Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/6/14


WHAT MATTERS:
  • The Walking Dead may be over, but the ABC Sunday bleeding isn't. Resurrection (2.2) took another multiple-tick drop, going behind its Once Upon a Time (2.4) lead-in for the first time. (But a two-tenth surge in finals for Once makes it a big positive; this 2.4 is better than anything it scored in the last couple months of last season.) If this is not the end of it, things might start to get interesting. I've chalked much of this up to the lead-in, but I think it's becoming noteworthy that Revenge (1.3) has also fallen each week since Resurrection's debut, and this time that meant a tie for a season low.
  • CBS got a major week-to-week boost thanks to the Academy of Country Music Awards (3.3), though the show was significantly down from last year's 4.3. (Low-to-mid-3's seem to be the norm across the last decade or so, though, so it looks like last year was the fluke.)
  • NBC's three newbies all downticked again: American Dream Builders (0.7 leading into a tryout after The Voice tonight), Believe (1.0) and Crisis (1.0). Fox's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.5) was steady for the first time, and its Family Guy (2.3) lead-in was up.
  • UPDATE: The return of Game of Thrones easily scored a series high with 6.6 million viewers, about 20% above the previous high. If the show has the same skew as last year, that'll translate to about a 3.5 rating in 18-49, so this could very well edge the ACM Awards as the night's top program. Lead-out comedies Silicon Valley (2 million total viewers) and Veep (955,000) dropped big from there.
    • UPDATE #2: Final 18-49 ratings: Game of Thrones (3.61), Silicon Valley (1.08) and Veep (0.51). GoT was 51% above last year's premiere.
    • The finale of Shameless (0.85) was 7% behind last year's finale.
    • It's pretty tough to really get at what AMC's "standards" are. We could say the premiere of Turn (0.53) got literally one-fifteenth the rating of last week's occupant The Walking Dead, or we could say this number stacks up in the same ballpark with recent seasons of Hell on Wheels and The Killing.

FULL TABLE:

InfoShowTimeslotTrue
A18-49 Skew Last LeLa Rank y2yTLa Ty2y
America's Funniest Home Videos 1.4 28% +8%+0.1n/a 5/17 n/a +12% +22% 1.3
Once Upon a Time 2.4 42% +14%+0.3+0.1 3/16 n/a +12% +300% 2.4
Resurrection 2.2 35% -8%-0.2+0.3 5/5 n/a -6% +300% 2.1
Revenge 1.3 32% -7%-0.1-0.2 16/18 n/a -7% +136% 1.3
ABC:+2%+156%
60 Minutes 1.3 16% -54%-1.5n/a 19/22 -7% -50% -4% 1.2
Academy of Country Music Awards 3.3 30% -23% +90% -24% 3.3
CBS:+44%-22%
Ann Curry Reports: Our Year of Extremes 0.6 18% n/a +0% -37% 0.6
American Dream Builders 0.7 30% -13%-0.1+0.0 3/3 n/a -7% -53% 0.9
Believe 1.0 30% -9%-0.1-0.1 5/5 n/a -9% +25% 1.2
Crisis 1.0 28% -9%-0.1-0.1 4/4 n/a -5% -29% 1.2
NBC:-6%-38%
Bob's Burgers 0.9 50% -10%-0.1n/a 15/16 n/a -10% +29% 0.8
American Dad! 1.2 57% -14%-0.2-0.1 15/15 n/a -14% +50% 1.3
The Simpsons 1.9 56% +0%+0.0-0.2 9/17 n/a +0% +36% 1.8
Family Guy 2.3 61% +10%+0.2+0.0 8/16 n/a +10% +64% 2.2
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey 1.5 48% +0%+0.0+0.2 4/5 n/a +0% -9% 1.5
Fox:-1%+22%
Big4:+11%+1%
Game of Thrones 3.61 69% n/an/a
1/1 +51%


