FINALS UPDATE:Celebrity Family Feud (R) (0.9), Big Brother (1.9) and Bob's Burgers (R) (0.4) adjusted up while Candy Crush (0.5) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Celebrity Family Feud had the night off, with a repeat (0.8) filling in at 8/7c. Later in the night, its lead-out Steve Harvey's Funderdome (0.8) managed to match last week, but The $100,000 Pyramid (0.7) dropped a tick at 10/9c.
On CBS, Candy Crush (0.6) made a minimal comeback after last week's embarrassing 0.5, but was still at only a third of its Big Brother (1.8) lead-in.
Dexter's Final Lead-out At the height of TV's anti-hero drama craze, Showtime came on the scene with Liev Schrieber's drama Ray Donovan, and it had one of the best lead-ins it could ask for: the final season of long-running Showtime staple Dexter. On premiere night, Ray Donovan didn't look that impressive, with a 0.47 demo leading out of Dexter's 1.19. But Ray took a big step up to 0.59 in week two, and held somewhere in the 0.5's for most of the rest of the season, with much-improved retention out of Dexter. It stumbled a bit after its Labor Day hiatus, falling to 0.40 and 0.42 in its first two September episodes, but it had done enough to try to fill the void left by the departing Dexter. Showtime's Summertime Anchor Ray Donovan's most impressive season was undoubtedly the second, when it left the big Dexter lead-in behind and started leading off the Showtime original lineup, and still managed to grow in raw numbers relative to season one. That growth was far from a sure thing at the beginning, as it opened season two on a new low 0.37. But it inched up to 0.40 in week two, grew to 0.52 in week three and hung around 0.5 for awhile, and then hit some 0.6's and low 0.7's before its 0.74 season finale. It took a reasonable 15% season three drop, then a much steeper 30% one in season four, but it has always maintained that odd quality of growing after a soft premiere.
While Ray Donovan has done well for Showtime, it has not exactly been a launch-pad. That thrilling season two growth came alongside another Showtime sophomore, Masters of Sex, which started the season OK but tapered off a bit and looked much less impressive compared with the growth Donovan was pulling off. The Masters of Sex pairing returned in season three to even uglier results for Masters, and then bomb comedy Roadies became the 10:00 lead-out in season four. The network isn't really even trying with season five (starting this Sunday), which will mostly lead into the final run of low-rated veteran comedy Episodes. But the network can't be blamed for giving its higher-priority lead-outs to the stronger Shameless and Homeland. Ray Donovan's task is mostly to keep the lights on in a tougher part of the calendar.
FINALS UPDATE:Beat Shazam (0.9) and Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.4) adjusted up while The Big Bang Theory (R) (1.0) and Zoo (0.5) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
It was another rough night for ABC's Thursday lineup, as Battle of the Network Stars (0.6) fell to a new low and surrounding programs Boy Band (0.5) and The Gong Show (0.6) tied last week's lows.
On NBC, The Wall (1.0) was down a notch but its surroundings Hollywood Game Night (0.9) and The Night Shift (0.8) were both up. It'd be a new season high for Night Shift if it holds in finals.
CBS' Big Brother nearly doubled the next-highest broadcast program with a 1.9, and will hope for finals help to reach its first 2.0 of the season. Zoo (0.6) preliminarily rebounded from last week's low.
Fox's Love Connection (0.6) gave back last week's uptick, leading out of steady Beat Shazam (0.8), while the CW's Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.3) inched down.
This is an interactive chart allowing you to compare seasonal A18-49+ ratings (through 2016-17) for up to three different shows. For now, it only includes the 151 broadcast scripted shows with at least a 200 Career A18-49+, the same shows included on the Career A18-49+ Sortable Table.
This is a new and improved version of the Career A18-49+ sortable table, with A18-49+ numbers that can be used to evaluate the full run of a series. This includes Career A18-49+,
the sum of each individual season's historical-adjusted A18-49 rating,
as well as how many times each show went over some of the A18-49+ label thresholds. This year's edition also introduces the famous checkbox filters you may have also seen on the Daily Year-to-Date Rankings.
