- FINALS UPDATE: ABC's shows each went up a tenth.
- ABC's second edition of Thank God It's Thursday took a significant drop from the first one, but it was nothing too alarming. Grey's Anatomy (2.6) remained an outstanding option in the 8/7c hour, Scandal (3.3) was down a similar amount at 9/8c, and How to Get Away with Murder (3.2) only barely dropped more than the returnees (a good sign for a new series). As usual, the ABC finals will likely make this look even better.
- It was pretty much "bombs away" for the competing networks in the 9/8c hour. Only one big-four series premiere prior to this night had gone below 1.5, but it looks that number has instantly quadrupled. NBC's Bad Judge (1.3) attracted a surprising amount of total viewer interest but little in the demo, roughly matching its lead-in from The Biggest Loser (1.4 at 8:30). This was just behind last year's launch of Sean Saves the World (1.4) in the same slot. Lead-out A to Z (1.2) was not far behind. The best these shows can probably hope for is what happened to Sean (a small extension as schedule filler). And Fox went even behind Red Band Society numbers with mystery event series Gracepoint (1.2).
- The CW opened up its 2014-15 drama season with a "meh" start from The Vampire Diaries (0.9), which was a bit above its horrible spring returns but still down 25% year-to-year. But sophomore lead-out Reign (0.4) was a debacle, only tying its series low from the spring. It looks like it could be an even more serious problem than expected.
FULL TABLE:
| Info | Show | Timeslot | True | |||||||
| A18-49 | Skew | Last | LeLa | Rank | y2y | TLa | Ty2y | |||
| Grey's Anatomy | 2.7 | 36% | -13% | -0.4 | n/a | 2/2 | -13% | -13% | +64% | 2.9 |
| Scandal | 3.4 | 40% | -13% | -0.5 | -0.4 | 2/2 | -6% | -14% | +10% | 3.2 |
| How To Get Away With Murder | 3.3 | 34% | -15% | -0.6 | -0.5 | 2/2 | n/a | -14% | -8% | 3.3 |
| ABC: | -14% | +13% | ||||||||
| Thursday Night Football Kickoff | 2.5 | 36% | +14% | +0.3 | n/a | 2/4 | n/a | +9% | -52% | 2.8 |
| Thursday Night Football | 5.9 | 45% | -2% | -0.1 | +0.3 | 3/4 | n/a | -4% | +134% | 6.1 |
| CBS: | -3% | +80% | ||||||||
| The Biggest Loser | 1.3 | 36% | +0% | +0.0 | n/a | 2/4 | n/a | +4% | +13% | 1.6 |
| Bad Judge | 1.3 | 28% | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1/1 | n/a | +0% | -7% | 1.6 |
| A to Z | 1.2 | 32% | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1/1 | n/a | -20% | -29% | 1.5 |
| Parenthood | 1.3 | 38% | -7% | -0.1 | -0.1 | 2/2 | -13% | -7% | -16% | 1.7 |
| NBC: | -5% | -9% | ||||||||
| Bones | 1.5 | 30% | -6% | -0.1 | n/a | 2/2 | -32% | -3% | -27% | 1.7 |
| Gracepoint | 1.2 | 32% | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1/1 | n/a | +85% | -25% | 1.4 |
| Fox: | +23% | -26% | ||||||||
| The Vampire Diaries | 0.9 | 63% | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1/1 | -25% | +350% | -25% | 0.9 |
| Reign | 0.4 | 50% | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1/1 | -50% | +100% | -58% | 0.5 |
| CW: | +225% | -40% | ||||||||
| Big5: | +1% | +17% | ||||||||
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.
57 comments:
Well played, Shady.
I thought Bad Judge had a good shot, if nothing else. Not surprised about Gracepoint in the slightest.
Also, how many ladders did CBS executives walk under before signing the TNF deal? Yet another blowout!
To be honest, these were the numbers I was expecting TGIT to open last week and I would have called them a big success had it happened that way. For these to be the second week numbers is just incredible. All hail queen Shonda!!
