Many more disclaimers can be seen on the individual pages, but the most basic one is that the listed schedules are fall lineups, even when midseason replacements may have done much better. (I try to mention those midseason replacements that did better.) Please also note that the 2003-04 thru 2005-06 numbers still contain the "old" A18-49+ scores from before I filled in the missing data from those seasons. So those numbers will change (slightly) when the 2014-15 numbers are entered this summer.
More 2001-03 Schedules Plus updates: ABC | CBS | NBC | Fox | CW
Monday
| 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg | |
| 2001-02 | Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? | Monday Night Football | 125 | ||||
| 62 | 157 | 157 | |||||
| Rank | 11/13 | 4/13 | 3/13 | 8/13 | |||
| 2002-03 | The Drew Carey Show | Whose Line Is It Anyway? | Monday Night Football | 125 (+0%) | |||
| 46 | 48 | 164 (+5%) | 164 (+5%) | ||||
| 47 (-24%) | |||||||
| Rank | 13/13 | 2/13 | 1/13 | 7/13 | |||
| 2003-04 | Primetime | Monday Night Football | 129 (+3%) | ||||
| 62 (+32%) | 162 (-1%) | 162 (-1%) | |||||
| Rank | 10/13 | 3/13 | 2/13 | 4/13 | |||
| Avg | 106 | 139 | 121 | 122 | |||
As weak as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was in its final season on Monday, it got even uglier with Drew Carey and Whose Line? the next season. At midseason, ABC notably had the first season of The Bachelor (115) in the closing months of 2001-02, then tried building a lineup around the second half of The Practice's season in 2002-03. The Practice averaged a very poor 67 for those Monday eps.
Tuesday
| 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg | |
| 2001-02 | Dharma and Greg | Spin City | NYPD Blue | Philly | 92 | ||
| 74 | 85 | 110 | 86 | ||||
| 80 | |||||||
| Rank | 7/13 | 6/13 | 3/13 | 7/13 | |||
| 2002-03 | 8 Simple Rules | According to Jim | Life with Bonnie | Less Than Perfect | NYPD Blue | 96 (+4%) | |
| 94 (+27%) | 102 (+19%) | 86 | 82 | 106 (+23%) | |||
| 98 (+23%) | 84 (-24%) | ||||||
| Rank | 4/13 | 11/13 | 1/13 | 4/13 | |||
| 2003-04 | 8 Simple Rules | I'm With Her | According to Jim | Less Than Perfect | NYPD Blue | 93 (-3%) | |
| 96 (+3%) | 81 (-20%) | 108 (+26%) | 95 (+16%) | 90 (-15%) | |||
| 89 (-9%) | 102 (+21%) | ||||||
| Rank | 6/13 | 8/13 | 2/13 | 6/13 | |||
| Avg | 87 | 107 | 74 | 89 | |||
ABC began 2001-02 with four comedies on Tuesday but quickly yanked What About Joan? (70) and Bob Patterson (81), bringing back NYPD Blue in early November and letting veterans Dharma and Greg and Spin City play out the string. Things improved comedy-wise in 2002-03 with the introduction of 8 Simple Rules and move of sophomore According to Jim, but all those family comedies had basically fallen apart by the mid-aughts.
Wednesday
| 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg | |
| 2001-02 | My Wife and Kids | According to Jim | The Drew Carey Show | Whose Line Is It Anyway? | 20/20 | 95 | |
| 103 | 100 | 97 | 96 | 86 | |||
| 102 | 97 | ||||||
| Rank | 4/13 | 11/13 | 6/13 | 10/13 | |||
| 2002-03 | My Wife and Kids | George Lopez | The Bachelor | MDs | 114 (+20%) | ||
| 102 (-1%) | 95 (-5%) | 179 (+85%) | 64 (-25%) | ||||
| 98 (-3%) | |||||||
| Rank | 6/13 | 3/13 | 10/13 | 5/13 | |||
| 2003-04 | My Wife and Kids | It's All Relative | The Bachelor | Karen Sisco | 105 (-8%) | ||
| 89 (-12%) | 83 (-13%) | 159 (-11%) | 70 (+9%) | ||||
| 86 (-13%) | |||||||
| Rank | 10/13 | 5/13 | 9/13 | 8/13 | |||
| Avg | 98 | 141 | 79 | 106 | |||
After a consistently modest lineup in 2001-02 (including 20/20 regularly scheduled on Wednesday!), the network began a three-year run with three cycles of Bachelor per regular season (Bachelor fall/Bachelorette winter/Bachelor spring). Though these shows were huge, especially in 2002-03, they led into some major duds at 10/9c. The first one, new drama MDs, barely retained a third of The Bachelor's demo in an age when retention tended to be higher. The only things that really worked after The Bachelor in the early aughts were unscripted: Celebrity Mole (124 in 2003, 99 in 2004), Extreme Makeover (113 in spring 2003, then 105 for its return in spring 2004) and later Wife Swap in 2004-05.
