FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (2.1) was up to its highest rating since premiere week. Food Fighters (0.8) also went up to dodge a season low.
CBS dominated the increasingly dreary Thursday landscape as Big Brother (2.0) broke into the twos for the first time in a couple weeks, but Under the Dome stayed at 1.0.
On ABC, the swingy The Astronaut Wives Club (0.8) got back two of the three tenths it surrendered last week, putting it back ahead of fellow ABC dramas Mistresses (even at 0.7) and Rookie Blue (inching down from last week's high to 0.7).
With no more Wayward Pines, Fox fell to a distant fourth as Boom! was flat at 0.6 and a repeat of Bones (0.4) only got a third of last week's Pines rating.
FINALS UPDATE:Last Comic Standing (1.5) was up to match last week's premiere, while MasterChef (1.5) got its usual uptick and Extant (0.8) eked one out as well.
NBC had a two-hour 10th anniversary celebration for America's Got Talent (1.6) leading into Last Comic Standing (1.4), which held up well in week two with its first one-hour 10/9c edition.
All other originals were very close to even with last week. For week two of Fox's Home Free (0.9), that at least gives it some hope of being no weaker than previous occupant Bullseye. It also meant no help for Extant (0.7) in its second week at 9/8c after Big Brother (1.8). ABC's Celebrity Wife Swap was back after a few weeks off at its usual 0.8.
FINALS UPDATE:Hollywood Game Night (1.2) adjusted down.
America's Got Talent began its usual second-half slump with a drop to a new season low 2.1. But NBC still dominated Tuesday start to finish as Hollywood Game Night (1.3) was even at 10/9c.
CBS got some good news as week five of Zoo (1.2) was back up to tie the rating from the first two weeks. It got some help from NCIS (1.0), which had one of its best repeat ratings of the summer.
ABC and Fox remained off the Tuesday map, with Knock Knock Live (0.5) getting no help from the return of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (0.6) at 8/7c.
FINALS UPDATE: Sunday's Big Brother (1.9) adjusted up and Saturday's Boston EMS (0.6) adjusted down. The Caitlyn Jenner series I Am Cait opened with a Sunday-leading 1.15 for E!, while Adult Swim's Rick and Morty was back for season two with a 1.03.
ABC's new smash Celebrity Family Feud went out with one last 2.0, staying ahead of Big Brother (1.8) for Sunday broadcast supremacy. And the finale of BattleBots (1.4) preliminarily had a second straight uptick, which should be more than enough to get it back next summer. Meanwhile, NBC remained invisible as Welcome to Sweden (0.3/0.2) was down even more from last week's pair of 0.3's.
On Saturday, ABC introduced Boston EMS (0.7) with pretty good numbers by Saturday standards. This seems to be a companion series to the Sunday 10/9c newbie Save My Life: Boston Trauma (0.9), which gained a tenth in its second outing.
FINALS UPDATE: A tenth went out of The Bachelorette's "After the Final Rose" (2.3) and into the two-hour finale (2.5).Also adjusting down were Running Wild (1.2, still up a tenth from last week), Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.6, still a new season high) and Cedric's Barber Battle (0.2).
The Bachelorette got a big finale spike, up to comfortably a season high 2.4 for both the finale and for "After the Final Rose" at 10:00. This was up significantly from last season's finale/ATFR (2.0/2.1) and solidified this as easily the strongest Bachelorette season in Plus since the franchise moved to the summer in 2008.
ABC's gain was the other reality staples' loss, as American Ninja Warrior (1.9) and, more alarmingly, So You Think You Can Dance (0.8) each shed two tenths. However, NBC did get some silver lining as Running Wild (1.3) rebounded to what would be a new season high (if it avoids its usual downward adjustment).
Pending a preemption, CW's Penn and Teller: Fool Us surged two tenths to 0.7, which is an outstanding result should it hold.
AMC's Saturday staple Hell on Wheels was back to begin its two-part final season with a 0.38 premiere, down 19% from last summer's opener. That actually put it ahead of both of AMC's Sunday dramas this week, as the swingy Humans (0.33) fell back down by 25%.