A few quick notes about what's in here:
This includes all 151 broadcast scripted series with a career A18-49+ total of 200 or higher. Unlike in previous years, that means a handful of netlet shows are in the mix (though of course they can be filtered out easily). The 45 "hit for CW" and 35 "solid for CW" labels are applied to the "hit" and "solid" counts for those shows.
This number will be incomplete for shows that aired before 2001, but to
help account for this, the number of missing seasons is included in
parentheses under the "Seasons" column. You can also filter in or out the shows that have missing seasons, as well as the shows still "active" (and thus still adding to their counts).
FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (1.8) adjusted up while The Goldbergs (R) (0.5), Modern Family (R) (0.5), The Goldbergs (R) (0.5), The Carmichael Show (0.6) and The Carmichael Show (R) (0.5) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Little Big Shots: Forever Young finished out its first season with a second straight 0.8, unable to bounce back from last week's drop. At 9/8c, The Carmichael Show made it five weeks in a row at 0.7.
It was a down night for all the other broadcast originals, including the third episode of Salvation (0.6) on CBS and its lead-in Big Brother (1.7). Fox's MasterChef (1.0) and The F Word (0.6) each gave back last week's upticks.
FINALS UPDATE:Somewhere Between (0.3), World of Dance (1.6), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (R) (0.2), The Flash (R) (0.2) and Legends of Tomorrow (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
ABC's Somewhere Between made its regular timeslot debut with a paltry 0.4 rating, a lower number than the network has been getting with 10/9c comedy repeats in recent weeks.
NBC's America's Got Talent (2.6) and World of Dance (1.7) continued to roll, both up a tenth from last week.
These numbers are current through Monday, July 24.
WHAT MATTERS:
Game of Thrones (4.33) took an 8% drop in its second week back on the air, exactly mimicking the week two drop from a year ago. So that kept its year-to-year trends as a blistering +18% in raw numbers.
FINALS UPDATE:Somewhere Between (0.5) and Life in Pieces (R) (0.5) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
The 10/9c hour saw a duel between drama series premieres: NBC's Midnight, Texas and ABC's Somewhere Between. Midnight was the closest thing to a winner, with a 0.9 premiere that was one of the highest ratings for a scripted series this summer on broadcast, while Somewhere Between was the latest in a long line of terrible performances for ABC in the Monday 10/9c hour (tying where Still Star-Crossed opened almost two months ago). The former will stay on Monday going forward while Somewhere moves to its regular Tuesday 10/9c slot tonight.
NBC had a NASCAR race overrunning deep into primetime (1.1/1.2), and it led into Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly (0.5) and what looks like a rough finale for Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge (0.5) on a special night.
On CBS, the massive rejection of Candy Crush continued with another extremely ugly drop to just a 0.5 in week three. It's now shed over half of its pretty decent premiere audience in just two episodes, despite its Big Brother lead-in (1.8) staying resilient.
And after some disappointing drops last week, there were no rebounds to be had on ABC with Celebrity Family Feud (1.1), Steve Harvey's Funderdome (0.8) and The $100,000 Pyramid (0.8).
The CW's post-apocalyptic drama The 100 took over in the Wednesday 9/8c timeslot after Arrow, following a disappointing fall run from fellow newbie The Tomorrow People. Though it was over five months later, on 3/19/2014, The 100 managed to start at the same rating as TTP (0.9) and actually built on its Arrow lead-in (0.8) on premiere night. Building on Arrow would not continue, as The 100 fell to 0.7 in week two. From there, it took a fairly similar path to The Tomorrow People ratings-wise, settling with a blend of 0.6's and 0.5's. But those ratings were much more impressive in the spring as Arrow was much lower, and it particularly stood out with a couple 0.6's after the end of the regular season with repeat lead-ins.
The 100 returned in the fall after Arrow, for what still stands as the series' only season to air in the fall. It managed the same mix of 0.5's and 0.6's at which had settled late in season one. It was still good enough for renewal, but not good enough to return in the fall as space was getting tighter.
