- 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.
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.
94 comments:
Sleepy Hollow: Very bad. Borderline The Following Season 2 bad.
Scorpion: So far, so great. Emphasis on "so far".
The Blacklist: Great, even if it adjusted down.
Other shows pretty much as expected.
Couldn't possibly have predicted Scorpion straight up over Gotham (though TVBTN seemingly disagreed looking at their polls!). And that drop from Sleepy Hollow might just be the death knell for the limited series. In a few weeks, Fox's "strongest night" might be in fourth place..
My take:
Biggest Winner: The Blacklist, by far far far
Did very well: The Big Bang Theory, Scorpion, Gotham
Ok: Under the Dome, Dancing with the Stars
Very underwhelming: The Voice, Sleepy Hollow
Biggest Looser: Forever
I thought it was possible simply because of two facts:
- No recent big bang lead-out had been below the 60% retention threshold, including drama POI and Big Bang was very unlikely to do worse than a 5.0 at 8h30
- FOX is in such a bad slate that a 3.0 on FOX is probably comparable to a 4.0 on other network right now since they have no base viewers, which means upside was always limited for Gotham.
Both shows premiered about what I expected. The biggest shockers for me were Sleepy Hollow and NBC as a whole (The Voice severely under performing and The Blacklist crazy overperforming)
I kind of think this is worse than the following to be hones. The Following premiered to a 2.0 on the night as well for its second season. Sure it was a few months ago so you might argue it would be like a 1.9 or so today but it had a lead-in that was like half the size of Sleepy Hollow.. You have the competition argument with Scorpion, sure, but I still think it's very worrisome.
In relative terms, Forever is the biggest winner for me! I was expecting Lucky7, The Assets or Mind Games ratings for this one - so it outperformed my expectations by about 50%. An immortal doctor who solves murders? What doesn't scream sub-1 about this one?
TV IS BACK! I have so much to say. I might need more than one comment!
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The Gotham premiere will be the highest rated scripted show FOX has all season besides an occasionally ultra NFL boosted Simpsons. Almost identical plus as last year's Sleepy Hollow. For FOX, that's a win. But Sleepy Hollow really underperformed. I'm guessing quite a few of Gothams viewers were people who wouldn't normally watch Live TV, especially on broadcast TV and simply vanished for Sleepy Hollow. I think Sleepy needed a more inticing intro to get new viewers. Gotham had Catwoman and Wayne murders in the first 5 minutes, while Sleepy had a birthday celebration...
A new series low for Sleepy Hollow, even with a lead in that's way higher than anything it had last season? Geez. And this'll probably be the last time it gets above a 2.
And even though it had a monster lead in, I still feel better about Scorpion going forward than I do about Gotham. It's all about stabilising at a decent number, and I feel like a CBS procedural has a better shot at that than a limited series genre/procedural show on Fox.
Yeah, I'm actually surprised that people are so down on Forever. I still think it won't go past 13 episodes, and I wouldn't be surprised if it drops significantly on Tuesdays (even with a likely bigger lead-in), but I was expecting a mega-flop right out of the gate for that one. But 75% retention? That's surprisingly not terrible!
Though The Following was worse than that implied because it also had a massive playoff football lead-in for the actual season premiere, yet still couldn't carry more than a 2.0 into the timeslot return.
I just don't think anyone really cares about Forever. There's so much going on this week, and Forever not bombing as hard as it could have is one of the less interesting things to talk about.
I can see it hanging 1.2s and 1.3s, which could actually be enough for it to avoid the flop borderline this year based on the projected league average!
DWTS did a 2.2 at 9h30 so it's more like <70% retention, but well, I get your point. Maybe I was being overly negative about it before. After all, it had by far the lowest lead-in of any of the 10pm shows last night. But I still think it's a looser in that it shows no prospects of surviving past the 13.
Oh, and on the plus side for ABC: at least this vindicates them not moving Castle this year.
The Big Bang Theory is a single adjustment up away from hitting a series high in Plus. Seeing as last year's double premiere adjusted up 3 and 4 tenths, I think it is probable it will adjust up at least one.
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Scorpion really defied my expectations, but it had the best non NFL lead in on broadcast TV and is very much in CBS' wheelhouse. I think the POI comparison works well. It had a double Big Bang lead in. I think Mom will be a stronger lead in than How to be a Gentleflop and NCIS: LA a comparable lead out to the Mentalist
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I love how even down a whopping 33% y2y, Under the Dome matched Hostages debut
My prediction for Scorpion was for it to equal POI's plus from its freshman season! So far so good I would say!
