SpotVault - Nikita (CW) - 2013-14 Ratings

Nikita

Fridays, 9/8c, CW

The True Top 25, Week Ending 11/24/13 (2013-14 Week Nine)

Yet another Peyton Manning game on Sunday Night Football meant yet another incredible number for the second half of the season. In fact, while this game was the fifth-biggest of the season in raw numbers, it was the Truly biggest of the season-to-date, mostly because ABC's very strong American Music Awards made Sunday night much more crowded than usual.

Between those two events was top entertainment series The Big Bang Theory, dominating the entertainment pack yet again in the closest thing we'll have to a "full-strength" TV week between now and the end of 2013. Scandal was the top drama, as True maintains the Thursday 10/9c slot is a few ticks tougher than top raw numbers drama NCIS' Tuesday 8/7c. Four new shows made the cut as The Millers scraped its way back onto the list for the first time in a few weeks, replacing a pre-empted The Blacklist. Shark Tank represented Friday night once again, but just barely in a week that saw a bunch of strong sports/specials make the cutline a bit higher than normal.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 11/26/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The last full-strength night of TV before the Thanksgiving break had a lot going on. ABC brought in the two-hour finale of Dancing with the Stars, down 20% year-to-year. But perhaps the network's more interesting development was how Agents of SHIELD responded to its first airing without NCIS competing head-to-head. The show was up two ticks in the demo and a whooping 2.8 million total viewers, meaning a show that's consistently seen well over 40% of its audience in the 18-49 demo went all the way to 34%. Some DWTS pre-tune may also have something to do with that as well, but I have thought for awhile that this "broader" skew might be more sustainable for SHIELD long-term; the show has turned out to be much more procedural than buzzy serial. So maybe NCIS is cutting into it more than expected.

• Meanwhile, NCIS sat out in favor of the holiday special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which scored an identical demo with something like eight million fewer total viewers. In its first-ever airing without an NCIS lead-in, NCIS: Los Angeles held up rather well demographically but was, like SHIELD, thrown off skew-wise by the different situation, down by about 2.8 million total viewers. And Person of Interest picked up by two ticks in the conclusion of its big three-part event.

• On NBC, The Voice suffered against DWTS but Chicago Fire had a bounce-back. And Fox perked back up with New Girl and The Mindy Project.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 11/24/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Sunday's headline event was ABC's American Music Awards, another ABC awards show to completely rebound after a major hiccup last year. The show had a 3.4 last year but a 4.3 in each of the previous two years (and was above 5 for the two years before that). And it did over three times the usual ABC rating in the slot, making things tougher for normal originals on CBS/Fox.

• NBC posted another huge Sunday Night Football number courtesy of an overtime Broncos/Patriots game. It was down a single tick from last week's gigantic Broncos/Chiefs game, but it's still a fantastic number for this time of year (up 32% from the corresponding game a year ago).

• Among the two networks airing entertainment programs, the only real surprise on an extremely crowded evening was a very low number from The Amazing Race, which adjusted up but still hit a series low by two tenths and was down year-to-year much more drastically than the other CBS/Fox shows.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 11/23/13

Spotted Ratings, Friday 11/22/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Fox Friday nightmare is over, as Bones had a big jump to a much more reasonable number in week two of its Friday run, and it actually eked out a Friday 8/7c win over a below-average Undercover Boss. (According to CBS PR it was a clip show.) We can still debate whether Bones is being best utilized here, but at least now it's a debate; as I said last week, if it had held at 1.2, it would have been a clear misstep. Raising Hope was also up in the 9:30 half-hour (the 9:00 one adjusted down to tie).

• The CW commenced the six-episode final season of Nikita with terrible (though not exactly unprecedented) numbers.

• Elsewhere, NBC pre-empted its usual Grimm/Dracula lineup and saw a major decline in the slot with a John F. Kennedy special, while ABC's news department was the big winner with a spiking 20/20.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 11/25/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• CBS had a fairly encouraging week from its 9:00 comedies Mike and Molly and Mom, each up multiple ticks. The network had a Monday Night Football pre-emption, but Mom actually ended up adjusting up after finals, making for a pretty surprising 21% week-to-week bounce.

• On the other hand, the holiday began early on Fox, down double digits with Almost Human (now tying the low-end Bones performance) and Sleepy Hollow (a disheartening three tenths below its previous low).