Back to Midseason Replacement
But the midseason berth ended up being a boon for The 100 in season three, as it got to lead out of the strong early episodes of DC Comics newbie Legends of Tomorrow. The season opened on 1/21/2016 with a 0.7, its highest raw rating since the second episode of the series, and it even posted a few more 0.6's in the first half of the season before ultimately settling at a consistent 0.4 in the second half.
Season four was back to Wednesday, where it again inherited the post-Arrow slot after a fall newbie disappointed. It held onto its usual 0.4 for the first five weeks, usually a couple tenths behind its struggling Arrow lead-in, and that was good enough to score it another renewal. Right after the renewal, it fell to 0.3 and stayed there for the rest of the season. Like The Originals and iZombie, it came off the bench again in 2017-18, and was relegated to mostly summer airings in seasons five and six.
FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (1.9) adjusted up while The Big Bang Theory (R) (1.1), Life in Pieces (R) (0.9), Zoo (0.5) and Hollywood Game Night (0.8) adjusted down.
FINALS UPDATE:The Goldbergs (R) (0.7) and Big Brother (1.9) adjusted up.
WHAT MATTERS:
After a poor start last week, it didn't get any worse for new drama Salvation (0.7) in week two; it matched the premiere rating while lead-in Big Brother (1.8) was preliminarily down a tick.
It was an up night for Fox's MasterChef (1.1) and The F Word (0.7), but a rough one for Little Big Shots: Forever Young (0.8) on NBC. The Carmichael Show managed to hang at 0.7 despite Forever Young's new low.
This is a compilation of all the broadcast networks' Schedules Plus averages on Wednesday, providing a look at how the network race has evolved over time on this night. These averages come directly from the night's Schedules Plus posts, which are linked in the table headers below. As with the individual Schedules Plus, it is important to keep in mind that these are not averages of every single thing that aired on the network, but just the most frequent occupant in each timeslot in each section of the year. See the Schedules Plus primer for more. The 'Avg' column and the charts cover only ratings for the big four networks.
These numbers are current through Monday, July 17.
WHAT MATTERS:
Game of Thrones took over the summer with a whooping 4.71 for its season seven premiere. You have to add up the next ten highest-rated shows on this table combined before passing a 4.71.
This marks the 20th different episode of Thrones (including the series premiere) to hit a new series high in raw numbers. Out of everything in my records, nothing else has pulled that off. The current broadcast record-holder is House, which hit 17 new series highs. Thrones has hit a raw series high in each of its seven seasons to date, including at least three new highs in each of the first four seasons. Last year's series high didn't come till the finale, so maybe this can be another season with multiple highs.
After a rough month, ABC's The Bachelorette (1.6) swung back up to its best number in four weeks, and pulled ahead of American Ninja Warrior (1.4/1.5) in the first two hours.
But NBC remained king at 10/9c with steady Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge (1.0), as ABC had one last reality repeat (0.6). Both networks will shift to dramas starting next week when NBC's Midnight, Texas and ABC's Somewhere Between premiere.
The night's other originals were all down a tick, including Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (0.7) and Superhuman (0.5) as well as the CW's Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.2).
It was a tough second week for CBS' Candy Crush (0.8), taking a three-tenths dip that left it in a tie with ABC's also underwhelming Steve Harvey's Funderdome (0.8). Though it pulled less than half of its Big Brother lead-in (1.8), that still means better retention than the Wednesday/Thursday dramas...
ABC's game shows Celebrity Family Feud (1.1), Funderdome (0.8) and The $100,000 Pyramid (0.8) were all down to new season lows.
It was presumably HBO's night with the return of Game of Thrones at 9/8c. More to come...
In March 2013, Mark Burnett's event series The Bible became one of the biggest stories of the ratings season, opening with a 3.27 demo and never falling below 2.5 in its five-week run. But in the 10:00 slot after The Bible was over, a quieter but longer-lasting story was brewing in the lead-out drama Vikings. It opened with a 1.97 on Bible's premiere night,took a bit hit to 1.31 in week two, but then bounced back to 1.52 and stayed in the low ones on the last two Bible nights. But it didn't get a chance to really shine until The Bible was off the air; it dropped into 1.15 in the first week, but made an impressive rally to 1.25 -> 1.40 -> 1.31 for the final three weeks.
