It's time for a journey through the ABC Thursday schedule in 2019-20...
NOTE: In addition to classic A18-49+, Breakdown posts in 2019-20 also use CVPlus, comparing spring ratings against a higher league average due to viewership inflation from COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. See here for more.
fall
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | Grey's Anatomy | Station 19 | How to Get Away with Murder | 120 | |||
| 175 | 107 | 77 | |||||
| 2019-20 | Grey's Anatomy | A Million Little Things | How to Get Away with Murder | 112 (-7%) | |||
| 169 (-3%) | 104 (-3%) | 61 (-20%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +69% | -21% | -38% | +1% | |||
| Rank | 4/19 | 13/19 | 16/19 | 12/19 | |||
With four returning drama options for Thursday, ABC brought winter occupant A Million Little Things back to the 9/8c hour and held Station 19 for midseason. This arrangement ended up looking pretty close to what Grey's/Station had a year ago, but the nightly average was dragged down by continued rough declines for How to Get Away with Murder at 10/9c.
winter
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | Grey's Anatomy | A Million Little Things | How to Get Away with Murder | 116 | |||
| 171 | 113 | 63 | |||||
| 2019-20 | Station 19 | Grey's Anatomy | A Million Little Things | 121 (+5%) | |||
| 132 (-23%) | 151 (+33%) | 80 (+27%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +47% | +26% | -4% | +24% | |||
| Rank | 4/19 | 7/19 | 11/19 | 5/19 | |||
ABC mixed things up quite a bit at midseason. Usual fall/winter staple HTGAWM was held off until spring, A Million Little Things went to the 10/9c hour, and Grey's Anatomy returned to its longtime 9/8c slot with Station 19 leading off the night. Once again, there was not much difference across the first two hours (while Station benefited at 8/7c, Station+Grey's was about equal to Grey's+AMLT) but this time the 10/9c hour was the difference in a good way, with A Million Little Things easily outrating the winter episodes of Murder from a year ago.
spring
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | Grey's Anatomy | Station 19 | For the People | 98 | |||
| 149 | 95 | 51 | |||||
| 2019-20 | Station 19 | Grey's Anatomy | How to Get Away with Murder | 113 (+15%) | |||
| 125 (-16%) | 149 (+56%) | 65 (+26%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +49% | +25% | -26% | +17% | |||
| Rank | 6/19 | 5/19 | 13/19 | 6/19 | |||
The Station/Grey's flip became an even clearer win during COVID times in the spring, as Station 19's year-to-year growth at 8/7c exploded and Grey's was basically a wash with its year-ago post-DST performance. With a Grey's lead-in, the final run of How to Get Away with Murder had some juice in its own right, bouncing significantly above its late fall ratings (not to mention the year-ago flop For the People).
Rating the Ratings
| Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Station 19 | 0.8 | 1.05 | 1.3 | +10% | 128 | hit | +28% | detail |
| Grey's Anatomy* | 1.0 | 1.28 | 1.5 | -18% | 156 | big hit | -5% | detail |
| A Million Little Things | 0.6 | 0.71 | 1.0 | -23% | 87 | marginal | -10% | detail |
| How to Get Away with Murder* | 0.4 | 0.52 | 0.7 | -21% | 64 | flop | -9% | detail |
Station 19: There are definitely major reasons you can point to for this growth. Moving to 8/7c was a timeslot upgrade, and it was able to air every single week at the height of the pandemic in a way that few scripted series could; it looks several points lower in CVPlus and even that may not sufficiently capture the effect. Generally, the fall/winter comparisons were hinting that the first two hours were "Truly" more like even in Plus. All that being said, I think it still did better than most would've predicted even under those circumstances. It was a win; the question is how much of one. I could maybe see going a notch higher, but in light of the relatively soft DVR numbers I will go with merely a Grade: B+.
Grey's Anatomy: This ended up working out swimmingly for all parties involved, because Station 19 overperformed enough at 8/7c that it ended up making the 9/8c hour not that much of a downgrade for Grey's. Grade: B.
A Million Little Things: It does not get as much forgiveness as some sophomores because it was looking promising in the second half of its freshman year. In light of that, it might even seem a touch disappointing that it didn't make the second-year leap to another level as some were hoping for in the fall. But it was still a DVR beast, and the delayed growth leaped back up when it was downgraded back to 10/9c. Grade: C+.
How to Get Away with Murder: This was a sneaky example of an artifical pandemic boost, because its DVR gains went way down for those last six episodes that appeared to be such a godsend in the Live+SD numbers. I give it some credit for what it did in the spring, but can't paper over the fact that most of the season (and the DVR numbers) point to a show still on a rather steep decline. 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.
Previous Breakdowns for ABC Thursday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19
Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for ABC Thursday.
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