Last week's Ray Donovan premiere was not as good as it looked because it seemed unlikely it could grow as much over the course of the season again. But... maybe it can? The show was up 16% to a 0.37 in week two. It'll have to do that several more times, but this was an encouraging step. However, its lead-out Masters of Sex went way in the other direction, down 31% to an awful 0.09.
A week after hitting a new low, Fox's finale of Wayward Pines (1.2) surged by three tenths, back to a tie for the 1.2 series high hit four times early in the season. Though Fox insists there's no renewal possibility here, this was the closest thing to a scripted success in a summer full of weak to modest performers.
ABC's The Astronaut Wives Club (0.6) and Mistresses (0.7) crashed from their above-average results last time, but 10/9c offering Rookie Blue (0.8) had its best showing of the season.
A slump week for usual Thursday leader Big Brother (1.8) continued as the Thursday edition lost two tenths week-to-week (but quite possibly just one after finals). However, Under the Dome (1.0) inched up from last week's low.
FINALS UPDATE:MasterChef (1.5) adjusted up and 8:30 Black-ish (0.6) down. On Syfy, Sharknado 3 (0.87) was down about a third from the second installment last year.
Two months into the summer, NBC finally unveiled the new season of Last Comic Standing (1.5), whose two-hour premiere took about a league average decline from last year's premiere (but skewed noticeably older, as it was actually up in total viewers). It led out of America's Got Talent (1.2), which is for now still doing clip shows on Wednesday.
Fox had yet another modest new unscripted entry called Home Free (0.9), which was not particularly different from recent episodes of Bullseye in the slot and two tenths below the 1.1 Bullseye premiere in May. Its lead-in MasterChef (1.4) was on the lower end.
CBS switched the struggling Extant (0.7) back to 9/8c, where it was up a tenth from last week's low but on par with the season average. As we said last summer when it was moved to 10/9c, the show is so skew-incompatible with Big Brother that a high-1's lead-in from BB is really no more helpful than a high-0's from a procedural repeat, and this was more evidence of that. Big Brother (1.8) was also a bit below average.
And ABC ran four episodes of Black-ish (0.7/0.7/0.8/0.8), which did somewhat worse than the usual comedy lineup (most noticeably at 9/8c compared with Modern Family). Modern Family had a couple repeats at 10/9c (0.8/0.8).
FINALS UPDATE: Fox's night got just a touch less disastrous as SYTYCD (0.8) and Knock Knock Live (0.6) each inched up in finals.
Fox Tuesday has been home to many a recent reality disaster, like last year's Riot/I Wanna Marry Harry, expensive fall flop Utopia, and this year's tiny-rated resurrection of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The latest to carry on the tradition is Knock Knock Live, as the Ryan Seacrest-hosted reality series opened with a very poor 1.7 million viewers and 0.5 demo. This was below its also weak lead-in, a So You Think You Can Dance special (0.7). This show got a pretty good amount of promotion during the MLB All-Star Game last week, so Fox is not happy.
NBC remained the runaway winner on Tuesday but was slightly on the downswing with America's Got Talent (2.3) and Hollywood Game Night (1.3). CBS' Zoo steadied at 1.0 in week four, but ABC's Extreme Weight Loss (0.6) was back at its previous low, surrendering last week's gains.
FINALS UPDATE:American Ninja Warrior (2.1) adjusted up to make it +0.3 week-to-week and tie a series high, but it took the tenth away from Running Wild (1.1).The Whispers (0.8) also adjusted down, putting it in 0.8 territory for the third time in four weeks.
With a two-tenth increase,American Ninja Warrior (2.0) pulled narrowly back ahead of The Bachelorette (1.9) in the race for Monday supremacy. The shows' respective lead-outs Running Wild (1.2) and The Whispers (0.9) were even in the prelims.
The CW was flat again at 8/7c with Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.5) but had decreases in the 9:00 hour with Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4) and Cedric's Barber Battle (0.2). CBS' repeats (0.8/0.9/0.7/0.7) were also slightly down for the most part.
