Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 2/26/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• As we said yesterday, no series premiere has ever really disappointed with the Modern Family lead-in. But then again, no series premiere had nearly as little going for it as Mixology, and that really showed as the show debuted to a paltry 4.98 million viewers and 1.7 demo rating. It's worth noting that the rejection might be a bit exaggerated because the show got very little help from Modern Family (3.1), which plummeted to a season low on this night. But the show has given itself no real cushion with this start; a typical post-premiere drop from Mixology would put it at/below Super Fun Night levels, and it could easily get uglier than that.

• The hours that surrounded ABC's 9/8c debacle were just as bad, though they switched roles after finals; it was The Middle (1.7) and Suburgatory (1.4) at new season lows, while Nashville (1.3) went up to merely tie its low.

• With CBS adding a second hour of Survivor at 9/8c, that meant no crime dramas to compete with Law and Order: SVU (2.0). As usual, that was a positive for that show. But the real eye-opener was the second half of a cross-over between SVU and Chicago PD (2.2), as the latter grew in the 10/9c hour and hit a series high even with the crime drama competition from Criminal Minds (2.3). Expect the Dick Wolf empire cross-overs to continue at full steam after this result.

• Fox's rough week continued as American Idol (2.7) only barely bounced back from last week's Wednesday episode against the Olympics. It widened the gap with the Survivor premiere somewhat after finals, as that show adjusted down perhaps due to basketball pre-emptions. But Survivor still had a good night, even with last spring's premiere, and it could easily start winning head-to-head fairly soon.

• On cable, FX's The Americans (0.68) returned for season two with no real sign of picking up any heat during the hiatus. However, the 45% drop year-to-year is (hopefully!) a bit exaggerated because the premiere last year was miles ahead of any other result.

FULL TABLE:

Info		Show						Timeslot		True
	A18-49	Skew	Last		LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
The Middle	1.7	31%	-23%	-0.5	n/a	14/14	-19%	+70%	-19%	1.8
Suburgatory	1.4	34%	-18%	-0.3	-0.5	5/5	-36%	+100%	-18%	1.5
Modern Family	3.1	46%	-11%	-0.4	-0.3	14/14	-21%	+158%	-21%	3.7
Mixology	1.7	43%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	n/a	+89%	-23%	1.6
Nashville	1.3	35%	+0%	+0.0	+0.2	13/15	-19%	+160%	-19%	1.6
							ABC:	+119%	-20%
Survivor	2.4	32%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	+0%	+45%	-8%	2.7
Criminal Minds	2.2	30%	-12%	-0.3	+1.5	15/16	-15%	+13%	+16%	2.5
							CBS:	+33%	-1%
Revolution	1.3	36%	+0%	+0.0	n/a	12/14	n/a	-71%	+13%	1.4
Law and Order: SVU	2.0	33%	+11%	+0.2	+0.2	3/14	+25%	-62%	+25%	2.4
Chicago PD	2.2	35%	+29%	+0.5	+0.2	1/6	n/a	-58%	+10%	2.6
							NBC:	-63%	+16%
American Idol Wed	2.7	32%	+4%	+0.1	n/a	6/8	-31%	+1%	-30%	3.0
							Fox:	+1%	-30%
Arrow	0.9	47%	-10%	-0.1	n/a	9/14	-10%	+200%	-10%	1.0
The Tomorrow People	0.5	43%	+0%	+0.0	-0.1	10/14	n/a	+100%	-41%	0.5
							CW:	+155%	-24%
							Big5:	-11%	-15%
Duck Dynasty	2.04	50%	-10%	-0.2		19/19	-42%
Workaholics	0.83	80%	+8%	+0.1		4/6	+9%
Men at Work	0.72	52%	+14%	+0.1		1/7	+18%
The Americans	0.68	45%	n/a	n/a		1/1	-45%
Psych	0.51	42%	-35%	-0.3		6/6	n/a
Melissa and Joey	0.46	65%	-6%	-0.0		6/6	-4%
Baby Daddy	0.44	67%	-5%	-0.0		6/6	+13%

KEY (click to expand)

A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Skew - Percentage of adults 18-49 within the show's total viewership.
Last - A18-49 difference (percent and numerical) from the show's previous episode.
LeLa - A18-49 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 so far this season.
y2y - Percent difference between A18-49 and the show's rating a year ago.
TLa - Percent difference between A18-49 and the network's rating in the timeslot one week ago.
Ty2y - Percent difference between A18-49 and the network's rating in the timeslot one year ago.
True - 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.