The next two years saw a little air come out of the Vikings balloon, with a 21% drop in season two and another 28% down in season three. However, those aren't huge drops relative to the plight of basic cable as a whole, and Vikings was able to stay pretty high on the list of cable dramas. Season Four Resiliency
In season four, split into two chunks across 2016 and 2017, Vikings started to show signs of improvement relative to the field. It was down just 17% in the first half of season four, the lowest year-to-year drop in series history, and the second half of the season (premiering over ten months after the first half) went just 3% more below that.
This has been a rough age for basic cable, and many a channel is getting out of the scripted game entirely. History seems like the kind of network that might consider that, but Vikings is stemming the tide for now. It doesn't hurt that it launched another decent performer in its winter 2017 run, the naval drama Six. Though it isn't on a Vikings level at present, its hold in the second half of the season (without Vikings) was reminiscent of how well Vikings held up after losing The Bible.
FINALS UPDATE:America's Got Talent (R) (1.3) adjusted up while Life in Pieces (R) (0.7) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
On NBC, a one-hour America's Got Talent recap special (1.2) filled in at 8/7c, significantly improving on usual occupant Hollywood Game Night and bumping The Wall (1.2) up noticeably in the process. It didn't do anything for The Night Shift (0.7) at 10/9c, though.
Fox's game shows were back from a week off with recently renewed Beat Shazam (0.9) even but Love Connection (0.6) dipping to a new low (which tied last week's repeat).
CBS' Big Brother (1.8) stayed on top of the broadcast world but gave back a tenth from last week, and the 8/7c comedy repeats (1.0/0.8) also lost their big surges.
ABC's Boy Band (0.6) and The Gong Show (0.7) were steady but low, surrounding Battle of the Network Stars (0.7) which will hope for another finals uptick to avoid a new low.
And the CW jumped into the Thursday original game with a solid return for Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.4), leading into acquired British drama Hooten and the Lady (0.2).
FINALS UPDATE:Little Big Shots: Forever Young (1.0) adjusted up.
WHAT MATTERS:
CBS' latest attempt at a post-Big Brother drama was Salvation, which skewed very old and managed just a 0.7 demo leading out of a 1.9 from BB. That's a bit better than what we've seen from Zoo thus far this season, and exactly the same number at which failed American Gothic opened last summer. But it's a far cry from where Candy Crush premiered on Sunday.
ABC's comedy repeats stepped aside in favor of the ESPY Awards (1.4), in their third year on ABC. Last year the event had a 1.6 prelim which adjusted up to a 1.7 final.
Fox's MasterChef (1.0) and The F Word (0.6) were both even after taking last week off, while NBC's Little Big Shots: Forever Young dipped back to 0.9 and The Carmichael Show held at 0.7.
FINALS UPDATE:America's Got Talent (2.5) and MLB All-Star Game (2.3) adjusted up.
WHAT MATTERS:
The MLB All-Star Game returned to Fox with a 2.1/2.2/2.2 for its preliminary hours. It looks like the game may be headed for a slight rebound after a big drop last year (when it had 1.8/2.1/2.2 preliminary hours).
But the MLB competition did little to faze America's Got Talent (2.2/2.7) and World of Dance (1.7), which were even to slightly down after a week off.
These numbers are current through Monday, July 10.
WHAT MATTERS:
FX's new drama Snowfall launched to a 0.58 demo on Wednesday, with a very young and male skew. Among the network's 2017 launches, that put it just a bit behind Legion (0.69) and Taboo (0.63) but a little ahead of Feud: Bette and Joan (0.52). Kinda crazy how close all those premieres were!
FINALS UPDATE:America's Funniest Home Videos (R) (0.9) and Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly (0.5) adjusted up.
WHAT MATTERS:
CBS had a decent opening from new game show Candy Crush (1.1) leading out of Big Brother (1.8). (But Crush may be subject to adjustments since it started at 9:02.)
ABC's game shows were all back and on the downswing after taking last week off. Celebrity Family Feud (1.3) remained easily the standout, even in its first head-to-head with Big Brother, while Steve Harvey's Funderdome (0.9) and The $100,000 Pyramid (0.9) both shed two tenths from two weeks ago.