Both of the usual Sunday leaders were down a bit in the prelims, keeping the penultimate Celebrity Family Feud (2.0) a little ahead of Big Brother (1.8). BattleBots (1.3) preliminarily got back a tenth for ABC at 9/8c, while the network's latest medical documentary series Save My Life: Boston Trauma (0.8) debuted at 10/9c. These numbers were similar to what NY Med had on Thursday last season.
NBC had a horrible pair of 0.3's for the one-hour return of Swedish import Welcome to Sweden at 8/7c. It ended last season on a similar 0.4/0.3 but had been at 0.7ish prior to that. This was much lower than the surrounding repeats of Hollywood Game Night (0.5) and American Ninja Warrior (0.8).
Might Sweden soon join the Thursday dramas on Saturday? Those shows made their Saturday debut this weekend, with Aquarius (0.3) taking the expected hit but Hannibal (0.4) pulling off a minor miracle by retaining its usual 0.4. (It's only a minor miracle since it's still just a 0.4...)
FX had a busy week of premieres, starting with Sunday's return of last year's freshman success The Strain. Its 0.78 was a new series low and 34% below last year's series premiere. But it's a cable world in which drops of that magnitude are pretty common, so it could very well still be in the upper echelon of cable dramas.
On Thursday, FX rolled out its newest comedy duo, the newbie Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll (0.35) and Married (0.26). This was over 40% behind last year's debuts of Married (0.65) and You're the Worst (0.44), putting Married itself down a ridiculous 60% year-to-year. The only silver lining is that the 0.65 was miles ahead of everything else later in the season, so the opportunity is there for better comparisons in the coming weeks.
It's hard for -14% year-to-year to be considered disappointing in today's landscape, but you could certainly say that about the Ray Donovan premiere (0.32). The 0.37 premiere last summer ended up being the season low, and it had major heat over the course of the season (all the way to double that, a 0.74, for the finale). So just getting back to 0.32 isn't great, and repeating last season's trajectory will be difficult.
Despite the growing lead-in, acclaimed Masters of Sex didn't have that kind of heat last summer. That meant a similarly disheartening drop from last season's finale only added up to 0.13, down a massive 60% from last summer's premiere.
FINALS UPDATE:Mistresses (0.9) adjusted up, while Astro Wives (0.9) and Dateline (1.0) down.
With NBC's dramas moved to Saturday, Thursday is no longer a five-way scripted night, but the move was certainly vindicated in ratings as a two-hour edition of Dateline (1.1) more than doubled the usual numbers from Aquarius and Hannibal. And Food Fighters (0.9) held onto last week's growth.
On CBS, Under the Dome (0.9) preliminarily made it three straight CBS dramas to drop two tenths this week, even with its lead-in Big Brother (2.0) up another notch.
The closest thing to a scripted "winner" was The Astronaut Wives Club (1.0), which surged by two tenths and nearly got back to its premiere rating from a month ago. Its companions Mistresses (0.8) and Rookie Blue (0.7) were even.
The penultimate Wayward Pines (0.9) hit a preliminary new low, while the CW's Beauty and the Beast (0.3) inched up but Dates was at a 0.1 in both half-hours this time.
Whenever AMC's phenomenon The Walking Dead finally fizzles, one thing that may seem striking is how rarely AMC actually tried new scripted programming directly after it. This may change, but as of now there's been just one try: the railroad drama Hell on Wheels. It opened on 11/6/11 with a fairly reasonable 4.36 million viewers and 1.9 demo rating, compared to its lead-in's 3.4. As the Dead hung in the low 3's, Hell on Wheels dropped to 1.5 and 1.2 the next two weeks, then held at 1.2 in week four following Dead's finale.
A Modest Audience Left Behind
Premiering Hell on Wheels a month into TWD's season meant they had some time to see what was left after it lost the huge lead-in. Its first weeks without Dead plummeted to 0.8 and 0.6, but it held at 0.6 or 0.7 for the rest of the season. It was enough for a renewal, and season two of Hell on Wheels debuted in the late summer. It had a string of 0.6's to open the year, then dropped into 0.5's and even one 0.4 for the second half.
