Friday, February 27, 2015

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 2/26/15


WHAT MATTERS:
  • FINALS UPDATE: American Idol (2.2) and The Blacklist (1.9) each gained a tenth.
  • It was a pretty encouraging week two for The Odd Couple (2.8), down just three tenths to tie the Mom high point in the slot as its The Big Bang Theory lead-in was even at 4.5. Speaking of Mom, it made its transition to the 9:30 half-hour at a 2.1, tying the last rating it posted after a repeat Big Bang. And CBS went way below usual Elementary numbers with a Victoria's Secret special (1.0).
  • Scandal-free edition of TGIT did modest business by its lofty standards. Grey's Anatomy (2.2) hit a low and led into the two-hour finale of How to Get Away with Murder (2.8), which dropped a tenth week-to-week in a special hour with a worse lead-in.
  • NBC saw The Blacklist (1.8) mercifully inch back up, though The Slap (0.7) and Allegiance (0.8) were both down. Fox was even with American Idol (2.1) and Backstrom (0.9).

FULL TABLE:

InfoShowTimeslotTrue
A18-49 Skew Last LeLa Rank y2yTLa Ty2y
Grey's Anatomy 2.2 37% -12%-0.3n/a 13/13 -29% -12% +132% 2.3
How To Get Away With Murder 2.8 40% -3%-0.1-1.1 9/14 n/a -9% -13% 2.8
ABC:-10%+6%
The Big Bang Theory 4.5 34% +0%+0.0n/a 8/16 -10% +0% -10% 4.3
The Odd Couple 2.8 32% -10%-0.3+0.0 2/2 n/a -10% +4% 2.2
The Big Bang Theory (R) 2.2 31% -29% -12% 2.0
Mom 2.1 32% +0%+0.0+0.1 12/15 +11% -34% +17% 2.1
Victoria's Secret Swim Special 1.0 31% n/a -33% -35% 1.1
CBS:-20%-10%
The Slap 0.7 24% -13%-0.1n/a 3/3 n/a -13% -33% 0.9
The Blacklist 1.9 30% +12%+0.2-0.1 10/12 -39% +12% +58% 2.2
Allegiance 0.8 29% -11%-0.1+0.2 3/4 n/a -11% -27% 1.0
NBC:-0%+1%
American Idol Thu 2.2 30% +5%+0.1n/a 6/8 -8% +5% -8% 2.3
Backstrom 0.9 30% +0%+0.0+0.1 5/6 n/a -5% +20% 0.9
Fox:+2%-2%
The Vampire Diaries (R) 0.2 35% -69% -79% 0.3
Supernatural (R) 0.2 37% -50% -60% 0.3
CW:-62%-72%
Big5:-13%-8%

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.

51 comments:

Spot said...

The Odd Couple - meh, but should be enough because it's CBS owned.

Mom - OK, or even slightly better than OK.

HGTAWM - Nice, but surely not great for season finale.

NBC - awful but stable, same old.

Idol is doing well lately. This is the first time this season y2y drop is acceptable for 2 weeks in a row. Early y2y comparisons were awful, because it lost the most viewed hour (Wed 9 PM).

Spot said...

There's some big surprises here today. Odd Couple held up decently, Mom did fine, Blacklist rose despite being on a lonely island, and Murder didn't do as well as I thought it would. Overall, a rather interesting night.

Spot said...

And just like last spring, looks like GREY's is off its game without SCANDAL behind it...

Spot said...

Mom did well enough. There isn't much precedent for a repeat anchoring an hour for an extended period of time, but last time in 2011 when CBS just aired Two and a Half Men repeats at 9 during Sheengate, Mike & Molly generally grew a bit from their lead in. I maintain they should switch them around.
Unless they cut to 2 hours (very unlikely), CBS will probably have to have Mom anchor an hour, so they might as well set it up as one. My wild mass guess is that if switched around Mom would have done a 2.3 and the Big Bang repeat a 2.0. Not a huge difference, just my 2 cents

Spot said...

I think pretune helps it a lot. And usually they promoted TGIT as a tri drama night and they mainly just focused on Murder this week.

Spot said...

Was actually Scandal, not Murder, that dropped week-to-week for the fall finale. My mistake!

Spot said...

It did break a 3.0 at 10:30. Almost nothing can break a 3.0 at 10:30.