And NBC's Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly (0.4) and Fox's American Grit (0.4) stayed really low.
Productive Anchor Seasons The CW came into the 2013-14 season with some very depressing recent performance on pretty much every night other than Wednesday and Thursday. But the network tried to open a third solid night with its new The Vampire Diaries spin-off and old reliable Supernatural. The Originals previewed on Thursday 10/3/13, with a 1.0 demo leading out of a 1.2 lead-in from The Vampire Diaries, then got a 0.9 for its first Tuesday airing five days later. But The Originals showed surprising resilience from that point forward, jumping up to a 1.1 the next week. It jumped around that range for the rest of the fall and winter, not falling below that 0.9 timeslot premiere until late in February.
The stretch run in season one was not good to Originals, which fell as low as a couple 0.6's late in the season. That set the show up for a big drop in its move to Monday for season two, hanging in the 0.6 to 0.7 range for the first half of the season before once again taking a hit in the spring, to a bunch of 0.5's.
Joining with the Mothership
After two years of declines, the network decided to pull a Private Practice and unite The Originals with the show that spawned it. But with The Vampire Diaries also deep into its decline phase, this did little to stem the tide; The Originals usually got 0.4 alongside TVD in the fall, which was about the same rate of decline it was seeing in season two.The pair moved to Friday at midseason and actually held up fairly well; Originals hit a bunch of its familiar Thursday 0.4's early in the winter. But more 0.3's mixed in late in the season.
Coming Off the Bench
Both vampire shows survived again into 2016-17, but not together; instead, they shared a timeslot, with the announced final season of TVD leading off on Friday through early March and Originals taking over from there. Considering Originals was airing in the much tougher part of the calendar, the show stayed surprisingly close to The Vampire Diaries' performance earlier in the season; it usually hit 0.3 but mixed in a few 0.4's as well, even including one after the end of the regular season. It's always hard to tell on the CW, but it's nice to think this first-run performance actually had some impact in saving The Originals from what could have been a cleaning house for the vampire empire. Instead, The Originals will be back for a fifth season, but once again held for midseason or later.
FINALS UPDATE:Battle of the Network Stars (0.8), Hollywood Game Night (0.9) and The Wall (1.0) adjusted up.
WHAT MATTERS:
An incredible second week for Big Brother continued with a big Thursday uptick (1.9), marking the show's second new season high in as many days. It even lifted the surrounding comedy repeats (1.3/1.0) and lowly Zoo (0.6).
But it was an equally brutal week on ABC, where Battle of the Network Stars (0.7) and The Gong Show (0.7) each collapsed from their reasonable numbers a week ago. That's left them looking not that much better than Boy Band, which managed to inch up to 0.6 in week three.
NBC's Hollywood Game Night (0.8) and The Wall (0.9) each inched down in their third week together, while The Night Shift (0.7) held onto last week's uptick. They came against repeats of the Fox game shows (0.7/0.6).
8:00 regulars Big Brother (1.8) and Little Big Shots: Forever Young (1.0) were both up a tenth, as Fox's Gordon Ramsay shows (0.7/0.6) went into repeats for some reason.
The Carmichael Show (0.7) matched last week, tying ABC's Modern Family (0.7) on an up night for both it and The Goldbergs (0.7). At 10/9c, To Tell the Truth finished out its brief stint on Wednesday with a third straight 0.6.
Here's a look at the different types of programming in 2016-17. This
post will combine the broad programming categories (originals, repeats,
sports, specials, movies) as well as the sub-categories within the
original series realm (comedies, dramas, reality, news).
FINALS UPDATE:Fresh Off the Boat (R) (0.3), Black-ish (R) (0.3), Black-ish (R) (0.3), American Housewife (R) (0.3), The Middle (R) (0.3), NCIS: New Orleans (R) (0.4), The Mick (R) (0.2) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (R) (0.1) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
NBC's Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular (0.9/1.6), with its typically ridiculous jump from the first hour to the last, was down two or three tenths from last year's 1.5. Just like most other Tuesdays in the summer, NBC got very little resistance from the other broadcasters on the 4th of July. (After a brief return to CBS last year, the Boston Pops fireworks show moved to Bloomberg TV on cable this year.)