A Successful Saturday Experiment
These were pretty marginal ratings for an AMC that was still rolling with Mad Men and Breaking Bad at the time, but AMC was able to find a way to make a third season work: it would spearhead an unconventional push into programming the low-viewed Saturday. It was in this move that Hell on Wheels would finally prove its true value for the network, as it was down just 19% to a mix of 0.4's and 0.5's on Saturday. It's hard to imagine almost any other series making a move to Saturday (or even Friday) and shedding only 19% of its same-day demo, but that's what happened here.
It dropped another 17% in season four, though even a -17% on the same night is not bad by recent cable standards. But it did get AMC to announce that season five (premiering tomorrow night, July 18) will be the last one. Hell on Wheels will probably go down as a bit of an isolated incident; the network didn't really try building around it after the Saturday move and will probably bail on the night again once it's over. But score one for oddball scheduling.
FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (2.0) adjusted up (eliminating its week-to-week slippage), as did MasterChef (1.5).
ABC took over ESPN's annual ESPY Awards this year, and the awards show (2.2) promptly doubled last year's 1.1 18-49 rating and more than tripled its total viewership (from 2.2 million last year all the way to 7.7 million this year). It grew from a 1.6 at 8:00 as high as a 2.6 in the 10:00 hour. The Caitlyn Jenner appearance probably didn't hurt, but these results were a big win for all parties, and the ABC arrangement should continue going forward.
The other Wednesday offerings dropped against the show, with Big Brother (1.9) and MasterChef (1.4) preliminarily giving back last week's upticks. Week three of CBS' Extant (0.6) also lost last week's growth, plus another tenth.
Congrats to Dima, who led or tied for the lead on each standings update this season and won season three by a relatively comfortable margin with a ridiculous 76% winrate. In the summer games, The Mysteries of Bob pulled ahead in a close race for the silver, while Magnum Dias held onto the last spot on the podium. The prize, as always, is... huge bragging rights!!!!!
A huge thanks to all participants, from one-timers to regulars, for three fun seasons!
Also, since nobody came up with any errors on the First Two Weeks standings, I'm just gonna link back to the preliminary standings post and note that A.D. The Bible Continues' cancellation makes SamECircle
the First Two Weeks champ! Congrats! (If anyone who didn't play enough games
to make the image in that post really cares about your final record, let
me know.)
FINALS UPDATE:Hollywood Game Night (1.4) dropped to a tenth behind last week's premiere(but still way ahead of its Thursday ratings from last summer). The MLB All-Star Game got a nice boost to 3.1, just a tenth below the last three years (and tying the 2011 low).
Fox will win Tuesday with the MLB All-Star Game, which averaged a preliminary 2.8 from 8:00 to 11:00. Last year it had a prelim 3.0 which adjusted up to 3.2. It's actually hit exactly a 3.2 each of the last three years, but will need a bigger adjustment to pull it off this time.
NBC's usually dominant Tuesday lineup held up extremely well against the game, as America's Got Talent (2.4) was actually up a tenth week-to-week and Hollywood Game Night (1.5) preliminarily matched last week's premiere.
ABC also saw a minor rebound from its comedy repeats (0.7/0.7) and Extreme Weight Loss (0.8), but CBS was not so lucky as Zoo (1.0) shed a couple tenths in week three.
FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (2.0) adjusted up and BattleBots (1.2) down. FX's The Strain (0.78) became the latest cable drama to open its new season on a new low, though this number would still put it in cable's upper echelon.
It was the first Sunday in a few weeks without big event competition, and ABC's Celebrity Family Feud (2.1) came roaring back from a couple big declines, up a half point to the best rating since the premiere. It was already the newbie success of the summer, but this really solidified it. In the 8/7c duel, this put it back ahead of CBS' Big Brother (1.9), which also rebounded from last week. Feud's lead-out BattleBots (1.3) also inched up, but it was a much less pronounced rally.
