It's time for a journey through the Fox Sunday schedule in 2018-19...
fall
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | The Simpsons | Ghosted | Family Guy | The Last Man on Earth | 109 |
| 150 | 101 | 109 | 75 | ||
| 126 | 92 | ||||
| 2018-19 | The Simpsons | Bob's Burgers | Family Guy | Rel | 119 (+9%) |
| 160 (+7%) | 126 (+25%) | 120 (+10%) | 68 (-10%) | ||
| 143 (+14%) | 94 (+2%) | ||||
| VsAvg | +13% | -12% | +2% | ||
| Rank | 2/18 | 14/18 | 9/18 | ||
Fox moved Bob's Burgers to a permanent 8:30 berth and saw immediate major growth in the slot. The animated anchors were also improved in the fall, with Simpsons getting an improved NFL lead-in and Family Guy getting a lead-in upgrade of its own. But 9:30 sprung a leak, as live-action newbie Rel found itself a much weaker option than last year's The Last Man on Earth.
winter
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | The Simpsons (R) | Ghosted (R) | Family Guy (R) | LA to Vegas (R) | 40 |
| 48 | 34 | 44 | 35 | ||
| 41 | 39 | ||||
| 2018-19 | The Simpsons | Bob's Burgers | Family Guy | Rel | 106 (+163%) |
| 127 (+164%) | 108 (+214%) | 108 (+148%) | 80 (+128%) | ||
| 118 (+185%) | 94 (+140%) | ||||
| VsAvg | +10% | -3% | +4% | ||
| Rank | 5/18 | 13/18 | 10/18 | ||
This is a dumb set of y2y comparisons, as the originals qualified as the most frequent occupants this year but not last year. Thanks to a lighter event season with no Olympics, the animated shows aired about a half-dozen winter episodes, vs. just one or two hugely inflated NFL eps last year.
spring
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | The Simpsons | Brooklyn Nine-Nine | Family Guy | The Last Man on Earth | 76 |
| 83 | 76 | 85 | 58 | ||
| 80 | 72 | ||||
| 2018-19 | The Simpsons | Bob's Burgers | Family Guy | Family Guy (R) | 76 (+1%) |
| 76 (-9%) | 82 (+8%) | 84 (-2%) | 64 (+11%) | ||
| 79 (-1%) | 74 (+3%) | ||||
| VsAvg | -13% | -19% | -16% | ||
| Rank | 16/18 | 16/18 | 15/18 | ||
Fox didn't bother with originals at 9:30 in the spring, and repeats of Family Guy assuredly did better than Rel would have. Of some note here was the fact that Bob's Burgers built on its Simpsons lead-in on a rather regular basis. (It was most noticeable in the finale week when Simpsons got completely tanked by a Paradise Hotel repeat, but had happened several times before that as well.)
Rating the Ratings
| Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Simpsons* | 0.5 | 1.20 | 3.2 | -16% | 126 | hit | -3% | detail |
| Bob's Burgers* | 0.6 | 1.04 | 2.1 | +3% | 109 | solid | +19% | detail |
| Family Guy* | 0.7 | 1.02 | 1.7 | -9% | 108 | solid | +5% | detail |
| Rel | 0.5 | 0.77 | 1.9 | 81 | marginal | detail |
The Simpsons: This was actually kind of a soft year by Simpsons standards. It managed to drop in Plus even though its NFL lead-ins were a little stronger, and it aired a lot more episodes in February/early March and fewer in April thanks to no Olympics. I always lean heavily on the spring comparison, which is the most reliably apples-to-apples, and it tells a worse story than the season trend as a whole. Grade: C.
Bob's Burgers: It was given a significant timeslot upgrade by getting to air at 8:30 all season, and it did what it was supposed to if not moreso, crushing its previous Plus record. This might deserve an A- but I'm giving it a B+ more as a nod to the growth in the previous two seasons, which I think were even more impressive because they were less explained by the timeslot. Adding up all three years, there's a strong case to be made that this show is breaking through on some level. Grade: B+.
Family Guy: Some of the same Simpsons caveats apply here, plus it had a much improved lead-in from Bob's all year. Don't think it was quite as good a year as the raw Plusy2y suggests, but it still held up better than The Simpsons. Grade: B-.
Rel: There were a couple other near-F's on Fox this year in The Gifted and Proven Innocent, but this is the first time I will pull the trigger, even though it had much higher raw ratings than those shows thanks to the NFL. It was a major step down from the already cancel-worthy The Last Man on Earth, and it even had sub-50% retention on a few occasions, which is rather scary for a comedy airing after another comedy. Grade: F.
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 Fox Sunday.
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