Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The War of 18-49, Law & Order: SVU


 
LAW & ORDER: SVU (NBC) 

Scheduling history: Law & Order: SVU has the relatively rare distinction of airing for 3+ seasons on three different nights. Following a brief Monday stint at the beginning of the series, it aired for 3.5 seasons on Friday, another six during its peak years on Tuesday. Then it moved to Wednesday, and as of season 17, it's actually been on that night longer than any other. It tied the mothership's 20-season run in 2018-19 and also got regularly scheduled on Thursday for the first time; it beat the L&O 20-season record in 2019-20.

See (who saw) how it all began: Law & Order: SVU, the first spinoff in the Law & Order franchise, kicked off on 9/20/99 with a 5.4 in adults 18-49. It then dropped 9% to a 4.9 demo in week two, then rebounded to a 5.0 and 5.4 the next two weeks. My data is limited on season 1, but it looks like most of season 1 fell in the 4's and 5's.

The best of times: For the first half of the aughts, SVU was probably the most consistent show on TV, with seasons 2-7 all averaging within a very tight 10% range. I find most of those seasons pretty hard to distinguish, as they uniformly averaged in the low to mid 5's and would occasionally creep up into the 6's. But one particular result stands out from the rest, and that's the season 5 finale on 5/18/04. That airing found 18.36 million viewers and a 7.4/19 demo, more than 10% ahead of the show's next highest result.

The worst of times: But starting with the 2006-07 season, primetime's banner of consistency headed consistently downward, with four 15%+ declines in a six-season span. Leaving its longtime Tuesday 10pm timeslot and its solid Biggest Loser lead-in certainly didn't help matters, and neither did facing Criminal Minds, but the show didn't even recover that much in its returns to 10:00.  However, even at its depressed numbers, SVU probably deserves some of the credit for CSI: NY's banishment to Friday, as that show took a real hit in the second half of 2009-10 when it had to face SVU at 10:00. SVU then took another huge hit in 2011-12, its first season without Christopher Meloni. 13 eps in season 13 went below 2.0 vs. none in the first twelve seasons, and almost all of the 2012-13 season was below that mark. It's had some rather impressive growth in historical-adjusted numbers since then, and has managed to avoid fractional territory in its first 19 seasons; its first 1.0 came on 5/3/17, and it didn't go below 1.0 until a return to the 10/9c hour in season 20.

Then vs. now: This post was a real learning experience for me. I always thought SVU must have been bigger in the past, since in most of my memory as a ratings follower, it always crushed the mothership L&O. But in fact, it was never consistently bigger than the low to mid 5's, while L&O was much bigger early in the 2000s. It didn't start rating higher than the mothership until season 6. Now, it's lasted for over a half-decade since the mothership's end, and it remains one of NBC's most valuable scripted properties (arguably the single most valuable). It's helped launch Chicago Fire and Chicago PD while taking the hit in one of primetime's toughest timeslots, and has actually managed to carve out some positive momentum in its own ratings at the same time.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

SeasYearSlotAvgy2yLoHiResultsGrade
11999-00Mon 9:00, Fri 10:004.763.66.6
22000-01Friday 10:005.00+5%3.95.7detail
32001-025.34+7%4.36.2detail
42002-035.25-2%4.56.3detail
52003-04Tuesday 10:005.33+1%4.27.4detail
62004-055.55+4%4.76.5detail
72005-065.48-1%4.86.5detail
82006-074.65-15%3.85.3detail
92007-084.40-5%3.65.1detail
102008-093.55-19%2.53.9detail
112009-10Wed 9:00, Wed 10:002.68-25%2.03.3detail
122010-112.57-4%2.03.2detailB+
132011-12Wednesday 10:001.91-26%1.62.4detailD
142012-13Wednesday 9:001.72-10%1.32.2detailB
152013-141.79+4%1.42.7detailA-
162014-151.63-9%1.22.4detailB
172015-161.60-1%1.12.0detailA
182016-171.32-18%1.01.8detailB-
192017-181.25-5%1.01.5detailB+
202018-19Thursday 10:000.84-32%0.71.1detailC+
212019-200.67-21%0.60.7detailC+
222020-21Thursday 9:000.76+15%0.51.7detailA-
232021-220.65-15%0.60.8detailB+
242022-230.56-14%0.40.7detailB

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

SeasYearA18-49+LabelNow23y2yLoHiPremiereFinale
11999-0099hit(Fri)0.427513711289
22000-01104hit(Fri)0.44+5%81119106100
32001-02124hit(Fri)0.53+19%100144121102
42002-03120hit(Fri)0.51-3%103144121105
52003-04131hit0.56+9%103182128182
62004-05136hit0.58+4%115160130147
72005-06135hit0.58-1%118160135128
82006-07123solid0.53-8%101141138109
92007-08133hit0.57+8%109154145115
102008-09118solid0.50-11%83130126116
112009-1095marginal0.41-19%711178996
122010-11101solid0.43+6%79126126114
132011-1281marginal0.34-20%6810210285
142012-1382marginal0.35+1%6210410081
152013-1495marginal0.41+16%7414314385
162014-1597marginal0.41+2%7114313183
172015-16110solid0.47+14%73139120106
182016-17108solid0.46-2%80148148103
192017-18114solid0.49+6%90134129109
202018-1989marginal0.38-22%7011511578
212019-2081marginal0.35-9%71929279
222020-21119solid0.51+46%8126292110
232021-22127hit0.54+7%112155155116
242022-23130hit0.56+2%101162162103

AVERAGE:111solid
CAREER:2654icon


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

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