The Breakdown: The CW Wednesday in 2015-16 (Arrow, Supernatural)

It's time for a journey through the CW Wednesday schedule in 2015-16...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2014-15	Arrow		Arrow	The 100		The 100	46
	2014-15	60		60	32			32	46
2015-16	Arrow		Arrow	Supernatural		Supernatural	61 (+33%)
	2015-16	72 (+19%)		71.704898381736	51 (+60%)			51 (+60%)	61.4068544652101
VsAvg	+27%		0.274610484608187	+37%		0.36587464211242	+31%
Rank	1/15		1/15	3/15		3/15	2/15

Arrow's massive growth really started with the first Flash crossover late last fall, and it was still ongoing for most of the fall episodes this season. We saw on Tuesday that iZombie was a big decliner relative to Supernatural, but the network made up for it on Wednesday as Supernatural destroyed the year-ago The 100 numbers.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2014-15	Arrow		Arrow	The 100		The 100	49
	2014-15	67		67	30			30	49
2015-16	Arrow		Arrow	Supernatural		Supernatural	59 (+21%)
	2015-16	68 (+0%)		67.5093990083365	50 (+69%)			50 (+69%)	58.9276957445649
VsAvg	+58%		0.575234594004884	+75%		0.751610558428024	+65%
Rank	1/15		1/15	1/15		1/15	1/15

The winter is the first time that you can see that the full season of Flash bump has come to an end, as Arrow was virtually even in Plus by this point.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2014-15	Arrow		Arrow	Supernatural		Supernatural	47
	2014-15	56		56	39			39	47
2015-16	Arrow		Arrow	Supernatural		Supernatural	49 (+4%)
	2015-16	54 (-3%)		54.064730561761	45 (+14%)			45 (+14%)	49.3447937666866
VsAvg	+9%		0.0860910103383589	+42%		0.421733009197669	+22%
Rank	6/15		6/15	4/15		4/15	4/15

Spring was the only apples-to-apples comparison for Supernatural, and it was a really strong one; it very nearly matched the raw numbers of its rather underwhelming Wednesday run a year ago.

The Shows

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
Arrow*	0.7	0.94	1.4	-8%	64	hit(CW)	+7%	detail
Supernatural*	0.6	0.71	0.9	-11%	49	hit(CW)	+2%	detail

Arrow: As I said in the War post, it had exactly one full season of raw growth, starting with the Flash crossover last season, and then was even to a bit down in Plus from there, at a level that makes it one of the CW's strongest dramas historically. Grade: B+.

Supernatural: This is sorta the reverse of the iZombie conundrum; I didn't go too crazy penalizing that lead-in independent show for having a huge lead-in, and I don't want to go too crazy lauding this one for having a reduced lead-in. Still, to go up in Plus in the move from Flash to Arrow is really impressive. It's probably headed for another lead-in downgrade with Legends of Tomorrow on Thursday. I was tempted to go A- just to set it apart from Arrow, but I think it's more of a strong Grade: B+.

The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.

Check back tomorrow for this day's new Schedules Plus! Till then, you can refer to the old version.