I think the play for ABC this season is to let the reality-Castle combo keep on keeping on with near-league-average numbers and save their ammunition for the back end of the week.
I agree. I think they are extremely invested in Wednesdays and Thursdays this year (well except Nashville), as well as in some other individual shows (Shield, OUAT, Shark Tank) but the rest they are just rolling with it. Monday is the best example of that.
Scorpion did better than I expected (I was thinking 2.8-2.9) whilst Gotham did slightly less than I thought it would (3.3-3.4). I still think Scorpion will struggle to get a back order - when 2 Broke Girls kicks off the night, it should be about a 1.5-1.8, may even be weaker than NCIS:LA perhaps. Gotham will probably trend down gradually like Sleepy Hollow last year. Both premiere episodes were painful to watch for me.
Meh, I say that premiering midseason with a whole smaller amount of promotion than SH got for the fall launch sort of cancels it out. That, and that lead-in, of course. The Following had a repeat of its premiere as lead-in...
WOW @ NBC! Shocking numbers for The Voice and The Blacklist! The former really underperformed. So much for new "interesting" coaches bringing more attention to the show. And it's getting really tiresome, to be honest... I can't stand Adam and Blake there all the time at all.
The Blacklist is, once again, proving to be the real deal. If only they were using it to nurture Chicago PD into a hit like they did last year with Chicago Fire...
Dancing held much better than I though. I think it'll be up a bit next week, so it was probably not a bad idea they held off on Castle. Forever did okay, not a total flop, but clearly 13 and out.
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THE BLACKLIST DID AMAZING! Both creatively and ratings wise. Last night had an amazing episode. Same basic Plus as last year with a much weaker lead in. Awesome! But this is the weakest its competition will get. I see a roughly 15-20% drop next week with Castle and LA in the mix
Yeah, I feel like ABC ordered all the shows they liked, were about to announce their schedule, and then realised that they still had two hours to fill on Tuesdays. Just throw some low priority newbies in there, SHIELD will be fine.
The plan is clearly not so much "build Chicago PD" (they're trusting in crossovers for that) but "get a Thursday base camp back."
This kind of performance (with the caveat that I could see a fair few viewers going Gotham-Scorpion-Blacklist or TBBT-Scorpion-Blacklist last night) reinforces that The Blacklist has its own audience, and as such can be trusted to make that move. But they're not taking any chances, building the entire schedule around using the Super Bowl as the launchpad for that move.
I am not sure how hard a CBS procedural will really fall even accounting for the lead-in difference.
POI, probably the most comparable thing we have, fell 13% in week two despite a 47% lead-in drop.
I kind of think they are invested enough in Selfie. They have promoted it a LOT and it had big enough names attached to make me think they are serious about it. MHS and Forever though seem like complete afterthoughts.
I am very intrigued by what they plan on use as lead-in for The Blacklist. I don't see what possibly they could have in store that is suitable. Certainly not comedies and it's not like TBL is doing great numbers there either. They could launch a new drama but I think they would just trade slots with ABC in that case for the death hour (big hit at 9pm, impossible to launch something at 8).
It might be that they're tied up by the ghosts of Thursdays past and feel they have to make Thursdays work. Besides, SVU is a super-compatible lead-in for PD anyway, and invites those Dick Wolf crossovers.
Maybe they could just throw HGN there and wave their hands in the air.
If there's a Scorpion/SH overlap, then the critical/viewer reaction to the premiere creatively is going to be important. Going 3.4 -> 3.1 at the half coming out of a 5.4 is a pretty darned good sign in that regard.
Under the Dome at least finished the season with a third straight week of 0.2 growth (assuming the number holds in finals). Granted that base was a series low just earlier this month, but ending as strong as Hostages started was at least a plus for both CBS' night in general and the sophomore drama in particular.
I do wonder how much The Big Bang Theory's hour-long debut damaged The Voice. This'll be a case where the breakdowns will be valuable; if there's no second-hour rally once Scorpion started, then NBC should start to worry. Although I think NBC's promo push over the past few weeks was tilted towards The Blacklist, at least from my perspective. It may have been the network hoping the new judges would be enough to get the job done, or it may have been to make sure the post-SB slot for The Blacklist continues to be the right move. Either way, it was smart for ABC and CBS to give Blacklist the night to itself much like Scandal has the entertainment field to itself on Thursday.
