Spotted Ratings, Premiere Monday 9/22/14

WHAT MATTERS: 

• FINALS UPDATE: By far the most significant finals changes were two-tenth upticks for both of the ABC series, which seems to meaningfully change the feel for both. Dancing with the Stars (2.2) now finds itself just a single tenth behind last year's premiere Monday rating. And it's just two tenths behind last Monday's premiere, which is a pretty fantastic hold against this influx of competition. And Forever (1.7) seems at least somewhat more hopeful for its move to Tuesday than it did this morning. Also, Gotham and Scorpion finished in a tie at 3.2, and the big four finished just 3% behind last year's premiere Monday (or just 2% including the CW).

• If there was one network for whom the premiere Monday news was pretty much all positive, it was definitely CBS, as The Big Bang Theory (5.3 at 8:00, 5.4 at 8:30) made a major splash in its return to Monday at 8/7c. Considering it was a new night, more competition than the show has faced in years, and there had been some concerning repeat ratings late in the summer, to be within 10% of last year's premiere hour (5.5/6.1) is a big win for Big Bang. That helped vault Scorpion (3.3) to a very good premiere sampling, and it didn't even drop that much at the half (prelim 3.4/3.1). CBS then wrapped up with an hour of Under the Dome (1.8) at that series' biggest rating in over two months. CBS was about 30% ahead of premiere Monday last year, though obviously Big Bang distorts that comparison somewhat.

• The other networks were mostly good news/bad news. Fox had a fine debut from Gotham (3.2), which they will probably fairly OK with given their current plight, though it was a bit below last year's pre-premiere Sleepy Hollow launch (3.5). As for season two of Hollow (2.0), the limited series sophomore slump trend seems to be alive and well; the show opened at a new series low despite its biggest lead-in ever. This was 43% behind last year's series premiere and 35% behind the premiere week episode.  Overall, Gotham's gains and Hollow's big losses cancelled out, putting Fox just above even vs. premiere Monday 2013.

• On NBC, The Voice (3.9) remained very much on the map, but I think we can now say it's officially in downswing mode. This was 24% behind last year's premiere. But the network had a surprisingly stout return from sophomore The Blacklist (3.4), which stormed back from a new low finale last spring to hit its highest rating since last year's series premiere. It was down just 11% from that 2013 premiere (3.8). And it was the biggest drama episode on a night full of big ones. Still, NBC was down 20% year-to-year.

• ABC found itself in a distant fourth place, though Dancing with the Stars (2.0) narrowed last week's year-to-year deficit considerably by holding up better vs. The Voice. However, even the seemingly compatible lead-in was of little help to a little-watched preview of Forever (1.5), which didn't even sniff at normal Castle numbers. ABC was down 19% vs. last year's premiere Monday.

• Overall, the big four were preliminarily just 4% behind Premiere Monday 2013. On the surface, it's a promising trend, but the presence of Big Bang made this an overly crowded night, and this pace will be very difficult to sustain on the next two nights.

FULL TABLE:

Info		Show						Timeslot		True
	A18-49	Skew	Last		LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
Dancing with the Stars	2.2	22%	+0%	+0.0	n/a	2/3	-4%	-8%	-3%	2.4
Forever	1.7	25%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	n/a	+70%	-24%	1.7
							ABC:	+5%	-10%
The Big Bang Theory	5.4	38%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	-2%	+315%	+54%	5.2
The Big Bang Theory	5.4	38%	+0%	+0.0	n/a	1/2	-7%	+440%	+42%	4.8
Scorpion	3.2	29%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	n/a	+178%	+21%	2.7
Under the Dome	1.8	30%	+13%	+0.2	+1.9	1/6	n/a	+13%	+0%	1.5
							CBS:	+167%	+28%
The Voice Mon	3.9	38%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	-24%	+105%	-23%	3.9
The Blacklist	3.4	35%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	-11%	+79%	-12%	2.8
							NBC:	+96%	-20%
Gotham	3.2	49%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	n/a	+60%	+68%	3.4
Sleepy Hollow	2.0	46%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	-43%	+0%	-37%	1.8
							Fox:	+30%	+3%
Whose Line Is It Anyway? (R)	0.2	35%						-50%	+0%	0.4
Whose Line Is It Anyway? (R)	0.2	34%						-33%	+100%	0.4
America's Next Top Model	0.3	49%	-25%	-0.1	-0.1	6/6	-25%	-25%	+20%	0.4
							CW:	-33%	+25%
							Big5:	+61%	-2%

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.