• ABC was a little stronger than usual with the performance finale of Dancing with the Stars, though this was 19% below last fall's Monday finale. That may have contributed to the further softening of competing The Voice, down another tick and itself running around -20% year-to-year at this point.

Midseason 2014: ABC and Fox

Lots of interesting stuff in the ABC/Fox midseason schedule announcements this week. Here are a few thoughts on some of the big moves:

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 11/21/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• It was another night of general steadiness on broadcast, with the CBS lineup scoring minor gains for most shows.

• After finals, everything on Fox/the CW ended up even week-to-week except for The X Factor, up another couple ticks.

• For the second straight night, the year-ago evening was holiday-impacted, though in this case that's actually a bad thing on the whole (since NBC had Thanksgiving football and Fox had a late afternoon NFL lead-in last year).

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 11/20/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The ABC comedies had a bad day, particularly Modern Family, which went well below any previous results this season. The CBS dramas had a good day, with Criminal Minds and CSI both tying season highs. Arrow swung back down after a couple weeks of growth. Everything else was roughly even.

• Note for year-to-year comparisons ("y2y" and "Ty2y") in the table: Thanksgiving was a week earlier on the calendar last year, so these results are somewhat "inflated" because they compare vs. Thanksgiving Eve 2012.

The True Top 25, Week Ending 11/17/13 (2013-14 Week Eight)

Sunday Night Football won another True Top 25 with an incredible number for the second half of the regular season, further cementing Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning as one of American culture's top ratings draws. The Big Bang Theory was back in the entertainment programming driver's seat, while Scandal re-captured the lead among dramas. A slumping Shark Tank still eked out a spot on the list, while fellow Friday offerings Undercover Boss and Grimm were each within a tenth of a point of making the cut. Though The Millers remained just off the list, we went up to four new shows represented as the NFL-inflated premiere of Almost Human made the cut (though Agents of SHIELD was fairly close to dropping off). Almost Human figures to be back next week after a decent 2.3 Monday premiere.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 11/19/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The latest of ABC's Tuesday 10/9c specials was by far its most successful yet; a 90-minute David Blaine special nearly tripled the usual delivery from Trophy Wife and the other specials, suddenly putting ABC on top of a period where it's usually been a distant fourth this season. The alphabet also saw week eight of Agents of SHIELD finally post its first non-drop, up two ticks in a cross-over (using that term very loosely) with the recently released Thor movie.

• Perhaps partly due to ABC being so dramatically stronger, a few competing programs in the second half of the evening had a tough time; The Voice, Chicago Fire and The Mindy Project were all down multiple ticks.

• The CW pre-empted The Originals for another weak iHeartRadio special (0.3), but Supernatural proved fairly resilient as always.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 11/18/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Monday 8/7c premiere of Almost Human was down by 26% from Sunday's NFL-assisted premiere. So Human has started its Monday run just a bit ahead of Bones' 2.1 average in the slot this fall. A big drop here was to be expected given the change in lead-in, and this is (for now) still a perfectly acceptable level for the timeslot, so once again we'll have to wait to see if the next result says something more definitive. Sleepy Hollow was close to even in its first ep with the new lead-in.

• NBC had a recap special of The Voice at 8/7c and somewhat depressed numbers for the 9-11 original, adding up to a lineup 12% behind last week's Voice/Blacklist combo.

• ABC's numbers for Dancing with the Stars came down to relatively typical numbers after football pre-emptions were taken out, with DWTS still bouncing back big from last week's low.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 11/17/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Fox got what looks on the surface like a solid premiere number from new drama Almost Human, though it might be considered a bit of a disappointment given it had help from the late-afternoon NFL game. (Final half-hour breakdowns were 3.5 -> 2.8.) However, the NFL was perhaps not as much of a boon on this night as it'd be most weeks; the last afternoon game ended at 7:39, which is a few minutes earlier than average, and it looks like NBC hung a way above average number with its own primetime game (Broncos/Chiefs). So probably all we can say with some confidence right now is that it doesn't look like there's a Sleepy Hollow level of interest here.

• With a competing genre drama in the mix, Once Upon a Time dropped again to a new low, while the roller coaster that is Revenge took another upward swing.

• The Good Wife pretty much went back to normal when starting on time. It seemed like it was getting a bigger bounce on overrun nights than usual, but that might just be because the 9:00 hour has gotten a lot tougher this fall with The Walking Dead's latest surge.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 11/16/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Both the football franchises swung way up from last week when they had to face a big CBS game; however, ABC's USC/Stanford Saturday Night Football was still well below average.