Based on how Sleepy Hollow did, if Fox can add to Gotham's episode order and get it to 22 episodes it should do so ASAP. This troubling trend of a limited series sinking more than average is becoming a truism.
I do think that Forever's debut is somewhat disappointing, but Tuesdays at 10:00 will be slightly easier (Blacklist, MNF, NCIS: LA versus ChiFi, PoI, and SoA) and the competition is more male-leaning. Of course, having a male-leaning lead-in with SHIELD isn't as much help... And at least Dancing with the Stars, which will probably get an adjustment up as it does much of the time, stayed above a 2.0.
I am not entirely certain that Sleepy Hollow, a hardcore fantasy show, really shares that much of an audience with Scorpion, a CBS procedural. I would like to see some demo breakdowns, but I don't know if the overlap as you are implying and I certainly don't think it's as big as in the CM and SVU case.
I think 9pm is an hour in which dramas can do well enough regardless of the lead-in (as long as it is not a total flop, and even then it's possible). Grey's Anatomy, Law and Order SVU, New Girl (first couple of seasons anyway), Sleepy Hollow last season, Modern Family, etc show that. The big lead-in is very important for sampling purposes but I don't think it's as vital as it is for a 10pm show.
It's just that I still think they should've "attacked" Wednesday, especially now, as the night is still getting weaker overall. Then they could make Thursdays their surrender night, with a bunch of realible shows against the major competition. SVU seems to be a perfect fix for the Thu@10 slot. Old and reliable, but still not a great loss if it underperformed a bit at this point.
Chicago PD wasn't really going to become a monster hit just because of a great lead-in, anyway, but a hit a la Chicago Fire it surely could've become.
But what's done is done by now.
I feel like, at this point, Thursdays are just like "fetch" for NBC... not gonna happen. :|
ABC's ratings PR department thanks you for the copy they can use. Forever: "surprisingly not terrible" with 75% retention!
I don't believe the plan is that at all. I would be utterly shocked in NBC giving away an hour like that and throwing the blacklist to the wolves in such a big way. I would expect something very splashy like Heroes Reborn sooner than I would expect HGN.
If not, then reality of some form like The Apprentice but not pure filler like HGN imo..
Stop trying to make fetch happen! It's not going to happen!
For many years, Thursdays weren't also going to happen for ABC. That was until a little show called Grey's Anatomy was born. Now we're all eagerly waiting for Shonda Thursday. Things change... They have to take risks to change the paradigm.
And that's why I'm afraid of the move. Surely The Blacklist is a tried and true hit, but it's still new. Can it really be a beast for long without any reasonable support at all?
Well to be diplomatic, Scorpion also doesn't have the universal fan support POI had in it's first seasons, even though I'm loathe to cite that as a predictor of ratings success.
I agree about limited series not being sustainable. IMO, ABC is the only one that has managed to get it right so far! They basically do two seasons within the timeframe of one and still air them in uninterrupted runs. So they get all syndication benefit and no hiatus problem. FOX should do the same.
9pm shows are not totally dependent on lead-ins. See also: Grey's Anatomy, which is probably the most comparable situation you will find (though to be fair, the blacklist is not on the same stratosphere as GA was during its megahit years)
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a one tick adjustment against Scorpion and/or for Gotham. The former especially since CBS may have snuck an extra minute of TBBT. But at least those of us that picked Scorpion in The Question don't have to worry about that; it would take a HIMYM-esque 0.5 adjustment on both sides for that to happen.
Early reports have Gotham up ticking at the half hour to 3.3! Very impressive for a premiere, as most have significant tuneouts when people realise the show isn't for them. Maybe an indicator that the post premiere drop won't be too bad.
As everyone has said The Blacklist looks very impressive, and NBC look to have picked a good show to try and revamp Thursday with later on in the season.
I only remembered Forever had premiered on my second read through of the numbers. It never stood a chance, and doesn't look like a good use of a preview slot.
What makes it even more problematic for Fox is that their full-season scripted shows are their sitcom/animation shows and Bones. That's it. And considering only Family Guy last season could average above a 2.0 that's pretty frightening.
Oh, Heroes Reborn could be a very good shot there seeing as it's a limited series!
I seriously suspected Reilly is planning to turn Fox into a cable network:
He announced Fox is abandoning pilot season.
All recent new Fox drama are of "limited" variety.
Fox is serious about year-round programming, they're clearly the most close to it out of broadcast networks (less hours to fill certainly helps, but still).
