The War of 18-49, Good Girls

A Passable Voice Lead-out

NBC's drama Good Girls began its life where so many other dramas did on NBC during the 2010s: on Monday at 10/9c after The Voice. It began OK, with a 1.5 demo leading out of a 2.8 Voice, took a reasonable drop to 1.3 in week two and then a somewhat unsettling plunge to 1.0 in week three. But it held close to that the rest of the way, mostly posting 0.9's as The Voice fell into the high-1's in the spring. That was certainly not a breakout level with a Voice lead-in, but the network had done worse in the recent past (including with the previous fall occupant The Brave and the previous spring's Taken). So Good Girls got its season two renewal, but like the show renewed out of this hour in the previous season (Timeless), it was shipped off to one of the toughest timeslots on televison: Sunday at 10/9c.

Surviving in Sunday Exile

The Timeless comparison remained apt on Sunday, as the two shows had very similar ratings in spring 2018 vs. spring 2019. Good Girls was maybe a teeny bit stronger, but also had more lead-in support with World of Dance. It usually hit 0.5's and 0.6's, while WoD was at 0.7's and 0.8's. But where Timeless was cancelled (later revived only for a wrap-up movie), Good Girls kept the Sunday 10/9c slot for the next two seasons.

The show's survival probably did not have much to do with first-run ratings, but Good Girls at least avoided getting much worse in those next two seasons. It had significantly weaker lead-ins going forward, mostly airing after weak drama Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, but it managed to take only a modest decline in Plus in season three and then actually improved back to near season two levels for much of season four. The season four average only ended up dipping because of the final seven episodes, which were mostly low 0.3's on Thursday in early summer 2021. If it had survived this long, the Sunday performance in 2021 suggested it might keep surviving. More likely, it was a show being kept alive by external factors, and those same factors finally turned against it, dooming it after four seasons.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Winter Spring 2018	Monday 10:00	1.02		0.9	1.5	detail	B-
2	Spring 2019	Sunday 10:00	0.55	-46%	0.4	0.7	detail	C-
3	Spring 2020		Sunday 10:00	0.42	-23%	0.3	0.5	detail	B-
4	2021	Sun 10:00, Thu 9:00	0.31	-26%	0.2	0.4	detail

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now21	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Winter Spring 2018	93	marginal	0.60		79	139	139	80
2	Spring 2019	58	flop	0.38	-37%	45	77	77	56
3	Spring 2020	52	flop	0.33	-11%	41	62	46	50
4	2021	49	flop	0.31	-6%	33	65	65	47
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	63	flop
CAREER:		CAREER:	252	blip

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.