Spotted Ratings, Friday 11/15/13: Fall Off the Bones

WHAT MATTERS:

• Friday night: not as easy as some shows have been making it look lately. The Friday premiere of Bones went a whooping 40% below the last Monday episode, while Raising Hope was practically invisible in its own Friday debut (pulling less than half of its regular Tuesday demo from last season). That means so far, this lineup effectively looks no better than the previous one (MasterChef Junior and Sleepy Hollow repeats). I was more down on this than most of you simply because I'd seen very little promotion (they seem to be all-out for Almost Human right now), but I still thought each show would do several ticks better than this. Maybe people will become more aware of the moves in time, but if this is the level they're gonna be at, there's really no doubt that Fox screwed up here (and should rectify it).

• The night's best news came on NBC, where Grimm had a nice bounce-back after a couple rough post-premiere drops. However, it didn't bring Dracula back with it. CBS also had a second straight upswing from Hawaii Five-0, which ended up tying its season high after finals; perhaps some of these new 9/8c viewers came from a dipping Shark Tank.

SpotVault - Almost Human (Fox) - 2013-14 Ratings

Almost Human

Mondays, 8/7c, Fox

SpotVault - Raising Hope (Fox) - 2013-14 Ratings

Raising Hope

Fridays, 9/8c, Fox

The Question, Monday 11/18/13: How Many Humans Follow Almost Human to Monday?

Tonight Fox has the back half of the two-night Almost Human premiere, which scored a preliminary 3.1 on Sunday with a 3.4 -> 2.8 half-hour breakdown. (We won't have a good look at the number for its lead-in, the NFL post-game show The OT, till tomorrow.)  I'm not expecting anything too catastrophic; tonight will have a bit less competition than usual for Monday 8/7c as NBC airs a The Voice recap special. But the average week two drop is nearly 20%, and with no NFL help for Almost Human, it seems quite likely to go down even more than that.

Over/Under: 2.25.

The Question, Sunday 11/17/13: Is the NFL an Almost Perfect Lead-in for Almost Human?

The slate of fall 2013 newbies rounds out on Sunday night with the post-NFL preview of Fox's sci-fi drama Almost Human. The thing here is that even with an absolutely correct gauge on the interest in the show, you could miss by quite a bit simply based on how long and how good the late-afternoon Packers/Giants game is. It could be a great game that ends right at 8:00 and pushes double digits, or there could be a full half-hour of post-game show The OT, which has averaged about a 5.0 this season (and surely much less by 7:59). Because I don't want to have a potential unfair disadvantage information-wise, I'm forcing it to be a crapshoot for everyone! So: THIS GAME CLOSES AT A SPECIAL TIME: 4:00 PM ET ON SUNDAY.

Over/Under: 3.35.

The Question, Friday 11/15/13: Is There Hope for a Fourth Scripted Lineup on Friday?

In week two of November sweeps, the Fox network aired just three programs that had a 2.0 or higher 18-49 rating. Tonight, one of those programs makes a move to low-viewed Friday night. Bones has quietly had another very solid season, but the success of its lead-out Sleepy Hollow means Fox is finally following through on the Friday move that they've promised many times and always audibled out of. It joins another series that led off a weeknight last year, the fourth-year comedy Raising Hope, in a lineup that will either make Fox competitive on a relatively crowded Friday, or make us all feel the shows are being wasted on the supposedly low-priority night. Is there Hope for a fourth scripted network on Friday? That's The Question for Friday, November 15, 2013.

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 11/14/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• On another day of mostly tiny week-to-week fluctuations, here were the ones that seemed a little less meaningless:
• With The Voice gone at 8/7c and Parks and Recreation back, Sean Saves the World gave back all of last week's growth and then some. In fact, it and The Michael J. Fox Show both tumbled below a 1.0 in finals!
• For the second straight day, The X Factor bounced back a teeny bit from an uncommon competitive situation last week. But for the second straight day, it's still down 40%+ year-to-year.
• And the CW's Reign had its first uptick, pulling it ahead of The Tomorrow People for the first time (and only a 0.1 lead-in difference between the two). With both shows now back-nined, the question now turns to what the CW will do at midseason. I still think they will want to give at least one of the slots to a midseason newbie, and it's looking muddier to guess which slot (or both? neither?) that will be.

