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.

Top 10 year-to-year SHOW losers
1. Saturday Night Football -67%
2. Beauty and the Beast (M 9-10pm vs. Th 9-10pm) -57%
3. Two and a Half Men (Th 9:30-10pm vs. Th 8:30-9pm) -50%
4. Revenge -48%
5. The X Factor Thu -48%
6. The Neighbors (F 8:30-9pm vs. W 8:30-9pm) -47%
7. The Simpsons -44%
8. Revolution (W 8-9pm vs. M 10-11pm) -42%
9. The X Factor Wed -41%
10. Glee -38%

Saturday Night Football happened to post its worst rating of the season in the week being compared, but the franchise is still slightly up across the first nine games. Four shows on this list took detrimental timeslot moves, and The Simpsons had a comparison between a non-NFL overrun episode and an NFL overrun episode. As for the others, Revenge, The X Factor and Glee don't have such huge reasons (though Revenge can at least point to another huge surge from competing The Walking Dead).


Top 10 year-to-year SHOW gainers/retainers
1. 60 Minutes +94%
2. Scandal +47%
3. Chicago Fire (Tu 10-11pm vs. W 10-11pm) +38%
4. Supernatural (Tu 9-10pm vs. W 9-10pm) +10%
t-5. Bones +5%
t-5. Castle +5%
7. How I Met Your Mother +3%
t-8. Arrow +0%
t-8. The Good Wife +0%
10. Sunday Night Football -1%

As the overrun comparison taketh away from The Simpsons, so it giveth to the CBS beneficiary 60 Minutes. It's slightly down for the season but benefited in this particular week. Scandal remains the only show making massive year-to-year gains without a timeslot upgrade, but it will be tough for it to continue topping this list in February (as it really heated up in December/January of last season). There really aren't any major timeslot upgrades on this list aside from Chicago Fire, just a bunch of steady, quiet success stories. None of these shows were particularly far away from their trend for the whole season (except maybe Arrow, which has been down roughly 20% but hit a season high this week).

Top 10 year-to-year TIMESLOT losers
1. Saturday Night Football (ABC Saturday 8:30-11pm) -69%
2. The Biggest Loser (vs. The Voice, NBC Tuesday 8-9pm) -53%
3. The X Factor (Fox Thursday 8-9pm) -48%
4. Revenge (ABC Sunday 9-10pm) -48%
5. Hostages (vs. Hawaii Five-0, CBS Monday 10-11pm) -46%
6. The Carrie Diaries (vs. America's Next Top Model, CW Friday 8-9pm) -45%
7. The Simpsons (Fox Sunday 8-8:30pm) -44%
8. Sean Saves the World (vs. The Office, NBC Thursday 9-9:30pm) -42%
9. The X Factor (Fox Wednesday 8-10pm) -41%
t-10. The Neighbors (vs. Mailbu Country, ABC Friday 8:30-9pm) -41%
t-10. The Michael J. Fox Show (vs. Parks and Recreation, NBC Thursday 9:30-10pm) -41%

The success of How I Met Your Mother and the move of 2 Broke Girls back to 8:30 has actually put the much-criticized CBS Monday on the upside in the 8:00 hour. But it's way down at 9:00 and even worse at 10:00 where Hostages resides. NBC had a special The Voice on Thursday on this night in both years, meaning both Sean and The Office got boosted. So this -42% number is not that different from the norm for Sean (if anything, it's better than normal), while Michael J. Fox remains nowhere remotely close to last fall's 1.7 level from Parks.

Top 10 year-to-year TIMESLOT gainers
1. Sleepy Hollow (vs. The Mob Doctor, Fox Monday 9-10pm) +206%
2. Supernatural (vs. Emily Owens, M.D., CW Tuesday 9-10pm) +175%
3. The Voice (vs. Go On/The New Normal, NBC Tuesday 9-10pm) +70%
4. The Originals (vs. Hart of Dixie, CW Tuesday 8-9pm) +69%
5. 60 Minutes (vs. 60 Minutes/The Amazing Race, CBS Sunday 8:30-9:30pm) +51%
6. 2 Broke Girls (vs. Partners, CBS Monday 8:30-9pm) +50%
7. Scandal (ABC Thursday 8-10pm) +47%
8. Parenthood (vs. Rock Center, NBC Thursday 10-11pm) +37%
9. America's Next Top Model (vs. Nikita, CW Friday 9-10pm) +33%
10. The Goldbergs (vs. Happy Endings, ABC Tuesday 9-9:30pm) +31%

Because of how incompetent broadcast was on the night last year, there are lots of timeslot success stories on Tuesday. But none is bigger than the CW, where they regularly at least double the year-ago lineup and take the #2 and #4 slots this week. Though it hasn't yet found its floor, Agents of SHIELD is still (for now) a better option than Dancing with the Stars results shows, and The Goldbergs is up even more on Happy Endings. A couple other Tuesday shows (Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Person of Interest) just barely missed this list, patching up their slots vs. year-ago failures Ben and Kate and Vegas.