It's time for a journey through the Fox Wednesday schedule in 2020-21...
NOTE: In addition to classic A18-49+, Breakdown posts with 2019-20 ratings 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. Also see here for information on the 2020-21 league average.
fall
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | The Masked Singer | Almost Family | 167 | ||
| 260 | 74 | ||||
| 2020-21 | The Masked Singer | I Can See Your Voice | 206 (+23%) | ||
| 251 (-3%) | 161 (+117%) | ||||
| VsAvg | +112% | +36% | +74% | ||
| Rank | 2/20 | 4/20 | 2/20 | ||
The Masked Singer did not miss a single beat when it came back on Premiere Wednesday, dominating a barren landscape where much of the normal competition had not come back yet. Just as importantly, Fox majorly got its act together in the 9/8c hour with a TMS-adjacent series called I Can See Your Voice, producing triple digit gains in that hour.
winter
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | The Masked Singer | LEGO Masters | 194 | ||
| 243 | 145 | ||||
| 2020-21 | The Masked Dancer | Name That Tune | 95 (-51%) | ||
| 97 (-60%) | 94 (-35%) | ||||
| VsAvg | -51% | -51% | -51% | ||
| Rank | 16/20 | 19/20 | 20/20 | ||
The winter saw Masked Singer spin-off The Masked Dancer take to the stage, but it was a pale imitation of the mothership, hitting roughly league average ratings at 8/7c. A revival of Name That Tune basically matched TMD's ratings at 9/8c.
spring
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | The Masked Singer | LEGO Masters | 176 | ||
| 227 | 125 | ||||
| 2020-21 | The Masked Singer | Game of Talents | 140 (-21%) | ||
| 186 (-18%) | 93 (-25%) | ||||
| VsAvg | +41% | -47% | -9% | ||
| Rank | 5/20 | 18/20 | 14/20 | ||
Fox went back to the unscripted well after The Masked Singer's spring season, but Game of Talents was a significant step down from both last year's LEGO Masters and the fall's I Can See Your Voice.
Rating the Ratings
| Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masked Singer Fall | 1.3 | 1.78 | 3.5 | -11% | 275 | megahit | +13% | detail |
| The Masked Dancer | 0.5 | 0.72 | 1.4 | 112 | solid | detail | ||
| The Masked Singer Spring | 1.1 | 1.21 | 1.4 | -40% | 188 | big hit | -24% | detail |
| I Can See Your Voice | 0.8 | 1.09 | 1.8 | 169 | big hit | detail | ||
| Name That Tune | 0.5 | 0.59 | 0.7 | 92 | marginal | detail | ||
| Game of Talents | 0.2 | 0.58 | 0.7 | 89 | marginal | detail |
The Masked Singer Fall: The +13% is misleading here, in part because the average includes a 3.5 for a post-NFL episode on Thanksgiving, and in part because the fall 2019 season was hurt by the league average inflation. But as you can see in the fall chart, it was still basically steady and at very high levels. Grade: B.
The Masked Dancer: Another average inflated by a football episode, as you can see in the winter portion of the chart. League average-ish ratings are not bad, but for a Masked franchise it's certainly nothing special considering how many things have popped for Fox in the winter. Grade: C+.
The Masked Singer Spring: Last spring's lockdown eps were probably inflated even beyond what CVPlus is capable of describing, so I don't want to be too harsh just yet. But even if you just compare the fall and spring ratings, it's clear there was some erosion in the franchise here. It is not common among these seasonal franchises for a spring season to lose more than a quarter of its ratings from the fall season. Grade: C.
I Can See Your Voice: It obviously benefits from the absolutely atrocious baseline set by Almost Family a year ago, but from a raw ratings perspective I think you can argue it was even more impressive than season one of LEGO Masters. I will not give it quite as good a grade since it was a little more attached at the hip to The Masked Singer, while LEGO clearly brought a lot of its own audience. But this brought the kind of ratings you'd be happy to have after a TMS. Grade: B+.
Name That Tune: Gonna be kinder to this one than Masked Dancer, as it had roughly full retention most weeks and (while it is a revival) didn't have such a direct connection to the huge franchise. Grade: B-.
Game of Talents: It wasn't Almost Family bad, but it still looked quite mediocre even when it was airing after TMS (worse retention than the late-season LEGO episodes even after a weaker lead-in), and then bombed out in a special Tuesday airing in the last week of the season. 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 Fox Wednesday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20
Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for Fox Wednesday.
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