Demos Year-to-Year, November Sweeps 2013 Winners/Losers

While I've long retired the daily Demos Year-to-Year posts, I do want to continue doing the recap posts that spotlight the top gainers/losers of the week vs. the same time a year ago. Here's November sweeps 2013; since sweeps began a week later on the calendar last year, I'm actually comparing week two of this sweeps vs. week three of last year. This seemed the best combination of weeks to ensure that almost all entertainment programs got a comparison.

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 11/13/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• On the first relatively "normal" Wednesday in about a month, nearly every series was even or a bit up. A few particular notables:
• The most noteworthy bounce-back came from Criminal Minds, which fully recovered after a couple major hiccups against the decisive World Series game and the CMAs.
• As noted last week, The X Factor indeed did a little better with no CMAs in the mix, but (as I said then) it was not so much of a rally that I think it could be construed as a positive. It's still about forty percent behind where the show was on this night a year ago.
• And the CW's Arrow was up two ticks for the second straight week since getting slammed against the World Series, and a finals uptick took it to an outright season high.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 11/12/13

WHAT MATTERS:

•  Episode seven finally saw the bleeding stop for newbie Sleepy Hollow, but not so much for Agents of SHIELD, down again and taking its largest week-to-week decline since episode three. But ABC's comedy block continues to operate on a seemingly different plane, as The Goldbergs and Trophy Wife went back up.

• Chicago Fire had a decent return from a couple weeks off, edging its last original even though lead-in The Voice was nearly a point weaker than it was back then.

• Fox was down a couple ticks on average with the comedy block. And the CW was up a couple ticks on average with The Originals and Supernatural.

The True Top 25, Week Ending 11/10/13 (2013-14 Week Seven)

After just barely winning a week ago, Sunday Night Football took a major upswing this week and had a very comfortable win. The Big Bang Theory was back in the entertainment programming driver's seat, holding off a special CBS football game and the CMA Awards for the #2 spot. The most noteworthy development here was probably The Blacklist taking a turn as the week's #1 drama in True. The number getting this high is probably a product of a few coincidences: a higher-end Monday Night Football inflating the competition count, a very low PUT estimate, etc. (See also the Castle number below, itself probably a couple ticks overly high.) However, the show has held up admirably while The Voice has taken its usual in-season decline; at the very least, it's a strong enough show that it can grade out as the top drama when it "gets lucky."

A big spike from Undercover Boss gave Friday night a second representative, while we held at three new shows with The Millers dropping off the list (though it could be back, as it missed by less than a hundredth of a point).

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 11/10/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Any minor momentum that appeared to be developing on ABC Sundays promptly vanished, as Once Upon a Time, and Betrayal all reverted to tie season low points, while a finals downtick by Revenge left it at an outright low. It was even worse on Fox, where the cartoon lineup was down double digits across the board in its second straight week without an NFL assist (and anchors The Simpsons and Family Guy were down about 20%). Immediate help is not on the way for these shows, as they'll cede the direct NFL lead-in to the Almost Human premiere next week.

• The declines were not exclusive to broadcast this week, as The Walking Dead (6.2) also took a roughly 10% hit and dropped back behind a Cowboys-fueled Sunday Night Football.

• Just want to throw out there that on a generally down night, The Good Wife ended up with an outright season high, and the show seems to have grown more in the last couple weeks than the 9:00 show typically does after NFL overruns. The acclaim this season has been even more considerable than usual; is some ratings momentum finally beginning to develop for this show? Next week without an overrun should tell us more.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 11/9/13

WHAT MATTERS:

•  For CBS, the difference between an average week and a well above average week came primarily on Saturday, where their annual primetime LSU/Alabama matchup did over 300% better than their usual Saturday repeat/48 Hours mix. And the game went a tick ahead of the same game's rating last year.

• ABC always seems to get saddled with one of its very worst games on LSU/Alabama night, and in this case Notre Dame/Pittsburgh on Saturday Night Football pulled off a dreaded 79% week-to-week decline (even losing to Fox!).

• And NBC had the Miss Universe Paegant, which took place on a Saturday this year; it's a good thing for many international broadcasters, but not so much in the USA, where it managed only half of last year's rating (when it was on a Wednesday).

Spotted Ratings, Friday 11/8/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Well, Dracula has gone from a rather promising debut to pretty much dead in just two weeks. It dropped another four tenths (or 31%!!!) in week three to a level that I doubt would be acceptable even for a co-production, especially since it doesn't have Hannibal levels of critical acclaim. Now that this matter seems to be settled, the bigger worry in NBC land may lie with old reliable Grimm, itself down yet another two tenths in week three and now finds itself 24% behind where it was at this time last year.