Spot said...

I believe (not 100% here) that Idol is into live stuff now. Which makes its holds more impressive as singing shows (Idol, Voice, Got Talent) always seem to lose steam when things go live

Spot said...

They tweaked a format because of less hours. That's why I'm comparing this week (W8) and last week (W7) with last season's W7 and W6.
And then I'm getting...
This week: Wednesday flat y2y, Thursday down 13% (pending adjustments).
And for last week: Wednesday up 8%, Thursday down 13%.

Spot said...

It would have been nice to see it crack 3.0 or higher for the entire night but it at least matched last week's rating in the 10pm hour. Murder grew three tenths from its first half hour to its last and Greys grew two tenths from its first half hour to last--the only 2 dramas that did show half hour growth. Maybe both shows can adjust up in the finals..

I envision history repeating itself with CBS dragging their Odd Couple property into a second season renewal like The Millers and then pulling the plug when it is separated from the Big Bang mother ship and swallowed by a ratings black hole in CBS deep space. The Odd Couple has received both worse critical reviews and and at least as bad or worse viewer reviews (on various sites and social media) as The Millers.

Spot said...

Which they really did because of the 2 hour finale.

Spot said...

I think it got a 2.3 with a Scandal somewhere this season.

Spot said...

This time last year The Blacklist was challenging Scandal for #1 broadcast drama. At the end of February 2014 Blacklist was only 3% behind Scandal in A18-49 (averaged 2.99 to Scandal's 3.09). To be honest, gap was a bit bigger in Spot's True, it was 13% back then, due to strong The Voice lead-in (2.75 to 3.17). Fast forward a year later, and it's only question of time when will come Thursday with Scandal actually doubling Blacklist ratings.

To make things worse, The Blacklist situation is kinda developing into Person of Interest situation: All other renewed NBC veterans are owned by Universal TV, so Blacklist will be dumped to Friday as soon as need occurs. It really depends on how well will do NBC new dramas in next seasons, which we can not know now. But we can estimate. And by my estimations, next season Blacklist needs to average 1.7+ to be sure in staying on a weekday for its Season 4, while with 1.4- in A18-49 it would surely be dumped to Friday after next (3rd) season. At 1.5 or 1.6 I guess NBC would negotiate with Sony (not about 4th season, it's a done deal, but about if Blacklist moves to Friday).

All in all, it looks unlikely Blacklist would average bellow 1.7 next season, but I think it's quite possible to happen if NBC would again put it in timeslot with so strong competititon, and would give it this weak lead-in. As this is NBC, I must expect the worst case scenario: I think it will play out as 1.5 seasons on Monday, 1.5 seasons on Thursday, and final 4th season of The Blacklist on Friday.

Spot said...

Blacklist's DVR numbers have jumped to series highs since its move to Thursday. People are still watching, just not live.

Sony loves to extend shows, so I see no reason The Blacklist can't make it 5 or 6 seasons, especially if they cut costs.

The Blacklist is fine for awhile.

Spot said...

Blacklist is doing awful, DVR numbers mean nothing, and you should stop believing what press releases say - not even people writing those believe it.

Spot said...

Well, technically it is UniversalTV. Blacklist is a co-production between Universal and Sony, with the former being international distributor, and the latter US distributor. I don't know whether that helps or hinders your case, since we have no idea how Blacklist is doing internationally, but Uni is still getting money from overseas.

Spot said...

Okay, Chicken Little.

Spot said...

Word of advice: If you don't have anything to say, then don't say anything.
Otherwise you look like idiot, which is exactly what happened to you here.

Spot said...

Ultima from TVBTN raised a very interesting point: What if Scandal's order for this season is actually 24 episodes but they only have 22 in store?
Because, internally, two episodes seem to be treated as a two part.


Case-in-point: Episode 10, Run, seems to be treated internally as episode 9. But episode was 'Where the Sun Doesn't Shine'.


If Scandal is indeed producing 24 episodes, but some of them are being treated as two parts, then Scandal wouldn't need to be pre-empted for a double Grey's.

Spot said...

I am not sure if I follow. What does that mean, episode 10 being internally treated as episode 9? How is it possible if there were effectively 9 hours produced before?

Spot said...

The Blacklist and American Idol were adjusted up a tenth as did the TBBT rerun.


