The Breakdown: CW Thursday in 2018-19 (Supernatural, Legacies, In the Dark)

It's time for a journey through the CW Thursday schedule in 2018-19...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2017-18	Supernatural		Supernatural	Arrow		Arrow	49
	2017-18	54		54	43			43	49
2018-19	Supernatural		Supernatural	Legacies		Legacies	40 (-19%)
	2018-19	45 (-18%)		44.5805366156026	35 (-20%)			35 (-20%)	39.5802962644369
VsAvg	-10%		-0.1040809445864	-8%		-0.07821016494081	-9%
Rank	13/18		13/18	12/18		12/18	13/18

CW Thursday was met with a problem the netlet has rarely had to deal with: significant ratings declines from Supernatural. At 9/8c came the newbie Legacies, a spin-off of recently ended The Originals, which took about the same decline vs. the year-ago Arrow as Supernatural did vs. itself.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2017-18	Supernatural		Supernatural	Arrow		Arrow	45
	2017-18	51		51	38			38	45
2018-19	Supernatural		Supernatural	Legacies		Legacies	37 (-17%)
	2018-19	44 (-15%)		43.5519348268839	31 (-20%)			31 (-20%)	37.1173293190472
VsAvg	-9%		-0.086162200019044	-13%		-0.128771273640735	-10%
Rank	13/18		13/18	14/18		14/18	13/18

Pretty close to an identical story in the winter, though Supernatural held up a teeny bit better in the winter than it did last year.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2017-18	Supernatural		Supernatural	Arrow		Arrow	38
	2017-18	45		45	32			32	38
2018-19	Supernatural		Supernatural	In the Dark		In the Dark	28 (-26%)
	2018-19	38 (-14%)		38.3954839280971	18 (-42%)			18 (-42%)	28.2890956471139
VsAvg	-7%		-0.0696497539938212	-39%		-0.391301188796085	-20%
Rank	13/18		13/18	17/18		17/18	15/18

Legacies got a bit less than a full season, and was replaced in the spring with a weaker newbie, the dramedy In the Dark. It pulled weak 0.2's for most of its regular season run (plus one high 0.1), not even in the vicinity of the year-ago Arrow.

Rating the Ratings

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
Supernatural*	0.3	0.40	0.5	-27%	42	solid(CW)	-16%	detail
Legacies	0.2	0.31	0.4		32	marginal(CW)		detail
In the Dark	0.1	0.16	0.2		17	flop		detail

Supernatural: I get that it's still the CDub's second-biggest series, but out of respect for Supernatural's decade-plus of remarkable stability, I have to give it a bad grade for a drop of this size with no particular timeslot excuse. It was SPN's lowest season in Plus since it aired on Friday at the beginning of this decade, and its lowest on a weeknight since season three. And the CW finally announced the end to this seemingly immortal series. Grade: C-.

Legacies: Maybe I'd have changed my mind if it had aired into April and May like Charmed, but I'd give it the edge over Charmed as the strongest show in a mediocre but unoffensive crop of CW newbies. Grade: B-.

In the Dark: Staying away from 0.1 for most of its regular season run means it doesn't go down in the annals with Life Sentence or No Tomorrow. It may even have a small edge over last year's fall newbies (Dynasty & Valor). But it still shouldn't have snagged a renewal if not for the CBS Studios quota. Grade: D+.

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 CW Thursday.