The War of 18-49, Covert Affairs

COVERT AFFAIRS (USA)

Scheduling history: After three full seasons in the Tuesday 10/9c slot (often paired with White Collar at 9/8c), Covert Affairs went to the 9:00 hour in summer 2013 to lead into Suits, then to Thursday for the fall.

See (who saw) how it all began: Covert Affairs was the one of the shows developed at the height of USA Network's "blue sky" power, opening with 4.88 million viewers and a 1.6 demo rating on 7/13/10. It held the 1.6 and grew a bit in viewers in week two, then exceeded that opening demo for the first time in week four with a 1.7.

The best of times: All of Covert Affairs' biggest ratings came throughout season one, but the pinnacle was about halfway through the season, when it hit a new high 1.8 on 8/17/10 and then another new high 1.9 on 8/24/10.

The worst of times: Like USA's very successful newbie from the previous season, Royal Pains, it's been all downhill and fast since season one. Every season has been down 20%+ from the previous year's corresponding run. It's always gotten much weaker ratings in the fall half of its seasons, then failed to rally from those fall numbers the next summer. The final season was particularly embarrassing; it went as low as a 0.29 rating during the summer and was the network's lowest-rated drama, then it actually got down to a paltry 0.21 on 11/13/14, during its final run in the fall. It did have a nice rally to 0.43 for the finale, even though the show hadn't yet been announced as cancelled.

Then vs. now: On its own, the Covert Affairs rating track looks like a big disappointment. The show has lost a ton of traction over the years, even adjusting for collective decline. I actually think the show got noticeably better in the second half of its run, making this rather vexing to me. But at least from the show's perspective, the good news was that it wasn't exactly alone on USA. Royal Pains, the other hit USA developed right at the height of its dominance, fell almost as quickly over the last few years, and the network has failed to come up with major hits from development recently. But even a depressed standard for USA originals couldn't save Covert Affairs after the drops got truly horrifying in season five.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Summer 2010	Tuesday 10:00	1.58		1.3	1.9	detail
2A	Summer 2011		1.23	-22%	1.1	1.4	detail
2B	Fall 2011		0.87		0.7	1.0
3A	Summer 2012		0.87	-30%	0.7	1.0	detail
3B	Fall 2012		0.69	-20%	0.5	0.8
4A	Summer 2013	Tuesday 9:00	0.69	-20%	0.5	0.9	detail
4B	Fall 2013	Thursday 10:00	0.50	-28%	0.4	0.7
5A	Summer 2014	Tuesday 10:00	0.35	-49%	0.3	0.4	detail	F
5B	Fall 2014	Thursday 10:00	0.30	-41%	0.2	0.4

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Summer 2010	56				46	68	57	50
2A	Summer 2011	49				43	55	47	55
2B	Fall 2011	37				30	42	42	42
3A	Summer 2012	37				30	44	39	37
3B	Fall 2012	33				24	40	38	31
4A	Summer 2013	33				25	42	29	33
4B	Fall 2013	26				21	36	29	36
5A	Summer 2014	19				15	22	22	20
5B	Fall 2014	18				12	26	15	26

*- For this winter's War of 18-49 updates, the A18-49+ is based on a projected league average, calculated by applying the league average's current year-to-year trend (thru 1/18/15) to the final 2013-14 average. This should help make these numbers compare more fairly with fall seasons past.

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.