Silicon Valley 1.08 69% n/an/a
1/1 n/a


Shameless 0.85 56% +2%+0.02
5/12 -7%


Turn 0.53 32% n/an/a
1/1 n/a


Veep 0.51 68% n/an/a
1/1 -14%



KEY (click to expand)
A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Skew - Percentage of adults 18-49 within the show's total viewership.
Last - A18-49 difference (percent and numerical) from the show's previous episode.
LeLa - A18-49 difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes so far this season.
y2y - Percent difference between A18-49 and the show's rating a year ago.
TLa - Percent difference between A18-49 and the network's rating in the timeslot one week ago.
Ty2y - Percent difference between A18-49 and the network's rating in the timeslot one year ago.
True - A metric that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in. PRELIMINARY CALCULATION. For finals, see SpotVault.

(R) - Repeat.

Much more detail on these numbers at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.

29 comments:

Spot said...

Family Guy gets the scripted broadcast crown (at least for now) in its 12th season - wow.
Will Rez get to 1s by the end of its short season?

Spot said...

It's possible - recall Bionic Woman? Week one was a 5.7, week eight was a 2.2.

Spot said...

Doing some rough true math, Once Upon a Time is over achieving while Revenge is not doing its part. Once is basically coming out of nothing (AFV is .8 in true) while Ressurection is doing decently out of Once (2.0 in true). Revenge is the only show that has a compatible lead in by True standards is doing awful.
.
The last Ann Currey reports had twice that when it built on its Dateline lead in on Friday.
.
I get why FOX scheduled American Dad! so badly, but I still don't get why they gave Bob's Burgers the worst position. It is doing on par with how Cleveland was doing with special 7:00 airings last year. I honestly think extending their prime time an hour would have been better for Cosmos.
7:00
Animated Reruns
8:00
Simpsons/American Dad!
9:00
Family Guy/Bob's Burgers
10:00
Cosmos

Give returning Bob's Burgers the bigger lead in and I think Cosmos would still do around the same at 10

Spot said...

I'm precting along the lines of 3.8, 3.1, 2.5, 2.4, 2.2, 2.1, 1.9, 2.3

(I'm assuming it adjusts up this week, it has 75% of the time. I think taking Easter off will hurt it, but the finale having it perk back up)

Spot said...

I wager that there's an affiliates issue with extending primetime into the 10:00 hour for Fox. For sports or other live events there's a pass due to the unpredictably of when it ends (thank you Heidi rule), but regularly scheduling a program would ruffle a feather since I'm guessing 10:00 local news is more profitable for Fox affiliates than the later hour competing against the other local stations.


Also, it goes against the recent trend of networks ceding time to affiliates. The CW Sunday was the most drastic and visible, but ABC also gave up an hour when shifting out of soaps (AMC & OLTL) to talk shows (The Chew and canceled The Revolution) and Katie swapped in for Oprah (Oprah wasn't an ABC show, but was most commonly found on ABC affiliates in the 4:00 p.m. daypart before local news). NBC canceled Another World & Passions to take the 10:00 a.m. hour for Today and gave the other hour back to stations.

Spot said...

Resurrection keeps dropping and ADB should be pulled, NBC is crazy to try it after Voice, it's Ready for Love all over again.

GOT overcame my expectations.

"Lead-out comedies Silicon Valley (2 million total viewers) and Veep (955,000) dropped big from there."

Nothing unexpected, but 2 million is huge for a HBO comedy, no matter this happened only because of the lead in.

Spot said...

It might help if HBO put together a comedy night instead of drama / comedy / comedy.

Spot said...

When I discovered your site, I was hopeful I'd get an alternate source of real ratings.


Sadly this article shows me all you have to propose is more ageist demo PR spin and smokescreen.


Why don't you just give the real ratings?


Do you really not know that advertisers as a group do not pay more for 18-49 than they pay for all other groups?!


It's just ridiculous. Than again tvbythenumbers, that sad excuse for a PR site, got itself bought out, so who knows, maybe you will too.