• On the upswing across the board was CBS, where there was a huge spike from Undercover Boss to a season high-tying level, and the procedurals that followed rallied by a tenth. And a solid season from MasterChef Junior ended with the highest rating since the premiere.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 11/11/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The talent showdown swung even more sharply in The Voice's direction on this Monday, as it picked up by a couple ticks (EDIT: the "Last" compares to last week's Tuesday episode because there was a bonus Thursday ep last week) while Dancing with the Stars was down double digits. It seems a bit drastic, though in The Voice's case it might have partly been an evening out a bit after it took a rather steep drop last week.

• Mike and Molly does not look like CBS' next long-term Monday 9/8c anchor; it dropped three tenths from last week's premiere to the same 2.3 that got 2 Broke Girls sent to 8:30. And How I Met Your Mother went back in pattern after last week's spike.

• Took till week seven, but Sleepy Hollow finally had its first non-drop (it was actually up a tick). Just in time for a brand new lead-in (Almost Human) to step in next week!

The 2013-14 Climate Center: Days/Times

The Climate Center is the latest way to keep up with some of this site's bigger-picture numbers on a week-to-week basis. It'll provide a running track of trends across the broadcasters, including individual networks, genres, and days of week/time of day. These will include the numbers that have gone into the A18-49+ theme posts, plus some new ones. Like the Weekly True Power Rankings, it'll be free of any pesky analysis (aside from definitions of the numbers) and will get updated alongside the SpotVault in the middle of each week. These may or may not get expanded/tweaked over the course of the season; for now, I just want to get some of my immediate ideas out there. Suggestions welcome!

The "Days/Time" post breaks apart big four programming based on the clock and the calendar, examining which nights of the week and which half-hours of primetime are most crowded. At the moment, I'm just putting up tables that look at the big four non-sports originals in each slot, but this section will probably be expanded shortly with tables that widen the lens to overall viewing/overall broadcast viewing tendencies.

These numbers are up to date through the end of the 2013-14 regular season: Wednesday, May 21.

More Climate Center: Basics | Networks | Genres | Days/Times

The 2013-14 Climate Center: Genres

The Climate Center is the latest way to keep up with some of this site's bigger-picture numbers on a week-to-week basis. It'll provide a running track of trends across the broadcasters, including individual networks, genres, and days of week/time of day. These will include the numbers that have gone into the A18-49+ theme posts, plus some new ones. Like the Weekly True Power Rankings, it'll be free of any pesky analysis (aside from definitions of the numbers) and will get updated alongside the SpotVault in the middle of each week. These may or may not get expanded/tweaked over the course of the season; for now, I just want to get some of my immediate ideas out there. Suggestions welcome!

The "Genres" post breaks apart all primetime programming to look at trends by category, then breaks apart only the original non-sports series realm to look at trends for dramas, sitcoms and reality.

These numbers are up to date through the end of the 2013-14 regular season: Wednesday, May 21.

More Climate Center: Basics | Networks | Genres | Days/Times

SpotVault - Mike and Molly (CBS) - 2013-14 Ratings

Mike and Molly

Mondays, 9/8c, CBS

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 11/7/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC's latest change in the 8/7c hour was an original results episode of The Voice, which obviously blew away anything they've aired in the hour this season, but it was 17% below the special Thursday Voice last year. After finals, Sean Saves the World still got a slightly above-expectation boost, but certainly not anything that suggests any promise when The Voice is gone next week. And it was of no help to The Michael J. Fox Show, down again!

• While the return of The Big Bang Theory in originals meant CBS can say its new comedies went up, the reality is another disappointing week from The Millers, The Crazy Ones and Two and a Half Men, all behind their numbers from two weeks ago against the World Series.

• For Fox, the story of The X Factor remains the same: it's terrible even if you account for the atypical competitive situation with The Voice on the night; it was down 40% from the last Thursday episode. Maybe it rallies in future weeks, but can it rally enough to make a meaningful difference? And Glee returned within a tenth of its last pre-Monteith tribute episode on October 3, which I guess isn't that bad given X was almost a point weaker than on that night.

• After a week off, things got really ugly for Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, and Scandal also dropped another tick on the ABC front. 