FINALS UPDATE:The Bachelorette (R) (0.5) and American Ninja Warrior (1.1) adjusted up.
WHAT MATTERS:
NBC's American Ninja Warrior (1.1) and Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge (0.8) decided to brave the long holiday weekend and were down at least 20% from last week under much lower-viewing conditions. Fox's Superhuman (0.4) also took a big hit as it ran through an original, though its lead-in So Think You Can Dance (0.4) was in repeats.
This is a compilation of all the broadcast networks' Schedules Plus averages on Tuesday, providing a look at how the network race has evolved over time on this night. These averages come directly from the night's Schedules Plus posts, which are linked in the table headers below. As with the individual Schedules Plus, it is important to keep in mind that these are not averages of every single thing that aired on the network, but just the most frequent occupant in each timeslot in each section of the year. See the Schedules Plus primer for more. The 'Avg' column and the charts cover only ratings for the big four networks.
In fall 2013, Fox made yet another of its many attempts this decade at a two-hour Tuesday comedy block, and with two new series in the 8:00 hour: Seth MacFarlane's Dads and Michael Schur's Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Fox smartly opened these shows in the pre-premiere week, getting a jump on the considerable competition to come, and both had surprisingly solid sampling. Dads opened on a 2.2 demo, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine built considerably from there with 6.17 million viewers and a 2.6 demo. The arrival of the competition was brutal, and both comedies were down almost a third to a respective 1.5 and 1.8 in week two, before taking another hit to 1.3/1.4 in week three. But they bounced back a bit from there, and Nine-Nine's mid-1's in particular stood out as a considerable improvement on the previous season's 8:00 hour.
Later in the season, Nine-Nine joined New Girl for a comedy hour after the Super Bowl (its 6.9 demo rating on that night is not included in the averages below) and moved to the 9:30 slot after New Girl on a regular basis. Ultimately, the Super Bowl and new timeslot didn't do anything for the show (it hit a few new lows after the move) but it had still done enough for a renewal.
The Sunday Bounce
In season two, Brooklyn Nine-Nine became one of several new comedies from the 2013-14 class to get a significant timeslot upgrade, moving to Sunday at 8:30 right after the often football-boosted The Simpsons. The move did very good things for Nine-Nine's ratings, peaking with a 3.0 on the night of an NFL playoff game in January. And as the NFL went away and the late spring arrived, Nine-Nine remained an impressive retainer of The Simpsons' audience. Nine-Nine returned to Sunday for the fall of 2015, but at midseason it was tapped for yet another attempt at a two-hour Tuesday comedy block.
Back to Marginal Territory on Tuesday
Brooklyn Nine-Nine got off to an OK start in its return to Tuesday; the 1.2 demo on 1/5/16 was about in line with some numbers it had posted in the fall on non-NFL nights. But it bled significantly from that point, going fractional in mid-February and as low as a couple 0.8's in March. It was yet another two-hour comedy effort from Fox that was really derailed by weak newbies, this time Grandfathered and The Grinder.
The two-hour comedy idea never resurfaced in 2016-17, and Fox got through the season by sharing the 8:00 hour among its last vestiges, veterans Brooklyn Nine-Nine and New Girl (plus respectable midseason newbie The Mick). It was a tougher situation for Brooklyn, which sat out the winter and had to air deep into the spring, and it seemed like cancellation could be in the cards when Nine-Nine fell as low as a 0.6. But it's made it through again, and joined The Mick in the fall for another single hour of Tuesday comedy.
It really struggled in that berth, particularly early in the fall, but Fox decided to rescue Brooklyn with a return to the Sunday territory where it had once thrived. Though it responded with a significant ratings uptick, even posting full retention of The Simpsons on a few occasions, a transitioning Fox still decided to pull the plug. But it didn't take long for Brooklyn owner NBC to step in, rescuing the show for a 13-episode midseason order in 2018-19.