Still, quite disappointed by this absence of even mentioning the real ratings for all network shows. It shouldn't be that difficult!!!

Spot said...

HBO has redefined "hit" as meaning flop. Once you do that, it's all "impressive"...

Spot said...

I believe such an effort would be counterproductive due to HBO's determination to serve microniches with their comedy programming.

Spot said...

If a lead-in has "big hit even for broadcast" #s, I have to compare the leadout show similarly.
And a 70% drop is not good, unless it skews almost-impossibly-young. The Veep series premiere had a smaller drop from its own GoT lead-in, and that's certainly never been considered a hit.
Hung was regularly above 2 million, and I think few people even remember that exists.

Spot said...

Actually, no, there is no "tangible evidence". The networks that are behind in the real ratings game saying so does not make it so. Ad Week publishing fantasy numbers they don't bother to check is not "tangible evidence".

As for viewers being given away for free, that must be great news to medical drug advertisers that they're getting all those customers for free...

It's ridiculous on its face, and someone as bright as you seem to be should know that.

I didn't mean to "flame" you by pointing out that blindly accepting that 18-49 is "all important" is essentially ageist, I just meant to make you realize it because unlike sexism and racism, ageism is actually acceptable and encouraged in Hollywood and in the press.

You seem to not even be aware of it.

If I told you that FOX was great with the "all-important white male demo" you'd have a fit and call me a racist sexist, but doing the same with age is entirely OK with you (or so you make it seem). It's certainly OK with hearts-on-their-sleeve Hollywood cognocenti because it's "just data", never mind there is not a scintilla of actual data to back it.

I have another scoop for you by the way: Box-Office numbers are made up in PR offices at the studios. They're not real numbers.

I know. how dare I? What will we analyze if we don't analyze the spin numbers?

To give you an example that you will surely figure out a way to reject, Jay Leno had the same 18-49 as Kimmell, yet got 25% more ad revenue.

Whatever could be the reason for this strange data? Could it be he had 25% more viewers?

He did!

As for older viewers, manufacturers of those cool gizmos that take you up the stairs when you're invalid will be surprised that they were supposed to be getting their customers for free according to you.

I an only shake my head in amazement that someone who built such an elaborate site could also swallow the PR so fully that he gets mad just hearing someone who doesn't...

Spot said...

It might help if HBO would make good shows instead of flops like Girls!!

Spot said...

Great spin... "They're not flops, they're serving micro-niches".


CW should be sure to use it too!!

Spot said...

You're entirely right about the drop from the lead-in.


Network PR wants you to forget about that. (and believe age of viewers matter - but only if it's in they favor - for some reason a 52 year old woman is worthless on a network, but somehow worthy on a news channel... Yeah it makes so much sense...)

Spot said...

It's really not clear what you mean by "real ratings". Even less clear whether what you call "real ratings' are actually taken into account by networks.
All in all, it seems just a trolling comment.

Spot said...

In fairness, network TV is funded by advertising, and different advertisers want to reach different people - with young people usually preferred because they watch less TV (so less likely to have seen the same advert 900 times already) and are less set in their brand preferences (so it's more valuable to reach them). There are obviously exceptions to this, but that's why 18-49 and potentially 18-34 are the key numbers in broadcast primetime (and they have a powerful predictive record in renew/cancel decisions, which is what drives a lot of TV ratings site traffic).

HBO demo numbers in that sense are completely irrelevant because they're subscription-funded.

Spot said...

Over the season, though, Family Guy wildly outperforms its 18-49 (let alone P2+) number in terms of "real ad Dollars" - as does the whole of the Animation Domination block!

It's because that audience is disproportionately young men who don't watch much else in primetime.

Spot said...

The funny thing is he is using PR as an insult when say ABC's PR is what would give "Real Numbers" by his standards

Spot said...

