The War of 18-49, iZombie

A Lot of Flash Lead-ins

In season one, The Flash was one of those situations where you can tell it did a lot better in the ratings than the network was expecting; for the first half of its explosive season one, its biggest-in-CW-history lead-in was used on tenth-year drama Supernatural. At midseason, the network finally got a chance to launch something after The Flash, and it was another comic book-inspired series called iZombie. On its March 17, 2015 premiere night, iZombie averaged 2.29 million viewers and a 0.8 demo rating, leading out of a 1.3 from The Flash. That was basically in line with what Supernatural had been doing in its last Tuesday episodes.

iZombie held up pretty well from there, pulling a 0.7 for the next three weeks, inching back up to 0.8 briefly, then getting a bunch of 0.6's (now at less than 50% retention of The Flash) in late April and May. That made it a little weaker than Supernatural had been, but it was still good enough for a renewal. It came back in the fall after The Flash, but beyond the premiere (0.7 out of a 1.4 lead-in) its days of doing half as well as The Flash were over. Though the retention was bad, iZombie consistently proved itself whenever it was not alongside The Flash; it held onto a 0.5 leading out of a 0.6 MADtv special in January and then another couple 0.5's when it led off for the season finale in April.

Off the Fall Schedule

iZombie survived again, but missed out on the fall schedule this time... only to ultimately end up right back on Tuesday in the spring with that unhelpful Flash lead-in again. At least this time only five of the 13 episodes actually got an original Flash lead-in, but the show got a 0.3 almost every week of the season: those with original Flash lead-ins, those with repeat lead-ins in April, and even those that aired deep into June when the regular season was long over. It got renewed again, and as usual this looked like a bad decision based on the post-Flash episodes and a good decision based on all the other episodes.

In season four, the CW finally shook its obsession with putting iZombie after The Flash, though it still got a high-end lead-in in Supergirl on Monday. It went from 0.3's in season three to a mix of 0.2's and 0.3's in season four, keeping it in pretty marginal territory. The show seemed to be a late call for renewal, competing against some of the pilots in development and not getting renewed till three days after all the network's other renew/cancel decisions were made. But it pulled through, for what the network confirmed will be a final season. That final season aired on Thursday at 8/7c at the very end of the regular season and well into the summer.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Spring 2015	Tuesday 9:00	0.65		0.5	0.8	detail
2	2015-16		Tuesday 9:00	0.55	-16%	0.4	0.7	detail	C+
3	Spring 2017		Tuesday 9:00	0.32	-41%	0.2	0.4	detail	C-
4	Spring 2018	Monday 9:00	0.24	-24%	0.2	0.3	detail	C
5	Summer 2019	Thursday 8:00	0.19	-21%	0.2	0.2	detail	C

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now19	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Spring 2015	39	solid(CW)	0.37		30	48	48	30
2	2015-16	38	solid(CW)	0.36	-3%	28	51	51	35
3	Spring 2017	26	marginal(CW)	0.25	-30%	20	32	32	25
4	Spring 2018	22	flop	0.21	-15%	19	30	30	21
5	Summer 2019	20	flop	0.19	-9%	17	23	23	21
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	29	marginal(CW)

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.