• And the CW got its second straight big bounce-back at 8/7c with The Vampire Diaries and its second straight non-bounce-back from 9/8c newbie Reign, though Reign did tie its season highs in the 18-34 demos. Reign and fellow newbie The Tomorrow People are seemingly on about equal borderline footing with decision time surely getting near. I could see them biting the bullet and back-nining all three new shows.

First Two Weeks, Dracula

WEEK ONE
Ever since NBC started going genre on Friday, the week before Halloween has been a consistent high point. And it happened again in 2013, as Grimm returned at a solid 1.8 demo and the new series Dracula fully retained its demo rating with its own 1.8 demo. That won the 10:00 hour against 20/20 (1.5) and Blue Bloods (1.3). Even the established Grimm has only gotten this high on Friday a handful of times, so this was a very good start.

The 2013-14 Climate Center: Networks

The Climate Center is the latest way to keep up with some of this site's bigger-picture numbers on a week-to-week basis. It'll provide a running track of trends across the broadcasters, including individual networks, genres, and days of week/time of day. These will include the numbers that have gone into the A18-49+ theme posts, plus some new ones. Like the Weekly True Power Rankings, it'll be free of any pesky analysis (aside from definitions of the numbers) and will get updated alongside the SpotVault in the middle of each week. These may or may not get expanded/tweaked over the course of the season; for now, I just want to get some of my immediate ideas out there. Suggestions welcome!

The "Networks" post looks at some of the metrics that best get at the networks' actual strength, most importantly breaking the networks' overall averages apart by category and mostly focusing on only the original non-sports series.

These numbers are up to date through the end of the 2013-14 regular season: Wednesday, May 21.

More Climate Center: Basics | Networks | Genres | Days/Times

The 2013-14 Climate Center: Basics

The Climate Center is the latest way to keep up with some of this site's bigger-picture numbers on a week-to-week basis. It'll provide a running track of trends across the broadcasters, including individual networks, genres, and days of week/time of day. These will include the numbers that have gone into the A18-49+ theme posts, plus some new ones. Like the Weekly True Power Rankings, it'll be free of any pesky analysis (aside from definitions of the numbers) and will get updated alongside the SpotVault in the middle of each week. These may or may not get expanded/tweaked over the course of the season; for now, I just want to get some of my immediate ideas out there. Suggestions welcome!

The "Basics" post covers the numbers that have traditionally gone into each Climate post, examining year-to-year tendencies in extremely broad categories like overall viewing, broadcast viewing, and broadcast non-sports original series viewing (or the "league average").

These numbers are up to date through the end of the 2013-14 regular season: Wednesday, May 21. In this post only, the "TPUT" and "bc" numbers cover all of week 35 (through Sunday, May 25).

More Climate Center: Basics | Networks | Genres | Days/Times

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 11/6/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• There wasn't a major week-to-week rally on broadcast with the World Series out of the way, perhaps in part because another piece of special programming showed up and did nearly as well: ABC's CMA Awards. That's up 24% year-to-year, but really it's just a return to the show's typical 2010/2011 level after it had a major hiccup when skedded on Thursday last year.

• The show you'd probably expect to get most hit by the awards is Fox's The X Factor, but even accounting for that, its return to the Wednesday schedule was a disaster, only equaling last week's Tuesday special. Last year the show ended up about 20% weaker after the baseball hiatus than before, so it's not inconceivable it could go back up to a 1.8ish with the CMAs out of the picture. (Its last pre-baseball Wednesday ep had a 2.2.) But even that would be pretty bad.

• The most interesting lineup to watch after the World Series was on the CW, because they seemed to suffer most against it. Arrow indeed picked back up by a couple ticks. However, newbie The Tomorrow People continued to disappoint.

• NBC replaced Ironside with Dateline, which was a solid improvement on that show's last episode but did worse than its normal Friday numbers.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 11/5/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• For the ABC comedies, maybe timing really was everything. After posting their most promising results during back-nine decision week, comedy The Goldbergs took a two-tenth drop despite the return of lead-in Agents of SHIELD from a week off, and a finals downtick meant Trophy Wife was down three ticks. For SHIELD, it took the same two-tenths drop after its first repeat as fellow new drama Sleepy Hollow, but this marks a fifth straight post-premiere decline.

• ABC might have gotten nicked a bit from the return of the Fox comedy block, and New Girl and The Mindy Project each came back on the upswing vs. their last couple episodes.

• NBC was down again with The Voice, but the drop wasn't as severe as on Monday. And NBC got a sigh of relief out of The Biggest Loser, rebounding significantly after a couple big post-premiere drops.

