New for this round, a "momentum" metric called Heat. Check out this explanation.
These rankings include results through Sunday, February 8.
More February True Power Rankings: ABC | CBS | NBC | Fox | CW
| NBC Comedies | True | Heat | A18-49 | y2y | Skew | %Male | Counted Eps | |
| The Runaway #1 | ||||||||
| 1 | Parks and Recreation | 1.39 | -8% | 1.30 | +15% | 51% | 40% | 3 |
NBC's comedy department is now much like two years ago, when a show in an announced final season (The Office) towered over everything else. The difference is that, even if Parks and Recreation has overachieved for much of this season, the whole NBC comedy totem pole keeps getting more and more pathetic.
The good news is that Parks will certainly keep NBC from the embarrassment of having every single comedy finish behind every single drama. But it's up to Undateable and One Big Happy to give the network something actually renewable.
| NBC Comedies | True | Heat | A18-49 | y2y | Skew | %Male | Counted Eps | |
| The Newbies (and Almost Newbies) | ||||||||
| 2 | About a Boy | 1.07 | -9% | 0.85 | -44% | 37% | 36% | 4 |
| 3 | Marry Me | 0.94 | -22% | 0.78 | 39% | 35% | 4 | |
| 4 | Bad Judge | 0.90 | -26% | 0.76 | 32% | 35% | 5 | |
| 5 | A to Z | 0.88 | -17% | 0.58 | 36% | 34% | 5 | |
Another dubious potential distinction on NBC: it's mid-February, and the network is frighteningly close to having every single scripted returnee rate ahead of every single new series. If we could count About a Boy, the latest-premiering of NBC's returnees, as a newbie, they'd be there. So far, this has been about as bad as new classes get for a network.
| NBC Dramas | True | Heat | A18-49 | y2y | Skew | %Male | Counted Eps | |
| The Runaway #1 | ||||||||
| 1 | The Blacklist | 2.36 | +3% | 2.43 | -15% | 33% | 43% | 3 |
The Thursday premiere of The Blacklist had raw numbers no better than a normal Monday episode, but the 2.57 was Truly the series' second-best episode of the season. I expected the promotion and Super Bowl two-parter would amount to more than other throwaway SB lead-outs like New Girl and get it closer to the True season high (my prediction was 2.7). But I would still be careful about some of the "Super Bowl made no impact" stuff I've seen in the media. Just getting to 2.4 in a much tougher slot may have been the Super Bowl impact. Going forward, we'll find out whether I overestimated the impact of the Super Bowl or whether I just overestimated The Blacklist itself. So far, there is little to indicate this won't remain the network's Truly strongest scripted show.
| NBC Dramas | True | Heat | A18-49 | y2y | Skew | %Male | Counted Eps | |
| The Other Renewals (and a Renew-Worthy Cancel) | ||||||||
| 2 | Chicago Fire | 1.89 | -5% | 1.62 | -11% | 32% | 36% | 5 |
| 3 | Chicago PD | 1.70 | +2% | 1.54 | -4% | 28% | 36% | 5 |
| 4 | Law and Order: SVU | 1.68 | -11% | 1.42 | -9% | 28% | 33% | 5 |
| 5 | Parenthood | 1.66 | +6% | 1.38 | +2% | 39% | 32% | 5 |
| 6 | Grimm | 1.52 | +4% | 1.25 | -13% | 32% | 41% | 4 |
Before the season, I predicted Chicago PD would start the season with solid retention of Law and Order: SVU and end the season growing from SVU. Based on the early 2015 episodes, that's looking like a dead-on prophecy, but I may have gotten kinda lucky that Empire showed up in the 9:00 hour. An SVU that was having another improbably strong season for much of the fall has been hemorrhaging on a year-to-year basis since the new year, and Empire seems like the pretty obvious explanation. It can't end fast enough.
There was an interesting discussion in the comments a week or so ago about how it feels psychologically like Grimm is doing a lot worse y2y than it really is. The difference is all about consistency; the show would regularly dart all over the map from 1.2 to 1.6 last season, and it's been at a very consistent 1.2 or 1.3 this year. Perhaps we remember those 1.5 and 1.6 high points and forget that a lot of the episodes dipped into Grimm's current range. While the show's planned move to 8/7c didn't seem like very good treatment, the super-early renewal is probably more telling about the state of Grimm.
| NBC Dramas | True | Heat | A18-49 | y2y | Skew | %Male | Counted Eps | |
| The Newbies | ||||||||
| 7 | The Mysteries of Laura | 1.31 | -14% | 1.18 | 21% | 32% | 5 | |
| 8 | Allegiance | 1.23 | n/a | 1.10 | 28% | 45% | 1 | |
| 9 | State of Affairs | 1.09 | -21% | 0.98 | 30% | 39% | 4 | |
| 10 | Constantine | 1.07 | -15% | 0.83 | 35% | 50% | 4 | |
There's no way to sugarcoat it: Allegiance not even getting to Laura's rolling average on premiere night is really pathetic. Next.
It still looks very possible that NBC will have to make some kind of crazy face-saving renewal. There are going to be a lot more shows in the mix by season's end, but the clubhouse leader at least right now somehow remains The Mysteries of Laura. Chances are it gets done in by something that hasn't premiered yet, and it's looked really bad in the last couple episodes. But for now, its chances are certainly still somewhere above 0%, and it's worth seeing if it can benefit from the departure of similarly old-skewing The Mentalist.
| NBC Unscripted | True | Heat | A18-49 | y2y | Skew | %Male | Counted Eps | |
| 1 | The Voice Mon Fall | 2.66 | -24% | 2.76 | -17% | 36% | 38% | 5 |
| 2 | The Voice Tue Fall | 2.59 | -11% | 2.64 | -16% | 34% | 38% | 5 |
| 3 | Celebrity Apprentice | 1.87 | +1% | 1.95 | 39% | 37% | 2 | |
| 4 | Dateline Fri | 1.42 | -9% | 1.12 | -3% | 25% | 37% | 6 |
| 5 | The Biggest Loser | 1.28 | -9% | 1.13 | -36% | 35% | 35% | 6 |
Aside from Empire, the Celebrity Apprentice ratings are probably the surprise of the season for me. This goes far and away beyond The Biggest Loser's rejuvenation a couple years ago; that show was up 6% year-to-year and basically returned to the Plus it was getting two years previous. This is going to be up 25% from two years ago and the highest Plus in the history of the celebrity edition. The media hatred of Donald Trump will keep this story from getting any real attention. I'm hesitant to call it "sad" or "a shame" because I'm not a fan of the guy either. But from a brutally objective ratings standpoint, this is a great story. (Instead of lauds for Apprentice's ratings, there's ridicule of Trump's claims about the show being #1. Those claims should be ridiculed, obviously, but they're practically a strawman argument for anyone with a clue.)
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