Thursday
| 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg | |
| 2001-02 | Whose Line Is It Anyway? | Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? | Primetime Thu | 61 | |||
| 54 | 53 | 76 | |||||
| Rank | 8/13 | 10/13 | 9/13 | 9/13 | |||
| 2002-03 | Monk (R) | Push, Nevada | Primetime Thu | 46 (-24%) | |||
| 44 (-19%) | 29 (-45%) | 66 (-14%) | |||||
| Rank | 12/13 | 13/13 | 11/13 | 13/13 | |||
| 2003-04 | Threat Matrix | Extreme Makeover | Primetime | 61 (+32%) | |||
| 42 (-4%) | 73 (+151%) | 68 (+3%) | |||||
| Rank | 13/13 | 9/13 | 10/13 | 10/13 | |||
| Avg | 64 | 129 | 94 | 95 | |||
Kinda the same story as in the pre-Monday Night Football hour: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? had dreadful numbers in 2001-02, but the network would go on to prove it could do even worse over the subsequent four years before Grey's Anatomy's arrival.
Friday
| 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg | |
| 2001-02 | America's Funniest Home Videos | Thieves | Once and Again | 62 | |||
| 63 | 60 | 62 | |||||
| Rank | 3/13 | 4/13 | 9/13 | 5/13 | |||
| 2002-03 | America's Funniest Home Videos | That Was Then | 20/20 | 62 (+0%) | |||
| 74 (+19%) | 43 (-29%) | 68 (+10%) | |||||
| Rank | 1/13 | 12/13 | 4/13 | 4/13 | |||
| 2003-04 | George Lopez | Married to the Kellys | Hope and Faith | Life with Bonnie | 20/20 | 69 (+11%) | |
| 63 | 61 | 77 | 66 | 72 (+6%) | |||
| 62 (-17%) | 72 (+66%) | ||||||
| Rank | 4/13 | 3/13 | 2/13 | 3/13 | |||
| Avg | 55 | 62 | 65 | 61 | |||
As someone who didn't follow this stuff in the early aughts, a couple things I never really knew: 1) ABC actually ended the TGIF comedy night for a three-year period before bringing it back again briefly in 2003. And 2) America's Funniest Home Videos was cancelled as a regular series for a couple years before coming back to this Friday placement in 2001. AFV had pretty modest numbers upon its return in 2001-02, but grew to one of its biggest averages in the era in its final Friday season of 2002-03. (It moved to its former/current Sunday 7:00 home in 2003-04, where it's usually averaged about a 70.) Overall, AFV on Friday did better than almost all of what ABC had on the night between the fall of TGIF and the rise of Shark Tank.
Sunday
| 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg | |
| 2001-02 | Movies | Alias | The Practice | 107 | |||
| 94 | 105 | 122 | |||||
| Rank | 10/13 | 9/13 | 4/13 | 8/13 | |||
| 2002-03 | Movies | Alias | The Practice | 94 (-12%) | |||
| 73 (-23%) | 99 (-5%) | 111 (-9%) | |||||
| Rank | 12/13 | 11/13 | 7/13 | 11/13 | |||
| 2003-04 | 10-8 | Alias | The Practice | 80 (-15%) | |||
| 62 (-15%) | 92 (-7%) | 86 (-23%) | |||||
| Rank | 13/13 | 12/13 | 10/13 | 13/13 | |||
| Avg | 113 | 152 | 109 | 125 | |||
Sunday was another modest but not quite disastrous night in the years between the fall of Millionaire and the rise of Desperate Housewives. ABC's movie ratings in 2001-02 were really something to behold. Though the 94 above is a bit inflated because it includes a couple original miniseries that did big business, the network still had several old Disney movies pull a 4.0 or higher. Those ratings got a lot worse in 2002-03, leading to the end of that two-hour block. ABC may have had some initial remorse given how the cop dramedy 10-8 bombed in fall 2003. Since midseason 2004, though, it's pretty much been a steady diet of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Once Upon a Time in that slot, so ABC's probably just fine with how it turned out. Meanwhile, newbie Alias took one of the many vacated Millionaire slots in 2001 and held up rather decently over the next three years despite the struggles at 8/7c.
8 comments:
What is this Push, Nevada? That 29 Plus is still bad enough in raw numbers to be cancelled today!
I agree, I also noticed it while reading! What a flop!
In hindsight, ABC putting a Nevada themed show against CSI was a bad idea
For as much as ABC was off the map Thursdays at 8:00, at least none of those shows were as bad as Push, Nevada.
I thought The Mole 2: The Next Betrayal was on Fridays at 8:00 in 2001-2002. It got yanked after two or three eps for AFV, then restarted in Summer 2002. Clearly it was the right move.
So Tuesday's haven't gone well for ABC even with this extended look back. I guess since the days of Roseanne and Home Improvement they just haven't pulled it together. Only NYPD Blue, According to Jim, Dancing with the Stars, Lost, Last Man Standing, and SHIELD could get to or above the league average.
Alias held much stronger than I thought for such a serialized show.
Yes, The Mole fell under my "if an original is quickly replaced with another original, use the second one" rule. I didn't have the premiere (it was before the start of the regular season) but the three in-season episodes averaged a 50.
On the other hand, Push, Nevada was replaced by movies/specials so it stays. But it only aired five hours in-season.
Is it the lowest Plus of any regular entertainment show on the big four in the era? I can only think of Lone Star as another possible contender.
I think it is if you add "weekday" and "regular season only." About a dozen weekend shows have gone below this, almost all of them on Saturday (either regularly-scheduled or including Saturday burn-off eps). My summer records are not as good but I know Riot and I Wanna Marry Harry were both below 29 last year.
Well that 29 means a 1.22 raw number. Lone Star was a 1.15 in raw years later
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