Cablemetrics: Power, Ballers, Vice Principals, The Night Of, Mr. Robot

These numbers are current through Wednesday, July 20.

WHAT MATTERS:

• This week's big story is the incredible rise of the Starz drama Power. In its first ever Sunday episode, it smashed through cable's recent 1.0 glass ceiling, opening season three with a 1.10 and absolutely dominating a head-to-head three-way with dramas on HBO and Showtime. For Power, it's a new series high by more than four tenths, and 80% above its last premiere. This is pretty crazy considering season two was already about 80% bigger than season one. It's quite a growth story from 0.3ish ratings as late as midway through its first season.
• Power often draws comparisons to the Fox megahit Empire. One of the many secrets to Empire's success is its huge appeal within both genders, and you can kinda see that in play with Power as well. The show skews much more female than most of the staple cable dramas, but also a lot more male than potentially comparable dramas like ABC's TGIT soaps. (Or maybe the cable equivalent would be the OWN dramas.) 

• It was deservedly overshadowed by Starz, but HBO had a really good night of its own on Sunday, highlighted by the return of comedy Ballers (0.79) at 10/9c. This number was basically in line with what Ballers did after the premiere last season (though it premiered with a 1.10). That's a really good thing considering 1) most of those s1 episodes led out of 1.0+ True Detective episodes a year ago; and 2) of course, the fact that 20%+ y2y declines are rampant in the cable realm.
• Ballers helped launch Vice Principals (0.55) at 10:30, which was solid if a bit below last year's premiere of The Brink (0.66 with a 1.10 Ballers lead-in). And it even seemed to kick some audience backwards into the 9/8c hour, where the miniseries The Night Of (0.52) doubled its premiere demo.

• Against all this premium cable action, Showtime's Ray Donovan (0.27) got left out in the cold somewhat, taking a rare dip all the way to below its season premiere rating. However, Preacher (0.63) had another uptick on AMC; it had a disappointing dip to 0.43 in week four, but has now been up in four straight episodes since then... 

• The news was not so rosy on USA Network, where Mr. Robot was down more than a tenth to a 0.30 in week two. Last season, it actually grew from 0.46 to 0.55 in week two... so we're talking about the year-to-year deficit going from -7% to -45% in one week. I'm still not sold that it'll actually be a bubble show, as it has a lot of things going for it outside of same-day ratings. But I would say we've fallen out of "USA is happy" territory with this drop, for whatever that is worth.

FULL TABLE:

Name	Net	Ep	A18-49	Last	Seas	Avg	y2y	Proj	ProjPlus	Skew	Male
Power	STAR	1	1.10		3	1.10	+80%	1.02	70	62%	44%
Ballers	HBO	1	0.79		2	0.79	-28%	0.61	41	63%	64%
The Haves and the Have Nots	OWN	16	0.80	+7%	3	0.78	-12%	0.82	56	37%	31%
Preacher	AMC	8	0.63	+15%	1	0.64		0.64	44	47%	58%
Greenleaf	OWN	7	0.64	+23%	1	0.61		0.61	42	36%	28%
Pretty Little Liars	FREE	5	0.57	-5%	7	0.59	-32%	0.60	41	60%	23%
Rizzoli and Isles	TNT	7	0.52	-9%	7	0.57	-18%	0.57	39	18%	32%
Vice Principals	HBO	1	0.55		1	0.55		0.41	28	60%	64%
Suits	USA	2	0.49	-8%	6	0.51	-15%	0.52	35	37%	48%
The Last Ship	TNT	6	0.52	-16%	3	0.49	-32%	0.49	34	29%	58%
Wrecked	TBS	7	0.43	+7%	1	0.48		0.46	31	46%	49%
Major Crimes	TNT	5	0.50	+6%	5	0.47	-16%	0.50	34	16%	32%
Queen of the South	USA	4	0.42	+11%	1	0.43		0.40	27	42%	50%
Animal Kingdom	TNT	7	0.42	0%	1	0.43		0.42	29	44%	49%
Girl Meets World	DISN	7	0.34	-3%	3	0.41	-21%	0.42	28	28%
The Fosters	FREE	4	0.33	-3%	4	0.38	-15%	0.41	28	54%	25%
Mr. Robot	USA	2	0.30	-30%	2	0.36	-28%	0.35	24	50%	58%
The Night Of	HBO	2	0.52	+100%	1	0.36		0.43	29	47%	59%
Ray Donovan	SHOW	4	0.27	-23%	4	0.31	-27%	0.32		32%	56%
Devious Maids	LIFE	7	0.27	-21%	4	0.31	-37%	0.29	20	41%	27%
Angie Tribeca	TBS	7	0.25	-4%	1	0.26	-28%	0.24	17	55%	59%
Baby Daddy	FREE	18	0.25	-4%	5	0.26	-28%	0.27	18	59%	27%
Young and Hungry	FREE	18	0.23	-15%	3	0.26	-27%	0.25	17	61%	27%
Murder in the First	TNT	4	0.20	-31%	3	0.25	-21%	0.25	17	23%	45%
Dead of Summer	FREE	4	0.22	0%	1	0.22		0.21	14	54%
Tyrant	FX	3	0.19	0%	3	0.22	-30%	0.26	18	33%	58%
UnREAL	LIFE	7	0.20	-5%	2	0.21	-23%	0.21	14	52%	27%
Hell on Wheels	AMC	13	0.19	-32%	5	0.21	-31%	0.21	14	17%	56%
Killjoys	SYFY	3	0.18	-14%	2	0.21	-9%	0.21	14	38%
Motive	USA	16	0.20	0%	3	0.21		0.21	14	33%
Scream	MTV	8	0.16	-20%	2	0.20	-43%	0.19	13	63%
SexDrugsRockRoll	FX	3	0.20	+54%	2	0.18	-40%	0.16	11	49%	60%
Odd Mom Out	BRAV	7	0.27	+59%	2	0.18	-41%	0.17	12	45%
Dark Matter	SYFY	3	0.15	-6%	2	0.17	-30%	0.17	12	30%
Feed the Beast	AMC	8	0.13	+30%	1	0.14		0.14	9	38%	60%
12 Monkeys	SYFY	13	0.12	-20%	2	0.12	-52%	0.12	8	37%
Roadies	SHOW	4	0.08	-20%	1	0.09		0.08	6	35%

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