The War of 18-49, Bob's Burgers

BOB'S BURGERS (FOX)

Scheduling history: Aside from a few odd 9:30 episodes, the first three and a half seasons of Bob's Burgers aired on Sunday at 8:30 after The Simpsons. A shake-up to the animated lineup bumped Bob's Burgers to 7:00 in spring 2014, and it's returned to the earliest hour (at 7:30) starting in fall 2015. Fall 2018 will finally see a regular return to the 8:30 timeslot.

See (who saw) how it all began: In the last few years, Fox's best animated ratings have regularly come on the night after Fox has a late-afternoon NFL playoff game. That made it a great place to launch something new, and Bob's Burgers responded with 9.38 million viewers and a 4.5 demo on 1/9/11 (down from The Simpsons' 12.55 million and 5.7). It was the biggest scripted series premiere of the 2010-11 season. No NFL help brought Bob's back to reality; it dropped 44% to a 2.5 demo the next week, then to a 2.2 in week three. It held in the low 2's for the rest of the season, a bit behind its usually mid-2's Simpsons lead-in.

The best of times: Bob's Burgers has never again gotten remotely close to the 4.5 on premiere night. After being held for midseason again in 2011-12, Bob's Burgers got its first whack at the fall in 2012-13 and thus grew a bit in that season. After several low 2's ratings through the fall, it got up to a 3.1 with NFL playoff help (on 1/6/13, two years after the series premiere). It then got as high as a 2.9 in the 2013-14 season, once again in the same week.

The worst of times: Bob's Burgers was actually down less than the league average as of the end of January 2014, possibly headed for its biggest season yet in Plus, when the scheduling of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey intervened. Both Burgers and American Dad! got shoved to the 7:00 hour, and Fox opted to give the better 7:30 slot to the show that was about to leave the network. At 7:00, Bob's opened at a series low 0.9, briefly improved into the low 1's, then dropped again in April. It got as low as a measly 0.6 rating for an Easter Sunday 7:00 airing on 4/20/14, and took five years to get back to that raw low again.

Then vs. now: Part of the initial appeal of Bob's Burgers was that it came from an alternative voice in a Fox animation world increasingly overrun with Seth MacFarlane shows. That may be a big part of why it's now outlived second-tier MacFarlane cartoons The Cleveland Show and American Dad! (at least on Fox). However, Fox seems to have pretty much given up on making this show anything better than a second-tier performer. It was eyebrow-raising when Bob's got the worse slot in the 7:00 hour and outgoing American Dad! went to 7:30, and the preferential treatment for Dad! has continued during summer rerun season. It all led to a fall schedule in which Bob's Burgers will be back in the lowest-viewed hour, only airing when there's no direct NFL lead-in. But Fox needed it as a stopgap after the Mulaney debacle, and then again after the failure of Cooper Barrett's Guide in early 2016. In fall 2018, after Fox wiped out its live-action comedies, it will finally get regularly scheduled in a 'main' timeslot.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2011	Sunday 8:30	2.33		1.9	4.5	detail
2	Spring 2012		Sunday 8:30	1.87	-20%	1.7	2.1		detail
3	2012-13		Sunday 8:30	1.93	+4%	1.5	3.1		detail
4	2013-14	Sun 8:30, Sun 7:00	1.47	-24%	0.6	2.9	detail
5	2014-15	Sun 7:30, Sun 9:30	1.23	-16%	0.9	2.0	detail
6	2015-16	Sunday 7:30	1.04	-15%	0.9	1.4	detail	B-
7	2016-17		Sunday 7:30	0.94	-10%	0.7	1.5	detail	A-
8	2017-18		Sunday 7:30	1.00	+7%	0.7	2.1	detail	A-
9	2018-19	Sunday 8:30	1.04	+3%	0.6	2.1	detail	B+
10	2019-20	Sunday 9:00	0.73	-29%	0.4	2.1	detail	C-
11	2020-21		Sunday 9:00	0.51	-30%	0.4	0.8	detail	C+
12	2021-22		Sunday 9:00	0.44	-15%	0.3	0.7	detail	B
13	2022-23		Sunday 9:00	0.34	-23%	0.2	0.6	detail	C

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now23	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2011	92	marginal	0.39		75	177	177	83
2	Spring 2012	79	marginal	0.34	-14%	72	89	80	72
3	2012-13	92	marginal	0.39	+16%	71	147	123	76
4	2013-14	78	marginal	0.33	-15%	32	154	117	48
5	2014-15	73	marginal	0.31	-6%	54	119	89	65
6	2015-16	72	marginal	0.31	-2%	62	96	86	62
7	2016-17	76	marginal	0.33	+7%	55	125	94	57
8	2017-18	92	marginal	0.39	+20%	60	194	116	68
9	2018-19	109	solid	0.47	+19%	66	219	120	66
10	2019-20	90	marginal	0.38	-18%	50	254	90	61
11	2020-21	80	marginal	0.34	-11%	57	120	106	60
12	2021-22	86	marginal	0.37	+8%	57	131	122	69
13	2022-23	79	marginal	0.34	-7%	45	138	134	45
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	84	marginal
CAREER:		CAREER:	1097	star

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