The Feud further proved its value as a three-hour repeat marathon averaged a 0.8 on Saturday, very good numbers by Saturday repeat standards. Friday saw the return of CW's Masters of Illusion (0.3), which matched last summer's premiere and last season's average.
FINALS UPDATE:American Ninja Warrior (1.8) went up, while Running Wild (1.2) and Cedric's Barber Battle (0.5) went down. This put Wildon par with the premiere of The Island.
NBC welcomed back sophomore Bear Grylls reality series Running Wild (1.3) at just a tenth below last year's series premiere, when it was an 8/7c lead-in to American Ninja Warrior rather than a 10/9c lead-out as it is now. Perhaps more importantly, this was ahead of all results from previous timeslot occupant The Island.
Usual reality leaders The Bachelorette (1.9) and American Ninja Warrior (1.7) were both slightly down from last week, but Bachelorette lead-out The Whispers (0.9) inched up from its low.
CW entries Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) and Cedric's Barber Battle (0.4) and most of the CBS repeats (led by 2 Broke Girls (1.0)) were up a bit from last week.
Person of Interest came on the CBS scene in one of the highest-expectation timeslots in primetime: the Thursday 9/8c perch occupied by former megahit CSI for over a decade. The premiere numbers were 13.33 million viewers and a 3.1 demo rating on 9/22/11, a barely passable rating considering it had a direct lead-in from The Big Bang Theory (which averaged a 5.1 demo at 8:30). But POI's lead-in was barely half that size when newbie How to Be a Gentleman premiered at 8:30 the next week. Person of Interest started to look much better by comparison, holding onto a 2.7 and 2.6 in the next two weeks. It would hold in that area for the rest of the fall, getting a bit of help as Gentleman gave way to Big Bang repeats and later Rules of Engagement.
Minor Growth on Thursday
The show picked up some steam in the always high-viewed winter months, surging to a new high 3.2 for its January return and getting as high as a 3.4 on 3/8/12. It held in the 3's almost every week until late April. Its final 122 Plus for the season was ahead of the last couple CSI seasons, though not by much. But it had a bad final month of the season and, even with a much improved lead-in from Two and a Half Men, was only able to put together a small sophomore bounce in its return to the hour in season two. It was up a bit year-to-year in the fall and down a bit in the second half of the season. Still, this was good for +15 points in Plus.
Tuesday Declines
Though POI was one of CBS' biggest shows in the 9:00 hour, it got moved to the long-troubled Tuesday 10/9c slot for season three. Though it had never truly broken out on Thursday, this move was probably less about POI and more about the network's need to accommodate a heavy comedy development slate. Though it had a pretty good lead-in from NCIS: Los Angeles on Tuesday, it was never the same again, shedding nearly a third of its demo audience in the move and another 22% the next season. Still, this was enough to make season three CBS' biggest historical-adjusted player on Tuesday at 10:00 in the A18-49+ era. Even the middling season four numbers have only been topped in that slot a handful of times.
Person of Interest got another downgrade for season five, no longer on the fall schedule and with a reduced episode order. It's not entirely about ratings; if so, the WB-owned drama certainly could've beaten out other fall schedule choices like The Amazing Race and CBS-owned Elementary. But like with the Tuesday move two years ago, it just didn't stick out quite enough to force the network's hand in its favor.
Final Season as Filler
Person of Interest returned to its familiar Tuesday 10/9c timeslot for most of the final season, but not until May 2016. It also threw in a few bonus Monday episodes. For the most part, it was a shell of its former self ratings-wise, but a reasonable enough piece of filler to help CBS navigate the early part of the summer. It fell as low as 0.8 for a Memorial Day airing on 5/30/16, but most of the season fell in the 0.9 to 1.0 area.
This was a light week for premieres, with my table only containing sophomore returnees Chasing Life (0.28) on ABC Family and Dominion (0.26) on Syfy. Both were down by roughly half from last week's summer premieres. (Last summer, Chasing Life had a better lead-in from Pretty Little Liars compared with this year's The Fosters. And Dominion now airs after Smackdown! on Syfy.)
