It's time for a journey through the ABC Wednesday schedule in 2018-19...
fall
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | The Goldbergs | Speechless | Modern Family | American Housewife | Designated Survivor | 112 | |
| 137 | 105 | 159 | 120 | 74 | |||
| 121 | 139 | ||||||
| 2018-19 | The Goldbergs | American Housewife | Modern Family | Single Parents | A Million Little Things | 110 (-1%) | |
| 129 (-6%) | 110 (+5%) | 145 (-9%) | 105 (-13%) | 86 (+16%) | |||
| 119 (-2%) | 125 (-10%) | ||||||
| VsAvg | +8% | -17% | +3% | -4% | |||
| Rank | 8/18 | 14/18 | 9/18 | 12/18 | |||
Another year of decline for the comedy block began, with the anchors both down modestly. American Housewife had a somewhat underwhelming move from 9:30 to 8:30, but was still a slight improvement on last year's Speechless, while 9:30 newbie Single Parents began a year of drastic declines vs. American Housewife. But the network was able to stay close to even in the fall thanks to improvement at 10/9c, where newbie A Million Little Things didn't necessarily break out but was basically even in raw vs. last fall's Designated Survivor.
winter
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | The Goldbergs | Speechless | Modern Family | American Housewife | Match Game | 103 | |
| 140 | 106 | 141 | 107 | 62 | |||
| 123 | 124 | ||||||
| 2018-19 | The Goldbergs | Schooled | Modern Family | Single Parents | Match Game | 92 (-11%) | |
| 126 (-10%) | 108 (+2%) | 126 (-11%) | 77 (-27%) | 56 (-8%) | |||
| 117 (-5%) | 102 (-18%) | ||||||
| VsAvg | +17% | -23% | -31% | -12% | |||
| Rank | 6/18 | 15/18 | 17/18 | 14/18 | |||
The Goldbergs spin-off Schooled took over at 8:30 in the winter, as American Housewife was off to lead things off on Tuesday. It helped keep the 8/7c hour pretty stable, but Single Parents lost a lot of steam after the new year and started declining precipitously at 9:30. Perennial 10/9c winter filler Match Game was down some.
spring
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | The Goldbergs | Alex, Inc. | Modern Family | American Housewife | Designated Survivor | 89 | |
| 121 | 74 | 128 | 98 | 56 | |||
| 97 | 113 | ||||||
| 2018-19 | The Goldbergs | Schooled | Modern Family | Single Parents | Whiskey Cavalier | 86 (-3%) | |
| 115 (-5%) | 96 (+30%) | 116 (-10%) | 77 (-22%) | 55 (0%) | |||
| 106 (+8%) | 96 (-15%) | ||||||
| VsAvg | +19% | -17% | -26% | -8% | |||
| Rank | 5/18 | 14/18 | 16/18 | 14/18 | |||
The value of Schooled became clearer in the spring, when it got compared against the year-ago bomb Alex, Inc. That helped nearly cancel out the continued declines in the 9/8c hour, while drama newbie Whiskey Cavalier was a wash vs. the dying days of Designated Survivor.
Rating the Ratings
| Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Goldbergs* | 1.0 | 1.18 | 1.4 | -19% | 124 | solid | -6% | detail |
| American Housewife | 0.7 | 0.91 | 1.2 | -25% | 96 | marginal | -13% | detail |
| Schooled | 0.8 | 0.97 | 1.3 | 102 | solid | detail | ||
| Modern Family* | 1.0 | 1.26 | 1.6 | -21% | 132 | hit | -9% | detail |
| Single Parents | 0.6 | 0.85 | 1.3 | 89 | marginal | detail | ||
| A Million Little Things | 0.7 | 0.92 | 1.1 | 97 | marginal | detail | ||
| Match Game | 0.4 | 0.54 | 0.6 | -18% | 56 | flop | -5% | detail |
| Whiskey Cavalier | 0.4 | 0.57 | 0.9 | 60 | flop | detail |
The Goldbergs: Ever-so-narrowly missed out on a fifth straight hit season, and continued the relatively slow rate of decline that began a year ago. Grade: C+.
American Housewife: Already updated.
Schooled: Somewhat similar to (maybe a little weaker than) season one of Speechless, which aired here two years ago. A deserving renewal, certainly compared with Single Parents and most of the mess on Tuesday, but it was a little inconsistent. Grade: B-.
Modern Family: The first new low in Plus since season one for Modern Family, and it continues to decline just a bit more drastically than The Goldbergs. I could go C+ here as well but since its 8:30 lead-in was improved all season long, I will narrowly lean toward Grade: C.
Single Parents: Man, those declines vs. the year-ago American Housewife are rougher than I remembered. Compared with the last four years of success in this timeslot (three of Black-ish and one of Housewife), Single Parents stacks up miserably. But I'd still say it was pretty competitive in a True sense with the stuff ABC aired here in the first half of Modern's run, like Cougar Town and Happy Endings (and was much stronger than the Super Fun Night/Mixology-type shows). It was not a slam dunk renewal but it had reasonably decent DVR interest. Grade: C.
A Million Little Things: I would probably give the fall run about a B (success but not a breakout, like The Rookie) and the low-1's winter run after Grey's Anatomy an A- or so (definitely a bigger bounce than I was expecting). That averages out to a Grade: B+.
Match Game: The actual number, comparing winter vs. winter, is more like -8% in Plus (the above comparison includes the summer 2018 eps). While the drops vs. winter 2018 aren't that bad considering the weaker lead-in, that's in part because winter 2018 got utterly demolished by the Olympics. Grade: C.
Whiskey Cavalier: It wouldn't have been the worst renewal I've ever seen, but ABC probably made the right decision. Grade: C-.
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.
Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for ABC Wednesday.
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