OUCH at Reign. I never thought it would open so low. It also lost 2/3 of the W18-49 audience of TVD, which cannot be a good thing. I am worried about the show now even though we still have no clue how the CW season will shape out to be. The Vampire Diaries is "meh" I agree, even if I thought it could at least go back to a 1.0. I worry about The Originals on Mondays now.
Everywhere else, Bones, Parenthood and The Biggest Looser all did okay, with Bones doing enough for me to call it a winner. After all, it's only 0.2 away from Sleepy Hollow. The new stuff? Bombs, bombs, bombs, which is sad since I was interested in all three, especially A to Z.
By the way, can we start calling Shonda the new death star? I am not sure networks will be able to launch shows against her anymore.
TGIT having a very solid second week, and I'm sure everything ABC will adjust up as always
Btw, I am on FIRE with getting these Questions right! I think I've only missed 3 out of 12 so far
Preliminary W18-34
The Vampire Diaries 1.4
Reign 0.5
As usual, TVD is winner. Despite significantly increased crossovering competition from ABC, 1.4 is flat with last season's finale, and only 22% down vs last season's premiere.
Reign did bad, 50% down y2y would be complete disaster if it wasn't airing against Scandal this year. To put things in perspective, Beauty and the Beast S2 premiere got same 0.5 on Monday vs The Voice, and is The Carrie Diaries Season 2 premiered with 0.6 on Friday.
Bad Judge - I'm a bit disappointed, this is even worse than I expected (I predicted 1.20 for 13 episodes and done).
A to Z and Gracepoint - Those will be short-lived too, but I expected absolutely nothing of it, which is just about what happened.
TGIT - Still shockingly good ratings: in week 2 ABC Thursday is where are I thought it will be in premiere week. And that's without probable adjustments up.
That's a Great Hold for How To Get Away With Murder. It's actually above last year's week 2 of Scandal!
.
I guess Gracepoint picked the wrong three letter channel to have a 10 part muder mystery event. At least it isn't Mob Doctor bombing, because Bones is so much weaker
.
Bad Judge matched Undateable. Which isn't that bad considering Hollywood Game Night isn't that much worse of a lead in for comedy right now than TBL. A to Z needed to grow out of Judge for a chance. It's done. It's crazy that The Mother went from a 5.4 in her last TV appearance to a 1.1 in the most recent. An 80% drop!
Gosh, but FOX is destroyed now. I wonder how much better (or worse) another season of X-Factor would have pulled?
My non scientific guess is that the end result would have been very much the same.
The only argument I would have would be that it would have freed up promotion to focus on some stuff instead of spreading it out. However ,a powerful counter argument could be that X was weakening Idol and I would argue that FOX should make stop the Idol bleeding one of its top priorities right now.
NBC Thursdays remain remarkably consistent and remarkably bad. Greys is doing very well at 8pm but apparently there is little competition for the younger female demo. I initially thought Greys would be trending at least a half point lower. The return of Big Bang should bring Greys down to earth.
Considering it was at 1.74 in season 2013-14 (Wed & Thu combined A18-49 ratings) with y2y drop of stunning 40% during not as bad Fox season as this one is - my guess is:
The X factor would be at around 1.00 average this year.
With cost of over $3 millions per episode, TXF would produce loss to Fox of over $1.5 millionper each hour aired. To cancel it was one of rare Reily's good decisions. Though, it clearly was a no-brainer.
I feel a bit sorry for Reily because he had some decent instincts. I thought year-round programming was a positive thing for instance. it's juts that at every possible decision point he made the wrong choice, it was almost ridiculous how possible it was.
For what it's worth, it's probably TBL's best performance so far (full competition, trimmed down to one hour) but it's still very disappointing. I thought that show would have been like half a point stronger.
Hmm. Maybe it's Reign competing with Jane the Virgin to see who loses their timeslot to iZombie. What a race to the bottom that will be.
ABC continued to shine against the lackluster entertainment competition, and will continue to do so until later this month when CBS rejoins the fray. Even after that, though, the Eye's sitcoms (outside of The Big Bang Theory) and Elementary won't pose too much of a threat. If anything, the greater visibility NFL Network is getting for Thursday Night Football could be the bigger challenge for CBS.
