It's time for a journey through the CW Friday 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 | Charmed | Dynasty | 18 | ||
| 22 | 14 | ||||
| 2020-21 | Masters of Illusion | Masters of Illusion (R) | World's Funniest Animals | World's Funniest Animals (R) | 13 (-26%) |
| 12 (-46%) | 13 (-43%) | 14 (+3%) | 14 (+2%) | ||
| 12 (-45%) | 14 (+3%) | ||||
| VsAvg | -54% | -45% | -50% | ||
| Rank | 20/20 | 18/20 | 20/20 | ||
In a fall that was full of summer-esque filler for the CW, Friday night kept getting the Friday summer-esque filler. World's Funniest Animals had its series premiere right at the start of the fall, while Masters was the continuation of a summer season that had premiered in May.
winter
Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | Charmed | Dynasty | 16 | ||
| 21 | 11 | ||||
| 2020-21 | Whose Line Is It Anyway? | Whose Line Is It Anyway? (R) | Penn and Teller: Fool Us | 20 (+24%) | |
| 24 (+13%) | 22 (+2%) | 18 (+54%) | |||
| 23 (+8%) | |||||
| VsAvg | -16% | -31% | -23% | ||
| Rank | 13/20 | 14/20 | 15/20 | ||
The winter saw the return of most of the scripted regulars, so Friday picked up the high-end summer filler and improved compared with last year's scripted options.
spring
Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | Charmed | Dynasty | 13 | ||
| 17 | 9 | ||||
| 2020-21 | Charmed | Dynasty | 11 (-14%) | ||
| 14 (-17%) | 8 (-9%) | ||||
| VsAvg | -40% | -63% | -51% | ||
| Rank | 18/20 | 20/20 | 20/20 | ||
The scripted options returned deep into the spring, with Charmed coming off a Sunday run earlier in the year while Dynasty had its season premiere in May.
Rating the Ratings
Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| World's Funniest Animals | 0.1 | 0.10 | 0.1 | 16 | flop | |||
| Masters of Illusion | 0.1 | 0.11 | 0.2 | -31% | 14 | flop | -20% | detail |
| Charmed | 0.1 | 0.09 | 0.1 | -49% | 13 | flop | -35% | detail |
| Dynasty | 0.0 | 0.05 | 0.1 | -50% | 7 | flop | -36% | detail |
World's Funniest Animals: Not the worst filler in the world, as the WFA hour often rose a touch from the Masters of Illusion hour. It's taking on the CW's foray into Saturday night programming this fall. Grade: C.
Masters of Illusion: The Plus in this table uses the 2019-20 league average since it aired mostly in summer 2020. This was worse than usual for this show (most of its run has been a 17ish Plus), but it also ran a lot farther into the next season than usual. Grade: C.
Charmed: Yet another show with a horrible season number that falls in that -15-20% range for the apples-to-apples comparison. Most of these shows have gotten C- but I'll be a little harsher here since it looked rather rough on Sunday in the winter (as we'll see in the Sunday post, it was down close to 50% from the year-ago Supergirl episodes). Grade: D+.
Dynasty: A borderline Blutarsky pretty much all season long, occasionally ekeing out a 0.07 and sometimes dropping to 0.03. Maybe this is a bit harsh since it was only -9% in the spring but these numbers are so small that the percentage change is basically meaningless anyway. It does not have any interest in the linear ratings. 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.
Previous Breakdowns for CW Friday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20
Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for CW Friday.