However, he's gone now, good riddance, so all bets are off now.
First time ever that I had to press on message "Load more comments" on spottedratings. Perhaps Spot's site set some records today too.
I say well deserved success for this amazing website!
It would be very risky though but flashy. However, I am unsure about the audience overlap with TBBT.
To be honest though, I think the entire NBC schedule for the season is still a big mystery. These are the slots we still know nothing about:
- Mondays at 8 Winter
- Mondays at 9 Winter (including what is the lead-in for State of Affairs after just 5 or 6 post voice episodes)
- Tuesdays at 8 Winter
- Tuesdays at 9 Winter/Spring (will they run the comedies there the whole year, with or without the voice originals in front of them and risking a go on? if not, what takes their place in the winter?)
- Wednesdays at 8 Winter and Spring, since I still asssume Laura will crash
- Thursdays at 8 at Winter (I think TBL can be done by fall) and Spring
- Sundays Spring, at 8, 9 and 10
That's a lot of unknowns!
That's what I get for following my heart. Won't make that mistake again.
If NBC continues to have sitcoms Tuesday at 9:00, I think Hollywood Game Night subs in for The Voice at 8:00.
Sundays will probably have The Bible miniseries follow-up, A.D. If that's a one-hour or two-hour affair, I don't know.
Mondays: Celebrity Apprentice?
I get splashy for Thursdays at 8:00, but I would not put Heroes Reborn there if only because of The Big Bang Theory. Sundays would be a better option for that.
I'm not surprised about Sleepy Hollow's #s since it never really stopped falling last season with the exception of the finale and I think that the quality went down around the time they revealed who the headless horseman was along with the endless Crane family drama.
Forever- I watched the pilot on demand and enjoyed it for what it is but not sure I'll watch it live as I'm not a fan of procedurals, no matter what twist is added.
I agree that big bang is probably too big and too much overlap for Heroes to sustain. But the question remains: what to put in that Thursday timeslot?
A month ago I would think that just calling it over and ordering a second cycle of TBL would be the best way to go but I am not sure now anymore, that 1.3 it pulled last week against no competition was very worrisome.
Wow, is there some sale going on at Spotted Ratings today? Lot's of customers with something to say. Congrats.
Reports of the impending death of live network television viewing seem to have been exaggerated. Meanwhile, on cable there was this little, insignificant football game on played by those 2 teams from those tiny television markets of NY and Chicago :)
It's amazing POI got that far. It had Big Bang Theory lead in. Got cut in half with Gentleman, which got pulled after 2. Week 4 was a Big Bang repeat. Then Rules of Engagement. In January CBS had !Rob! lead into it. (I always found it funny that it had its best ratings after notoriously horrible Rob, when it has such a good reputation). Before bring Rules back at the end.
What ABC did last year was pretty great, but it is pretty much the only time it had worked. When NBC took Revolution, Grimm, and three hours of the Voice off the air from November to March, their network kinda collapsed (minus Chicago Fire). Kinda crazy that ABC saw that and said "let's take even MORE off!". Once Upon a Time, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, two hours of Dancing With Stars, and Once: Wonderland off for three months, it could have been a disaster. What if all of their dramas and Dancing had been hurt? But no, they all stayed very strong and Dancing even grew.
They've done this weird half-measure where it's going to get more support from The Voice for a couple of months before going off the air for almost three months. Then, it will come back to support a completely new show.
Well Voice was less than I thought, but Blacklist exceeded. Interesting. Now Blacklist seems fine, but with Voice down this much, what will this mean for State of Affairs? I know I'm jumping the gun, but this doesn't look good.
Please don't sell to Tribune Spot! ANYTHING BUT TRIBUNE!
Half hours: The Voice - 3.3/3.6/4.1/4.4, The Blacklist - 3.7/3.1
IMO TBBT, Scorpion, The Blacklist & Gotham were yesterdays winners. The Voice was down so much that I excluded it
It's fantastic to have such a focused area for discussion of ratings, especially when discussing possibly the most high-stakes ratings night of the decade so far. Thank you for making this so, Spot!
I watched the big bang theory it was funny such a great show. As for tv shows I jus watch jetflix and they have a lot of the show except for modern family but that is the best show ever and I stay on top of that show
The hiatus model can definitely work for networks that have legitimately strong pieces to plug into the hiatus. ABC had Batchelor to take care of Mondays, but they could still use another good Thursday player.
