficit of the series to date, as this game was just -11% vs. 2012's Sunday Game 3.

• NBC's usually dominant talent shows were down a bit vs. the added competition. Suffice to say NBC is now all in for the Spurs to win the Finals in five games, as they surely have no interest in throwing next week's The Voice finale at an NBA Finals Game 6.

• On cable, ABC Family impressed with a strong return from Pretty Little Liars (1.3), which was actually two ticks above last summer's premiere (though a notch below last winter's premiere). PLL's new lead-out Twisted (0.5) struggled, but it's worth noting this episode has already aired (it was sneak previewed after PLL's winter finale on 3/19/13) so I'll reserve judgment for a week.