The Breakdown: ABC Wednesday in 2023-24 (The Conners, Abbott Elementary, Not Dead Yet and more!)

It's time for a journey through the ABC Wednesday schedule in 2023-24...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2022-23	The Conners	The Goldbergs	Abbott Elementary	Home Economics	Big Sky		Big Sky	88
	2022-23	123	90	116	82	59			59	88
	2022-23									123	90	116	82	59	59	88
	2022-23	107		107	99				99	59	59	88
2023-24	Celebrity Jeopardy!		Celebrity Jeopardy!	Celebrity Wheel of Fortune		Celebrity Wheel of Fortune	The $100,000 Pyramid		The $100,000 Pyramid	90 (+2%)
	2023-24	110 (+4%)		110.401740937097	96 (-4%)		96 (-4%)	64 (+9%)			64 (+9%)	90.0141369131103
VsAvg	+1%		0.00804682638105762	-31%		-0.306432513535449	-20%		-0.197422613768863	-17%
Rank	12/25		12/25	21/25		21/25	19/25		19/25	19/25

Celebrity editions of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune returned to keep the lights on for fall Wednesdays, where they were stronger than on Sunday last fall (thanks to frequently having syndicated versions of themselves as local programming lead-ins) but still held back by lots of unscripted competition from Survivor and The Masked Singer. Jeopardy! improved markedly for its final four episodes on Tuesdays in January.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2022-23	The Conners	The Goldbergs	Abbott Elementary	Not Dead Yet	A Million Little Things		A Million Little Things	82
	2022-23	116	82	118	74	51			51	82
	2022-23									116	82	118	74	51	51	82
	2022-23	99		99	96				96	51	51	82
2023-24	The Conners	Not Dead Yet	Abbott Elementary	Celebrity Family Feud (R)	Judge Steve Harvey		Judge Steve Harvey	69 (-15%)
	2023-24	101 (-13%)	72 (-13%)	110 (-7%)	52 (-30%)	41 (-20%)			41 (-20%)	69.4769576586904
	2023-24									100.811138773463	71.8197001719444	110.167466685772	51.8331781057458	41 (-20%)	41 (-20%)	69.4769576586904
	2023-24	86 (-13%)		86.3154194727038	81 (-16%)				81 (-16%)	41 (-20%)	41 (-20%)	69.4769576586904
VsAvg	-13%		-0.129242755578007	-34%		-0.343911289073558	-46%		-0.461958292711918	-30%
Rank	19/25		19/25	23/25		23/25	25/25		25/25	25/25

ABC's three returning comedies took over in early February, and while Abbott had an impressive first couple weeks, it quickly became clear this lineup was not on the same level as last year across the board.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2022-23	The Conners	The Goldbergs	Abbott Elementary	Not Dead Yet	A Million Little Things		A Million Little Things	79
	2022-23	108	78	118	64	51			51	79
	2022-23									108	78	118	64	51	51	79
	2022-23	93		93	91				91	51	51	79
2023-24	The Conners	Not Dead Yet	Abbott Elementary	The $100,000 Pyramid (R)			The $100,000 Pyramid (R)	The $100,000 Pyramid (R)	65 (-18%)
	2023-24	95 (-12%)	61 (-21%)	93 (-22%)	44 (-31%)			47 (-7%)		47 (-7%)	64.8061147728901
	2023-24										95.4081888522711	61.4969909729188	92.9043827912308	44.146054234131	47 (-7%)	47 (-7%)	64.8061147728901
	2023-24	78 (-16%)		78.4525899125949	69 (-25%)		69 (-25%)	47 (-7%)		47 (-7%)	64.8061147728901
VsAvg	-11%		-0.107358762549487	-37%		-0.369280294971183	-35%		-0.353916938983088	-28%
Rank	16/25		16/25	22/25		22/25	24/25		24/25	24/25

Abbott had much worse trends in the spring thanks to some ugly results early in the period including a 0.28 and 0.27, but got a major shot in the arm during May sweeps from a pairing with Jeopardy! Masters.

Rating the Ratings

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
Celebrity Jeopardy!	0.4	0.44	0.6	-5%	117	solid	+6%	detail
The Conners*	0.2	0.34	0.4	-32%	90	marginal	-23%	detail
Jeopardy! Masters	0.3	0.39	0.4	-29%	104	hit(sum)	-20%	detail
Not Dead Yet	0.2	0.25	0.3	-18%	66	flop	-8%	detail
Celebrity Wheel of Fortune	0.3	0.35	0.4	-19%	93	marginal	-8%	detail
Abbott Elementary	0.3	0.45	1.4	-9%	119	solid	+2%	detail
The $100,000 Pyramid	0.2	0.28	0.3		67	marg(sum)		detail
Judge Steve Harvey	0.1	0.16	0.3	-42%	43	flop	-35%	detail

The Conners: The average was somewhat depressed by its 9:30 eps at the end of the season, but even in the regular 8/7c episodes it was clearly a weaker show, dropping all the way behind even its 9/8c seasons. It's looking more dubious as an anchor to a comedy night, so ABC gave it just a six-episode send-off. Grade: C-.

Not Dead Yet: Down in Plus in a move to 8:30, though it was arguably not much of an upgrade since The Conners was weaker than its Abbott lead-in last year. With ABC cutting back hard on comedy, there was really no reason to keep this one around. Grade: C-.

Abbott Elementary: Average includes a post-Oscars episode and on Wednesday alone was a 99 (-15% y2y). Even disregarding the Oscar ep, it was a roller coaster of a season for Abbott, which came back strong in its first couple weeks, had a disturbingly shaky mid-section of the season, then perked way back up to pretty impressive levels when Jeopardy Masters! showed up in May sweeps. So the show goes into season four as a bit of an enigma, with a weird 9:30 scheduling after The Golden Bachelorette. 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 Wednesday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23

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