Perhaps one future model of year-round programming might be a "double split season" approach, with one set of shows running a fall/spring cycle and another running winter/summer. You'd probably need a serial-and-reality-heavy schedule to pull it off - reality being important to provide relatively inexpensive "serialised" programming - but it could work. ABC might even have the pieces for it already.
HGN leading into Tuesday sitcoms is a pretty neat idea!
Would American Ninja Warrior be able to handle a regular season turn of duty?
I think there are two fundamental differences:
- I don't think it's wise to do that for freshman shows whose audience is still very much fickle and easy to forget about a show and jump ship. I absolutely hated the schedule that ABC put Shield through last year but I wouldn't have recommended a split season right out of the gate though. This year, with a fanbase already built, it's wise to do it. Revolution was a freshman show when put through that hiatus.
- Revolution was on hiatus for 4 months (from 26/11 to 25/03). ABC's shows were on hiatus for 2.5 months, which is almost half of the time (Scandal for instance was from 15/12 to 27/02). It may not seem like too big of a deal but I believe it is. 4 months is simply too long to take a show out of the air and hope that there is enough buzz to sustain it when it returns.
In addition to this, I also dispute your overall point that it didn't work for NBC. Sure it didn't work for Revolution, but I thin that's A) because of the two aforementioned conditions weren't met and B) the show's ratings were already on the downswing anyway. Grimm survived just fine and the voice came back stronger than ever for its 4th cycle.
I think that September 19, 2011 was pretty high stakes. Two and a Half Men got a massive 10.7, giving 2 Broke Girls a massive launch. How I Met Your Mother also hit a series high. It could have gone terrible wrong though. Two and a Half Men could have come back with half of its regular rating due to Ashton hate giving 2 Broke Girls a terrible lead and HIMYM could have kept with its late season mid 2's.
Your thoughts seem to be very similar to mine. "Sleepy Hollow" didn't have the same excitement for me that it once did when I watched it last night. And I remember towards the end of the season feeling as though the show was losing some of it's magic. The various twists and turns of the story seemed to be getting way too convoluted and or complicated - just the juxtaposition of John Noble’s character being Crane's son makes me groan a bit. The story is so fanciful to begin with the writers need to be really careful about making things too complicated.
As for “Forever,” I’m afraid it didn’t hold my interest. I may give it a another try but I’m not making any promises about that.
I don't know if they are even back in production yet. Even if they could rush a January run of the show, I'm wary of moving summer reality shows into the regular season. It took Big Brother a couple of cycles to rebound while Wipeout and So You Think You Can Dance never really did. And Hell's Kitchen is starting to look a little worse for all the wear Fox is putting on it...
It's taken American Ninja Warrior a few years to finally get to this level of heat. Had it debuted like that a la Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, or American Idol then maybe. I'd rather pull the mothballed Celebrity Apprentice season out since it's already in the can and the typical season length would probably work for a Voice hiatus.
It wouldn't be that bad. I'd actually love to see which late night clips on YouTube are strongest in True, personally.
Very deservedly so, indeed! Hopefully more ~sane~ people will continue to find out about this great website. It's really nice to have a place where we can have smart, classy and focused discussions about TV ratings. Keep it up, Spot! =D
If there are any ABC reps reading this: I am open to offers. Call me.
I'm starting to think that the problem w/ the "limited series" thing is that people feel lied to when they realize that the networks mean "limited number of episodes, but still a bunch of seasons" instead of "miniseries/one season story". My recollection is that, after stabilizing in week three, Fox's renewal began a slow bleed of viewers for Hollow last year, and it seems that even continuing rave reviews and hype weren't enough to bring it back up, at least on premiere night. And if the trend continues, it looks like the fans will only get two to three seasons of batshit awesomeness, even given the way Fox is coming unspooled.
I'm trying to figure out why Blacklist bounced back. Maybe the ads reminded people that hammy James Spader is fun (hell, I almost tuned back in myself just for that), and made them forget about the rest of the show being sorely underwritten.
Fox does have to be feeling good about Gotham. Right now, at least, it's certainly no Beware the Batman[*], in the best way. I thought the pilot was strong enough that it could draw back pretty much anyone who had expectations calibrated away from this being a legit superhero show, although how many of those who tuned it had that expectation remains to be seen.