At this point Fox more so than usual is hoping for the World Series to go 7 Games. I'm hoping for a rain out for one of those games to push that potential Game 7 to Thursday night to go against TNF.
NBC should hang a digital sign on Thursday nights that says, "Closed until February 5."
Bad Judge and A to Z are sacrificial peacocks.
(I didn't invent the term, I've read it somewhere)
I don't think any of the games have been within 25 points. It's insane.
Spot set one of the most depressing lines I've ever seen, set it for three shows and all of them managed to go under.
Two dying breeds: NBC comedies and FOX network.
Yeah, not only was that line itself a bummer, but so was the fact that at least half the Q respondants couldn't see any scenario where any of the three would best it.
It kinda reminds me of the Offspring song "The Kids Aren't Alright", if one replaced "kids" w/ "shows" and rewrote the lyrics to be about the programming you describe.
Well, one other challenge for CBS could eventually become "every TNF game is a goddamn blowout".
I don't think that the 1.4's and 1.5's Bones and Biggest Loser were providing as lead in would launch much of anything, even if they aired repeats of Lucky 7 in that slot
I'm a big fan of Jane's trailer. I hope it ends up being good and renewed.
Let's just hang on until we see how Murder holds up. Remember, Shondaland shows have flunked before[*], so it's not outside the realm of possibility.
[*specifically Off The Map, an attempt to go to three shows when the second show was Private Practice. Of course, all three were medical dramas, which may have played a part, and could also be a reason why the last two Rhimes shows have not been in that setting]
I think Reilly let the Broadchurch hype lead his decision making instead of the Broadchurch numbers. This result, and the quality of the show itself (somewhat underwhelming, albeit w/ a degree of promise that will keep me watching at least until The Returned returns, if not thru all ten episodes), really speak to the reasons why he was ultimately replaced, as well as the decline of the "event/limited series" tag. If I were another net investing in such programming, I would be concerned about my investment.
So, uh, who at NBC thought that those two formless blobs were any sort of good idea? Or was it really all about getting gap programming to cover until The Blacklist was ready for the slot, and those two just happened to be the cheapest pilots among the remainders?
Shonda Thursdays are still rolling, even if they did hit the expected week 2 speedbump. I don't necessarily see any obvious reason to be negative on any of the three, so for now it's just about monitoring the numbers.
Oh, CW, whatever creative direction you've been taking w/ Vampire Diaries is obviously the wrong one. And lol @ Reign (or Re-IGN, as I like to call it mockingly) - who ever thought anyone would show up for more than one season of that crap pile?
I say keep Reign on until December, and then launch something new in January. Then air Reign and BATB together in a summer block of low rated CBS made dramas
I think his scheduling instincts were good. But by god, he couldn't pick good shows for the life of him, especially later on.
Thank you, Mr. Howell.
I think Reign's biggest hope is that it grows hugely in L+3, which is certainly possible now that it's up against Scandal.
Yes, it was. :)
Yup, and I'm not sure it really matters to CBS which network viewers tune in from, even - the ads are the same, the ratings are quoted jointly, I'd not be surprised if CBS keeps all the ad revenue from their games. After all, the network they're sharing the games with is the in-house network of the holder of the rights they're paying for in the first place. I'm sure someone else will know how it actually works, though!
Well, I see the comparison being more like Flash being like Gotham and iZombie like Constantine. Gotham and Flash have a recogniable names and characters that can self start. iZombie and Constantine have enough similarities to mix with genre shows, but not self start. Anyways, I have a feelimg that DC had something to do with the fact that all 4 DC shows airing are across 4 nights (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday)
Cancel (confident)
Yeah, possibly Thursday CW ratings will go up next week.
Anyway, I just wanted to say The Vampire Diaries starting week earlier than the rest of The CW lineup may seem illogical to inexperienced eye, but that was another great scheduling move by Mr. Pedowitz. This way they gave The Flash a bit more exposure through TVD premiere.
Be that as it may, it sucks for a show that's already hemorrhaging viewers due to creative struggles, even if CW had some reason to believe it would be their ace in the hole based on past returns.
The 13% year on year gain for ABC seems low considering the massive improvement at 8 and the 9 and 10 hours balancing each other out?