• The other two networks saw some low-end results out of NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles and Supernatural.

The True Top 25, Week Ending 11/3/13 (2013-14 Week Six)

If only there'd been a Game 7, the World Series probably could've taken the top spot in the True Top 25. As it was, the conclusive Game 6 was quite close because SNF had another lower-end matchup, but Sunday Night Football eked it out again. Meanwhile, TV's two biggest sitcoms sat out the week so The Voice got a turn as top entertainment program, How I Met Your Mother got a turn as top sitcom, and Scandal took back the top drama honors. (It went behind The Blacklist and NCIS in raw numbers but got a boost from the Halloween viewing depression; plus, NCIS' timeslot was scored as very easy this week with Agents of SHIELD sitting out.)

Two of the three successful new dramas were off this week, so only The Blacklist and The Millers repped the new shows. For most of the season, Big Bang-fueled The Millers has had a large raw numbers lead and a small True lead on the other new CBS sitcoms. This week, it came all the way back to the pack in raw numbers but managed to maintain the True lead; while the repeat Big Bang was still a good lead-in, the Halloween hour had overall viewing reminiscent of a typical Friday or Saturday.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 11/4/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• "The new" Mike and Molly is not necessarily "the improved" Mike and Molly. Its season premiere was really neither a major rejuvenation nor a disappointment, holding 100% of its lead-in from 2 Broke Girls and barely edging last week's occupant, a repeat The Big Bang Theory. The biggest story in CBS land was the nice week-to-week surge from How I Met Your Mother. It's starting to look like The Mother is worth about half a ratings point, so maybe they should consider having her on a little more often...

• Some other quick hits: NBC had a rough start to The Voice's live shows, and The Blacklist followed it down a couple notches. Fox saw Sleepy Hollow shed another two ticks across its hiatus, while ABC ended up tying its season high with Castle even after pre-emptions were weeded out.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 11/3/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• CBS had a nearly one-hour NFL overrun, but since it was "nearly" an hour it meant The Mentalist got its worst-case scenario: the CBS aired a repeat of The Mentalist rather than give it the dreaded 10:59 night start time. Way to be reasonable, CBS! CBS then got double-digit upticks out of the 8:59 The Amazing Race and the 9:59 The Good Wife.

• ABC finally got some much-needed Sunday relief with Revenge surging back to best-since-week-two numbers and Once Upon a Time and Betrayal also inching up again.

• And Fox got back in the animation business after baseball hiatus with The Simpsons and an even Family Guy. These were pretty good results given 1) it was The Simpsons' first non-NFL, non-Treehouse episode; and 2) it was Family Guy's first whack at The Walking Dead, which seemed to hurt it last year. All the shows were virtually even with their first November eps a year ago.

• Sunday Night Football had another weak matchup with Colts/Texans and scored its second straight 6.3, losing to an also even The Walking Dead (6.8) for the second straight week.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 11/2/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• ABC's Saturday Night Football caught another blowout, but this Florida State/Miami matchup had much more initial interest (a season high 2.8 in the 8:30 half-hour), and it at least stayed somewhat competitive till halftime, so it ended up with the season's second-best number. The year-to-year comparisons are particularly bonkers here because it went up against what was last year's lowest-rated game by several miles. CBS had its annual primetime game on this night last season, while that game was bumped to next week this year.

• Meanwhile, Fox was off the map with another Big 12 game and NBC was even more invisible with an hour of Breeder's Cup coverage. Both were down by roughly half from the corresponding coverage a year ago.

Spotted Ratings, Friday 11/1/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Since it wasn't the last Friday in October, NBC's Friday night lineup came back to earth. Grimm was down at 9/8c and Dracula took a steep 28% week two drop. I'm pretty sure that's still an acceptable number for Dracula, and this may be another situation where an inflated premiere creates unrealistic expectations, but another big drop in week three might throw the show into some question. The shows got no help from NBC's ill-advised attempt to create some compatibility with a vampire-themed NBC news special at 8/7c, as it barely pulled half of last week's Dateline  number.

• Everything else was within a tenth week-to-week except for CBS' Undercover Boss, down two tenths and dragging Hawaii Five-0 down another notch. The night's most positive result probably came from ABC's Last Man Standing, back after a repeat last week with its best number in a month.

November 2013 Best Case/Worst Case: Mike and Molly, Raising Hope, Almost Human

Here's a quick Best Case/Worst Case look at the three scripted shows premiering this November. The timeslot info on the blue bars (explained in the intro) covers the first five weeks of the regular season.