[*Beware the Batman was a CGI action-animation show that premiered on Cartoon Network's DC Nation block in July 2013. Reviews were mixed-to-fair, although they improved across the run. However, the audience response, at least pre-air, and even until Beware began showing signs of creative growth around week five, was apathetic at best, enraged at worst, since Beware effectively became the replacement for the well-liked Green Lantern: The Animated Series after that show struggled w/ low ratings in CN's target demo (6-11). Because of this, Beware failed to ever gain much of an audience period, and ended up pulled from the schedule after 11 episodes, effectively ending the DC Nation block altogether. (the other DC Nation show from 2013, Teen Titans Go!, never aired first-runs in the block itself, and thanks to high ratings seems to have outlived the formal demise of the block in April 2014) Beware is currently in burn off mode on Adult Swim's Toonami, where it continues to get mediocre ratings even by the depressed standards of both a burn off and of Saturday late night.]
In sheer raw numbers, Scorpion's certainly off to a better start than last year's set of braindead Monday CBS dramas. How much of that is because of the direct Big Bang lead-in, and how much leaves when Mom comes in next week remains to be seen.
Even w/ the upward tick, Forever kinda looks like ForNever, at least in terms of ratings draw. Of course, ABC has issues on both the creative and marketing sides right now anyway, which is a murderous one-two punch for them.
I get the feeling we'll see that on Tuesdays, especially if the quick death of New Amsterdam (nearly the exact same premise, just w/ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau instead of Ioan Gruffudd as the immortal cop guy) back in the strike season is any indication.
I have always been rather fond of ABC PR's attempts to make lemonade out of their lemons.
That's what people said last premiere week. Then everything kinda started tanking. So, y'know, hold your breath, and be prepared for a very quick reversal of narrative from those who rush to judgment.
I thought that was when it got really good, once we got a real personality for Headless. Not to mention in the finale, when they revealed the true nature of War - that was really fun, especially since it guaranteed a particular actor would be around for a while.
Maybe I just have different demands on my batshit crazy sci-fi/fantasy shows than others.
I'm not sure NCIS:LA can actually do that much better than Hostages/(Lack of) Intelligence.
It's crazy you said that about Headless because while watching last night, my first thought was that the stunt guy had more personality and presence than the actor playing Abraham.
As for war/ Henry: This is my first time seeing John Noble and I'm just not impressed with him so him becoming a series regular was not welcome news by me.
Last premiere week finised even or down 1% if I'm not mitaken.
I was rather fond of him as Walter on Fringe.
If only TVBTN made it easier to look thru their database for weekly ratings reports. (or rather, if Nielsen allowed them to make it easier) Either way, though, premiere week not being a stunning downdraft was celebrated by many, along w/ the several large premieres that occurred last year. Recall, this was coming off an absolutely awful premiere week 2012, which turned into a season w/ only one new hit, which was both creatively (and morally) bankrupt, and ended up in a big sophomore slump.
that's a fair point. i think it'd be a while before cbs gets antsy about scorpion's retention
fair enough. but i don't think cbs would tolerate low 3s from 5s for too long. but its still early days. we'll just have to wait and see
They tolerated low 2s from the millers last year out of similar numbers and that was an half hour show (hence with less opportunity to drop), not to mention facing laughable competition (wonderland, parks and recreation, hell's kitchen) instead of powerhouses (dancing with the stars, the voice and sleepy hollow)
Of course, The Millers is basically already being nursed to syndication because of being an in-house production.
Scorpion is clearly a *much* stronger show at this point, although we'll see how that holds up as its lead-in falls.
what i meant is that they'll move scorpion to a different night (or not considering that big bang's moving back to thursday by october's end). even with disappointing retention, scorpion's practically a lock for renewal so far.
It's amazing that 3 networks premiered what would almost certainly be their top-rated entertainment shows of the week in the exact same timeslot on the exact same night.
I think DWTS holding up so well against all the competition vindicates ABC's decision to leave it where it is. The show is probably slightly underperforming compared to it being placed elsewhere, but it's holding down the fort on an increasingly competitive night.
I enjoyed what I saw from Scorpion, though I do wonder how they are going to utilize the electrician all the time.
And only made the 125 Plus mark with a finals adjustment for the season finale!
Last season had a big and not exactly unsuccessful newbie class, yet the league average *still* fell double digits.
It works well for them. Get league average numbers in the worst slot of the week, then fire the heavy promotional ammunition at the Wednesday/Thursday slates. ABC's strategy is clearly built around winning the back end of the week.
I recall an awful lot of vets tanking, though. That seems to be the big problem - when a bunch of vets all tank at once, and the newbs aren't able to make the difference even in successful seasons.
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