To revisit last week's potentially promising newbies: AMC's Humans is not quite so promising anymore, plummeting 40% to a 0.32 in week two. But USA's Mr. Robot (0.59) packed on a few more tenths in week three, officially putting it ahead of all USA newbie data points in the last calendar year.
FINALS UPDATE:Under the Dome (1.1) joined the up-week-to-week club by adjusting up in finals, while Food Fighters went up to a somewhat respectable 0.9.
Thursday saw another set of rebounds from last week's viewing-depressed numbers. Thursday leader Big Brother (1.9), ABC's The Astronaut Wives Club (0.8) and Mistresses (0.8), and NBC's Food Fighters (0.8) and Aquarius (0.5) all had minor growth from last week's lows.
Not so lucky were the three 10/9c dramas, as Under the Dome (1.0), Rookie Blue (0.7) and Hannibal (0.4) were all even with last week. Fox's Boom! (0.7) and Wayward Pines (1.0) were also unable to bounce back.
The CW offered up the first two episodes of British import Dates, which matched Beauty and the Beast's 0.2 at 9/8c before dropping to a measly 0.1 at 9:30. Last year's similar-rated cheap comedies Backpackers and Seed lasted just two weeks, though the network may not be as quick with the hook this time since there are only nine episodes/five weeks.
FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (2.0) was up a tenth. Black-ish (0.9) was down a tenth.
Week-to-week growth was all over the place this Wednesday, with the most notable being a three-tenth surge to a new season high for Fox's MasterChef(1.7). Though it couldn't pull Bullseye (0.9) with it.
CBS saw Extant (0.8) up a tenth from last week's horrible premiere, and Big Brother (1.9) will likely adjust up to grow from last week (and from the same night last year).
NBC remained Wednesday's biggest winner by tying for the nightly lead at little to no expenditure with America's Got Talent and American Ninja Warrior recaps/repeats (1.3), while ABC had some comedy upticks from The Goldbergs (0.8), Modern Family (1.1) and Black-ish (1.0).
FINALS:Zoo (1.2) adjusted up to match last week's premiere. America's Got Talent (2.3) also got a tenth back.
After a middling premiere last week, the CBS drama Zoo had a solid hold in week two, dropping just a tenth in the demo to a 1.1 (and still skewing old with 7.5 million viewers). Again, it was significantly ahead of the surrounding NCIS franchise repeats (0.8 at 8/7c and 10/9c), and it may again tie or beat Under the Dome for top CBS drama this week.
Despite a slump from America's Got Talent (2.2), NBC had a good return from Hollywood Game Night (1.5). This tied the show's highest rating from its winter 2014 run and was well above any of the summer 2014 points (when admittedly it had a much worse timeslot leading off Thursday). This was about on par with the average of previous occupant I Can Do That.
But it just keeps getting worse for the originals on the other two networks. Extreme Weight Loss hit yet another new low with an almost unthinkable 0.5 in the 9:00 hour and 0.6 at 10:00, while Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (0.6) also fell to a new low.
FINALS:American Ninja Warrior (1.9) adjusted up, putting it even with last week. The Island (0.9) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4) adjusted down.
The CW was in full original business on Monday for the first time with a solid return from Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.5), tying the 0.5 it hit in almost every week of its first season run. Back on a weeknight, Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) was at the high end of its spring Friday ratings, though a hair behind the average from last summer. And even Cedric's Barber Battle (0.3) inched up, though it's still the big weak link here.
ABC had a minor uptick from Monday leader The Bachelorette (2.0), but The Whispers (0.8) was unable to come back from last week's low. Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (1.0) was barely up and NBC's American Ninja Warrior (1.8) and The Island (1.0) slightly down. CBS averaged a 0.7 with softer than usual repeats.
FINALS:Celebrity Family Feud (1.6), but so did Big Brother (1.7) to stay in the Sunday entertainment lead. The soccer match ended up with 22.32 million viewers and a 7.0, which was massively down from what Fox reported as the time zone-adjusted fast nationals (25.4 million). On Saturday, a couple of CBS' sitcom burnoffs adjusted down to 0.3 (The Millers at 8/7c and The McCarthys at 9/8c).