The Question, Monday 11/4/13: Will "The New" Mike and Molly Find a New Ratings Level?

Tonight brings the first premiere of the "late fall," CBS' Mike and Molly. While most fall cancellations aren't immediately replaceable by another entertainment series, CBS' veteran Monday staple was always something they could get on the air quickly. They did away with We Are Men early enough that Mike and Molly was ready for this first Monday in November sweeps, and the CBS marketing campaign promises this will be "the new" Mike and Molly. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I take it as an admission that the show's lead Melissa McCarthy has always been far more distinctive than the show itself. Will "the new" Mike and Molly find a new ratings level? That's The Question for Monday, November 4, 2013.

CW True Power Rankings, October 2013

As November sweeps kicks off, it's time for this season's first full edition of the True Power Rankings! I line up every entertainment program in broadcast primetime by network/category using my timeslot metric True, offering some thoughts on the ratings strength of the shows. As on the Weekly True Power Rankings, these True and A18-49 numbers are averages of the last third of the season's episodes to date rounded up, which weeds out inflated early episodes that don't really matter anymore. This year, I'm also including the year-to-year trend for the season to date and the "skew" (or percent of the total audience within the 18-49 demo). The number of episodes in the average is listed under "Counted Eps." These numbers are all through October 27.

Other October True Power Rankings: ABC | CBS | NBC | Fox | CW

Fox True Power Rankings, October 2013

As November sweeps kicks off, it's time for this season's first full edition of the True Power Rankings! I line up every entertainment program in broadcast primetime by network/category using my timeslot metric True, offering some thoughts on the ratings strength of the shows. As on the Weekly True Power Rankings, these True and A18-49 numbers are averages of the last third of the season's episodes to date rounded up, which weeds out inflated early episodes that don't really matter anymore. This year, I'm also including the year-to-year trend for the season to date and the "skew" (or percent of the total audience within the 18-49 demo). The number of episodes in the average is listed under "Counted Eps." These numbers are all through October 27.

Other October True Power Rankings: ABC | CBS | NBC | Fox | CW

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 10/31/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Halloween saw CBS' newbie The Millers take a scary drop in its first episode without an original lead-in from The Big Bang Theory (whose repeat averaged a 2.6). This is a tick or two more than would be expected from a 2.6-point lead-in drop, but The Millers also aired in the most HUT-depressed hour of Halloween, and a couple competing networks were actually much stronger than normal with Halloween specials. Basically the takeaway here is that given a more normal timeslot, it doesn't appear that The Millers is markedly different from fellow newbies Mom or The Crazy Ones (which itself ended up dropping nearly as much by percentage).

• As for those Halloween specials: NBC had a Saturday Night Live Halloween special while ABC went with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Both of those were massive improvements on the usual entertainment series programming, which probably offset the modest HUT depression from 9-11pm and kept most of those networks' shows pretty close to even.

• On the CW, The Vampire Diaries took a huge Halloween drop, but week three of Reign managed to stay even. With TVD likely to rebound next week, let's see if Reign can also pick up.

NBC True Power Rankings, October 2013

As November sweeps kicks off, it's time for this season's first full edition of the True Power Rankings! I line up every entertainment program in broadcast primetime by network/category using my timeslot metric True, offering some thoughts on the ratings strength of the shows. As on the Weekly True Power Rankings, these True and A18-49 numbers are averages of the last third of the season's episodes to date rounded up, which weeds out inflated early episodes that don't really matter anymore. This year, I'm also including the year-to-year trend for the season to date and the "skew" (or percent of the total audience within the 18-49 demo). The number of episodes in the average is listed under "Counted Eps." These numbers are all through October 27.

Other October True Power Rankings: ABC | CBS | NBC | Fox | CW

First Two Weeks, Reign

WEEK ONE
The CW's Reign kicked off in the post-The Vampire Diaries slot with a mediocre 0.78 rating in 18-49, a couple notches below the preview of The Originals aired in the slot two weeks prior (1.0). It held about 60% of its lead-in from The Vampire Diaries, which surged to 1.3. Its retention was the same or just a bit worse in the 18-34 demos, where it had a 0.7 A18-34 (out of a 1.3 TVD) and a 1.0 W18-34 (out of a 1.8). One of Reign's key competitors Glee was off on this evening, though Reign did have to face the young females draw Grey's Anatomy (2.7).