Spotted Ratings, Thursday 3/19/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Reign adjusted down to just its second 0.3. The basketball games adjusted down noticeably to 1.6/1.8 but still went massively above last year's CBS offerings. The leading cable basketball game had a 1.3 on TNT.

• The last two three-tenth drops for Scandal were somewhat understandable, since the 3.3 three weeks ago was a really high-end number and then DST hit. But this third straight 0.3 drop, now to a 2.4 that was the show's lowest rating since early season two, seems much more alarming and curious. It came alongside another steady number for Grey's Anatomy (2.1), but the 10/9c hemorrhaging continued with a two-tenth loss for American Crime (1.2).

• On NBC, The Blacklist (1.8) inched up with some help from a considerably stronger Dateline (1.2) at 8/7c, while a second straight two-hour American Idol (1.8) was even for Fox.

• These results came as CBS was sitting out its regular lineup for March Madness coverage, which averaged a preliminary 2.0 across three hours. This is still not nearly the caliber of ratings CBS was getting when the games weren't spread across four channels, but this coverage (which included undefeated #1 Kentucky) looks like a huge improvement on recent CBS opening Thursdays. Last year's games only averaged a 1.0/1.3.

FULL TABLE:

Info		Show						Timeslot		True
	A18-49	Skew	Last		LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
Grey's Anatomy	2.1	34%	+0%	+0.0	n/a	15/16	-13%	+0%	+163%	2.2
Scandal	2.4	39%	-11%	-0.3	+0.0	16/16	-17%	-9%	+0%	2.4
American Crime	1.2	28%	-14%	-0.2	-0.3	3/3	n/a	-14%	-59%	1.4
							ABC:	-7%	-7%
NCAA Basketball	1.6	37%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	+60%	-43%	+60%	1.8
NCAA Basketball	1.8	42%	+13%	+0.2	n/a	1/2	+38%	+29%	+50%	2.1
							CBS:	-29%	+56%
Dateline Wed	1.2	24%	+33%	+0.3	n/a	1/2	n/a	+41%	+4%	1.4
The Blacklist	1.8	26%	+6%	+0.1	+0.3	11/15	-33%	+3%	+89%	2.0
The Slap	0.7	28%	+17%	+0.1	+0.1	4/6	n/a	+17%	-44%	0.9
							NBC:	+16%	+10%
American Idol Thu	1.8	27%	+0%	+0.0	n/a	10/11	-10%	+1%	-4%	1.9
							Fox:	+1%	-4%
The Vampire Diaries	0.7	56%	+17%	+0.1	n/a	10/17	-36%	+8%	-33%	0.8
Reign	0.3	35%	-25%	-0.1	+0.1	16/17	-57%	-25%	-54%	0.4
							CW:	-5%	-41%
							Big5:	-9%	+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.