The Vampire Diaries had 1.8 million viewers yesterday.
Last week's repeat had 0.6 million viewers.
Math is simple, some 1.2 more eyeballs saw whatever they promoted during the episode.
Clearly, it was a great scheduling move.
Actually, you made me curious, so I looked at the top 14 most lopsided results from last year's game. (This is regardless of whether the majority won or lost that Question.) Of those 14 Questions, I voted with the majority 12 times. However, those two times that I did diverge from consensus? Winner winner, chicken dinner.
So basically, I'm a sheep the vast majority of the time, but not being a sheep sometimes pays off.
Last year Scandal premiered one week later, on premiere Thursday ABC aired 2-hours Grey's season premiere. Thus, above y2y numbers are against big Scandal premiere (3.6). Unfortunate, but Spot can do nothing about it.
Plus, Wonderland premiered only in Week 3, with really ugly ratings (1.2) starting from its second episode in Week 4.
Cancel (confident)
FOX is having a rough go of it. It's just Gotham and the cartoons at this point, and the cartoon were crossover-inflated. No idea how they can salvage this season.
I've doubled my wins from last spring. Yay!
Breakdown: 6-1 Under, 5-2 Over.
I do remember hearing promising things about TCD much like what's been said about Jane the Virgin. What I've come across doesn't exactly say "good for a CW show" but it's the general tone that comes across as I'm reading it.
I do plan on giving Jane a try since I seem to gravitate to shows with a noisy/polarizing title (Cougar Town, Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23, Selfie, black-ish....hmmm, maybe that's just an ABC sitcom title. *shrug* Meh.). I just have the expectation that I shouldn't hope to see more than 13 episodes. If the show makes the cut and earns a back 9, then that's a pleasant bonus.
cancel (confident)
Well, after starting 1-6 I actually tried going for worst record overall. Of course right after that I get four wins in a row. Of course as soon as things start looking better, ABC adjusts up just one tenth too little and two days later America refuses to witness the awesomeness of David Tennant AND foolishly decides it's had enough of Cristin Milioti. I just can't win
While lead-ins are no doubt of big importance, shows can be launched sans a big lead-in. Otherwise nothing would ever launch at 8pm. I am pretty sure the numbers Bones and TBL are pulling are aligned with the lead-ins shows get at 8pm from local programming.
10pm is an exception though since I think it's much harder for shows to grow by themselves at that late hour. But at 9pm shows should be able to do it, though lead-ins obviously help.
Spot, I think I have 8-6, and not 7-7.
Games 1 to 7; and Game 10 = win,
Games 8 to 9; and Games 11 to 14 = loss.
Here I changed my initial pick because of typo:
http://www.spottedratings.com/2014/09/the-question-sunday-92114-will-madam.html
Perhaps that's problematic?
CANCEL (confident)
Cancel (Confident)
Am I confused or should we have gotten a bunch more of these already considering the third episodes are about to air? Gotham, Scorpion, Forever, New Orleans, Black-ish, Murder, all fit the bill. Or am I confused?
I think you know it's really bad when all of us fantasy schedulers don't really have any so called brilliant ideas to suggest .I can think of a couple of decent moves for FOX winter but they are nothing more than minimizing the damage, not solutions. It truly feels like they are sinking and that whatever we do can only delay the inevitable. If it was me, these are some of the things I would do:
1) Raise a white flag for the season and instead of wasting unnecessary money on lost causes, focus as much as possible on development. Gotham shows they can still launch stuff and FOX has the advantage of having a short schedule to fill. If they can have a couple of Gotham like players next season, in addition to Gotham itself, it will suddenly look a whole lot better.
2) This only works if done ASAP, like now, otherwise the creative damage will be too much but... Find a way to air Sleepy Hollow and Gotham for the whole season. Clearly there's been a rejection of the limited series thing, so it won't bode well for next season if they have their two strongest dramas ending very early again.
3) For midseason, find one program to put all your promotional muscle behind it (a la The Following a couple of years ago) and make sure it has the goods and it works.
