The Breakdown: Fox Wednesday in 2019-20 (The Masked Singer, Almost Family, LEGO Masters)

It's time for a journey through the Fox Wednesday 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	Avg
2018-19	Empire		Empire	Star		Star	143
	2018-19	162		162	123			123	143
2019-20	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	Almost Family		Almost Family	168 (+18%)
	2019-20	261 (+61%)		260.777579830547	74 (-39%)			74 (-39%)	167.616241290838
VsAvg	+132%		1.32198421074419	-37%		-0.366041246882819	+46%
Rank	1/19		1/19	16/19		16/19	3/19

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2018-19	Empire		Empire	Star		Star	143
	2018-19	162		162	123			123	143
2019-20	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	Almost Family		Almost Family	158 (+11%)
	2019-20	245 (+51%)		245.456075260759	70 (-43%)			70 (-43%)	157.768258927566
VsAvg	+120%		1.20136658409308	-40%		-0.402116246568178	+38%
Rank	1/19		1/19	16/19		16/19	4/19

A winter-only megahit from the 2018-19 season became a nearly full-season megahit in 2019-20, as The Masked Singer aired a nearly three-month fall season and blew away the late-stage Empire ratings. It was enough to produce robust nightly growth even in the face of a truly epic disaster at 9/8c in new drama Almost Family.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2018-19	24 Hours to Hell and Back		24 Hours to Hell and Back	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	192
	2018-19	112		112	271			271	192
2019-20	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	LEGO Masters		LEGO Masters	195 (+2%)
	2019-20	244 (+118%)		244.26260789619	145 (-46%)			145 (-46%)	194.735900774988
VsAvg	+21%		0.211903508884226	-26%		-0.260735144703872	-2%
Rank	7/19		7/19	12/19		12/19	10/19

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2018-19	24 Hours to Hell and Back		24 Hours to Hell and Back	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	192
	2018-19	112		112	271			271	192
2019-20	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	LEGO Masters		LEGO Masters	183 (-4%)
	2019-20	230 (+105%)		229.911409969047	137 (-50%)			137 (-50%)	183.294552958338
VsAvg	+14%		0.144991252716157	-30%		-0.302574965742639	-8%
Rank	7/19		7/19	13/19		13/19	12/19

The Masked Singer didn't get much of a winter break, as it was back right after the Super Bowl (following three disastrous weeks of Flirty Dancing in January). Fox got even stronger with the introduction of an actual competent lead-out for TMS; reality newbie LEGO Masters was able to more than cancel out any drop-off between the two Masked Singer seasons.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2018-19	Empire		Empire	Star		Star	111
	2018-19	121		121	101			101	111
2019-20	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	LEGO Masters		LEGO Masters	174 (+57%)
	2019-20	225 (+86%)		225.230143947253	123 (+22%)			123 (+22%)	174.349953727906
VsAvg	+74%		0.744195505564265	-31%		-0.31192327057577	+13%
Rank	2/19		2/19	13/19		13/19	7/19

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2018-19	Empire		Empire	Star		Star	111
	2018-19	121		121	101			101	111
2019-20	The Masked Singer		The Masked Singer	LEGO Masters		LEGO Masters	198 (+78%)
	2019-20	256 (+110%)		255.556783007792	140 (+39%)			140 (+39%)	197.825710677056
VsAvg	+95%		0.954883267585125	-22%		-0.223064062307335	+27%
Rank	2/19		2/19	12/19		12/19	3/19

A Masked Singer-led lineup finally got its chance at enormous year-to-year growth when the TMS-LEGO Masters tandem got compared against the last days of the Empire-Star combo. The pandemic viewing inflation took a high-1's/1.0ish combo back into the low-2's/low-1's. The last month of the season saw Fox fill the 9/8c hour with aftershow The Masked Singer: After the Mask, which started better than late-season LEGO Masters results (1.41) but quickly fell behind (1.13 -> 0.89 -> 0.82).

Rating the Ratings

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
The Masked Singer Fall	1.6	2.00	2.5		244	megahit		detail
The Masked Singer Spring	1.8	2.03	2.4	-21%	248	megahit	-9%	detail
Almost Family	0.2	0.44	0.7		54	flop		detail
LEGO Masters	0.9	1.13	1.6		138	hit		detail

The Masked Singer Fall: This grade is a little more of a subjective process, almost like grading a new show, because these seasons were stretched out over much longer periods of time and there were two of them. They were weaker than season one, but I just feel like it overachieved to air this much and still have this much potency by the end of the season. Maybe someday it will get consistent scheduling and we'll be able to use the conventional year-to-year metrics... Grade: A-.

The Masked Singer Spring: See above. Grade: A-.

Almost Family: Impressively disastrous. Doesn't warrant a lot of consideration. Grade: F.

LEGO Masters: I didn't come into this post thinking that I would give LEGO Masters a grade in the A range, but in a brutal year for newbies on the scripted side, a lot of things about this unscripted rookie were impressive. Despite the huge lead-in, it brought a lot of its own audience to the table; it had really substantial DVRing for a reality show, skewed noticeably more male than The Masked Singer and also a fair amount younger. Most of its episodes had a median age less than 50, which basically nothing on the big four other than Fox cartoons can pull off nowadays. The only thing that gives me pause is that I didn't love the trajectory it was on before the pandemic. The viewership inflations in the last month may have rescued it on that front, but I will still slightly lean toward a Grade: A-.

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 Fox Wednesday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19

Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for Fox Wednesday.