An enormous finals of the Women's World Cup overwhelmed the first half of Sunday primetime. Its preliminary 20.35 million total viewers and 6.4 A18-49 from 7:00-9:00 was more than double Tuesday's semifinal rating and more than triple the other Fox telecasts prior to the semifinal. It peaked with a whooping 7.1 in the 8:30 half hour, and postgame coverage in the 9:00 half-hour averaged a 4.7.
Opposite another huge piece of competition, ABC's Celebrity Family Feud (1.5) took another big step down in week three, and its lead-out BattleBots (1.2) shed two tenths. Big Brother (1.6) didn't do that well by its usual standard but pulled ahead of the Feud in the 8/7c hour, and it may still be a less than average decline from last year's second Sunday if it adjusts up. NBC's NASCAR telecast was mucked up by a rain delay.
July 4th will go down as one of the more interesting broadcast Saturdays of the summer, as annual two-hour special Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular averaged a 0.9 from 8:00 to 10:00 and another 0.9 for a 10:00 encore. This 0.9 was two tenths below last year's 1.1 on a Friday and just a tenth below the last Saturday telecast in 2009 (1.0) when it was just one hour. It'd actually be up vs. 2009 (1.1 vs. 1.0) if just comparing the 9:00 hours.
Also on Saturday, CBS began its three-week burnoff of leftover comedy episodes. Six years ago in this situation, NBC's Kings became the first big four original to hit a 0.2, but CBS didn't make a run at any all-time broadcast record lows this year with The Millers (0.4/0.3) and The McCarthys (0.4/0.4).
FINALS:Rookie Blue (0.7) adjusted up to top the previous week's premiere.
On CBS, Under the Dome returned to a 1.3 for two hours last week,
just barely dodging its series low from late last season. But it's
found new low territory this week with a 1.0. Meanwhile, Big Brother remains a year-to-year winner in the early weeks, with a modest drop for the 2.1 Thursday premiere and its 1.8 last night up from last year's 1.6 on the second Thursday. (Though airing on July 2 this year is probably a little more favorable than July 3 last year, since it's farther from the holiday.)
ABC's new all-scripted Thursday lineup premiered about as well as could've been reasonably expected, with The Astronaut Wives Club kicking off at a passable 1.1 and veteran Mistresses at 0.9 a couple weeks ago. But it's become more problematic since then, especially with Rookie Blue joining the mix at an ugly 0.6 last week (down nearly 50% year-to-year). Meanwhile, Astro Wives plummeted to 0.8 last week and 0.7 this week. And Mistresses was down to a new low 0.7 last week and again to 0.6 this week.
NBC added sophomore reality series Food Fighters (0.7) to its struggling scripted mix last night. This is a long way from its very low 1's last season airing on Tuesdays before America's Got Talent and a significant downgrade on recent Dateline ratings in the hour. In the last three weeks, renewed Aquarius (0.7/0.6/0.4) and cancelled Hannibal (0.5/0.4/0.4) have continued to move downward.
The scripted winner on Thursday remains Fox's Wayward Pines, resilient at 1.2 last week and still at 1.0 on a likely lower-viewed night this week. Its new game show lead-in Boom! (0.9/0.7) has not done much.
And the CW saw Beauty and the Beast inch down to 0.2 last week and stay there this week. It'll be joined by imported British comedy Dates starting next Thursday.
The A18-49+ theme posts combine all of the individual season info in
one specific category, allowing us to line up the last decade-plus of
collective Live+SD ratings declines on a relatively apples-to-apples
basis. In future seasons I will update these pages with the new season
numbers.
As we've said many times when looking at regular season real estate, the percentages stay surprisingly steady each year. The percentage of big four primetime real estate dedicated to original series has almost always been somewhere in the low sixties. Just a spike to 66% in 2014-15 made it one of the biggest departures in the era. But the summer has had much more flexibility. Once known as a wasteland of repeats, recent summers have seen original/repeat percentages changing much more drastically. Here's a look at broad programming categories in the summer.