4) Create god knows how many focus groups et all that are necessary but make sure that you manage to slow down the Idol bleeding. They never needed it as much as they need it now. While it is obvious it will never be a death star again, it would be a big help to FOX it if managed to turn into a DWTS type of utility player that can fill a lot of hours in the schedule and provide a reasonable help to its lead-outs.
5) Minimize moves. No moving Bones come midseason again. Work around it.
Most of these are "structural" things and wouldn't really make much of a difference in the short term but I believe they would be the first steps to getting back somewhere.
Fixed, thanks. Actually had you wrong on the DWTS game for some reason.
Cancel (confident)
cancel.
Thanks.
Spot, while I have your attention, did you see this:
http://adage.com/article/media/networks-beating-back-devil-dvr/295170/
Very interesting - there are some actual C3 and C7 averages for the entire season 2013-14. Unfortunately, for top 10 shows only, but no one else published even as much.
And author's analysis is very good: Switch to C7 wouldn't mean much for the individual shows... For most of the shows it's a tenth up, in some cases not even that, and in other cases 2 tenths up... But even if C7 is on average only 4% more than C3, broadcaster advertising is multi-billion dollar business, so each of big 4 would rake $100+ million per year more, which is kinda not peanuts.
Comparing to your A18-49 averages on SpotVault page (which should be correct, unless AdAge excluded episodes designated as specials, which I suspect they did) I got:
-5% = C3 7.48 / L+SD 7.90 - Sunday Night Football
-12% = C3 4.45 / L+SD 5.07 - The Big Bang Theory
+4% = C3 3.70 / L+SD 3.55 - The Voice (Mon)
+6% = C3 3.36 / L+SD 3.18 - The Voice (Tue)
+5% = C3 3.21 / L+SD 3.05 - Scandal
-11% = C3 3.14 / L+SD 3.54 - Modern Family
-10% = C3 3.05 / L+SD 3.39 - How I Met Your Mother
+5% = C3 3.04 / L+SD 2.89 - The Blacklist
+10% = C3 2.95 / L+SD 2.69 - Grey's Anatomy
+9% = C3 2.74 / L+SD 2.51 - Resurrection
Two things stunned me.
1. Big comedies actually rate much lower in C3 than in Live+SD, some 10% lower.
It's not because that's always true for comedies and/or young skewing shows. As from some AdWeek data here...
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nbc-leads-c3-ratings-race-networks-bed-down-winter-break-154609
...we see The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family are similarly "losing" tenths in C3 (though not as much as 10%), but some young skewing comedies (Family Guy, New Girl) are actually "gaining" much in C3.
2. For some of those shows there's remarkable consistence between those C3 ratings an Adage ad prices survey
( http://gaia.adage.com/images/bin/pdf/TV_pricing_chart_for_web.pdf )
Per one C3 rating point:
$77,489 The Big Bang Theory
$76,322 Modern Family
$75,548 The Voice (Tue)
$74,096 The Voice (Mon)
The point is, using AdAge survey numbers against Live+SD A18-49, those numbers would fall into much wider range, from 67K for Modern Family to 80K for Tuesday edition of The Voice.
Note: I'm aware average CPM is much lower than 75K, and it's just that those high rated show always get "bonus" on big reach.
Sunday Night Football is even higher price (84K per one C3 rating point), but that's because of extremely big reach, or because it's attracting so many of hard to reach M18-34ers. Most likely it's combination of those two factors.
The Blacklist is much higher (93K), but I suspect NBC sold some of post-SB episode inventory already at upfronts. There's no other plausible explanation for its so high average price. I mean, at $280K per 30 secs ad TB is just a bit over 10% behind TBBT, while trailing it over 30% in C3 (and over 40% in L+SD! ).
Scandal is lower (68K). But I suppose advertisers were afraid of a timeslot change. I certainly was. You weren't in your best/worst case, kudos.
And Grey's Anatomy is much lower (51K), but it was even more risky timeslot change.
As for Resurrection (51K), advertisers obviously were aware of frontloaded nature of its high season ratings average (though it remains misterious why they didn't they show same awareness about Sleepy Hollow).
Cancel confident...
I am not Spot, but very interesting stuff, thank you!
cancel - confident
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