That's true re: Katie & syndication/ownership. It was essentially an ABC daytime show in how it ended up being sold to almost exclusively ABC affiliates. But local stations could have more scheduling flexibility with airing the show, or had the option to not pick it up at all. I don't believe that a replacement is in development for the 2014-2015 season (I don't follow the daytime daypart because of the syndication & network confluence so I'm fully prepared to be wrong), so even if you consider Katie an ABC show then the affiliates are getting an hour back anyway.

Spot said...

You're a bowl full of sunshine, you are.

Spot said...

As Dr. House used to say... "I'm a ray of sunshine... on a cloudy day" ;)


Seriously, I think we are in a Dark Age of television, with very little to get genuinely excited about, and Girls exemplifies everything that is wrong about today's TV: a bad show with a bad actress (who's also a bad writer and producer of the show in spite of her lack of talent or experience) that only exists because said bad actress/producer/writer happens to be rich and connected and has invested her money into empty PR.


Now let me tell you what I really think of Lena Dunham's "talent"... ;)

Spot said...

Thanks for your well-reasoned response, David. :)


You make a great point about HBO.


Technically HBO wold rather have a show that rates 1 million viewers if all those viewers specifically bought HBO for this show only, than 10 million if those were subscribers that would keep their subs even in the absence of that show.


Of course it's never so cut and dry and even HBO must have trouble figuring that one out with all the data in hand.


About who is "more valuable", you hit on the right point which is that different demos are more valuable to different advertisers. For instance, makers of feminine hygiene products generally won't care much about male viewers in any age group.


The idea that viewers that are harder to reach are more valuable makes more sense, but only to a degree and superficially, because in the end, what matters is how much money is made from each person watching the ad, no matter if they're easy or difficult to reach.


Another factor that is never mentioned by the true believers in the 18-49 demo supremacy is that older viewers have more money in general and disposable income in particular.


That's the reason the median age for buyers of new cars is 52 (up from 51 five years ago).


Again what matters is how much money you'll make from the ad, not if you've gotten the hardest to reach people.


Now there are products (like most tentpole films) where advertising to older viewers is not all that effective (but then again for those films advertising to 18-49 is also not that effective if you think about it given the main age group is 13-25 for most films - stupid? of course, but that's another issue.


I also tend to disagree about the predictive value of 18-49 ratings in renewals.


Those are really only motivated by politics in the absence of true hits.


The networks will use whatever metric they can lay their hands on to explain why they chose their buddies' shows rather than other ones (the most hilarious one I heard was that Fringe had a hashtag polluting their screen (my word not theirs of course) and that's why they renewed it for yet another disastrously low-rated season.


Sadly, you may be partially right as we've gotten to a point where most executives don't even know what a real new hit would look like on their network and they may internalize the 18-49 nonsense, although politics trumps fake numbers every time.


Sadly, the people who do deliver numbers are currently ostracized (probably for being "hard to work with") and flop-makers are in high demand (because they make the flops network executives demand since they know better as we all know very well from their magnificent results...)

Spot said...

I doubt that it's really the case,although I can't prove it as there are no real numbers available that I've ever seen.


Real numbers for the Leno v. Kimmell comparison were available (somebody messed up Big Time as NBC and ABC!) and Leno had the same 18-49 as Kimmell but had 25% more ad revenue. As a complete coincidence Leno also had 25% more overall viewers...


I doubt that advertisers overpay for those "rare" viewers any more than they paid for the "younger audience" of Kimmell's.

Spot said...

You hate it so much that I am forced to give Girls another shot.

Spot said...

considering that Shameless finale had Game of Thrones to go against, I'd say it has been a good result (I don't know if, for the typical Shameless audience, the ACMA had an additional effect!)

Spot said...

I think Revenge is doing so bad is because of the new time slot they moved it to10 PM, I sure don't watch much anymore....

Spot said...

Totally unsure of what you were trying to say. Sorry. :)

Spot said...

The problem with Revenge is the lead actress. She's terrible. That's why the show never worked and, while not being a super-flop, never had good ratings.

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