So, Grey's Anatomy has officially hit a new low.

Spot said...

The Blacklist adjusted up. It is now where I expected it to be by its 4th Thursday episode before the move, only that I didn't expect the trend to be this way. I expected a very high 2s Thursday premiere, then very low 2s for the following weeks and then descend into the upper 1s. I didn't think it would recover from a flat out horrible 1.7 in week 2. I guess being a procedural has its perks.

Spot said...

What I assume is that Shonda is treating episode 10 as being episode 9B with "Where the Sun Doesn't Shine" being 9A.

Spot said...

Ah I understand. Well then maybe it works. I had never heard of a situation like this but I suppose it is possible and would make more sense than a random Scandal preemption.

Spot said...

I think Grey's rebounds next week though. Also, even this level is amazing. I mean, Spot, who I take as a huge reference in forecasts, expected Grey's average this year to be a 2 and here we are, in late winter, and it just hit a new series low of 2.2, aka 10% higher than his expected season average! I think that puts in context how well GA is doing this year!

Spot said...

Is only speculation and I'm probably insanely off the mark.

Spot said...

The sad thing is there are many shows out that that can't even get half of this.

Spot said...

Okay, and it was not 4x09 and 4x10; the Scandal crew divided episode 4 into two episodes. So, Run is actually, by their count, episode 9.

Spot said...

That is not sad, that is a testament to Grey's Anatomy's strength.

Spot said...

Such a strange thing lol. Oh well I will take it.

Spot said...

Not for GA, but for the other shows that can't get even half of GA's series low.

Spot said...

It would make more sense, they should want more episodes considering the last season was cut short because of the pregnancy.

Spot said...

But Scandal didn't have an order extension alongside Grey's/Castle/etc because, and I paraphrase, "the filming schedule didn't allow it".


The question is: was it because they were already filming 24 episodes?

Spot said...

I think without the TGIT tentpole, Scandal in place, Greys suffered a little, although it did grow two tenths in the half hour preliminaries which is a typical pattern. For those Scandal fans who don't follow the heavily serialized HTGAWM,, The Blacklist appears to have been the primary beneficiary. If The Blacklist drops two tenths or more upon Scandal's return that would certainly support the theory that theory of some shared fans between both shows.

Spot said...

I did say should, not that it actually happened.


I guess they already had a set number of episodes already.

Spot said...

Too late for that.

Spot said...

From scheduling point it absolutely makes sense Scandal to have 24 hours this season, it would fit perfectly. It's only that ABC is usually very punctual in informing about such things, and they explicitly said Scandal is 22 episodes. Well, maybe their PR missed on this one.

Spot said...

They didn't exactly miss PR on this one: Scandal would be 22 episodes but with 24 hours filmed.
22 episodes written (if Shonda divides an episode into two again), 24 hours filmed.

Spot said...

No one counts it like that. 24 hours is counted as 24 episodes.
Do you actually think when they sell show in syndication they say: "There's 22 episodes in this season, but you get 24 hours, so 2 hours is for free. Enjoy this discount."

Spot said...

Well, I don't know. I'm just saying my opinion.

Spot said...

Doesn't matter. Thanks for the info, though.

Spot said...

I wonder how much of the haggling happened before the very poorly received finale. The producers must have lost all leverage after that, and we hardly heard anything about other networks biting on the spin-off.

Spot said...

Dare I say, The Blacklist seems to be following the trajectory of Revenge(!!!) especially for the second season. These are series lows we are talking about. Yes, a rise from 1.7 to 1.9 is good, but it's still very much below the 2.3-2.5s, the lower limit that it used to reach. It's unfortunate to think that The Blacklist had been so consistent over the 1st one and a half season, and all of a sudden it has fallen quite drastically and doesn't seem to be able to get up anymore.

Spot said...

I love it when Idol had one hour episodes. It's definitely possible to cram 12 performances in one hour. I recalled those long draggy days of Idol (I think Season 9) that they somehow manage to drag 9 performances in 2 hours.

Spot said...

I also said that but then I remembered that Revenge was also announced as 22 episodes and they have since then added one, so there is precedence I guess.

Spot said...

People who thought it would consistently get 2.3-2.5s on Thursdays when it was doing 2.4-2.5 in late fall after the voice against two moderate procedurals were clearly being unrealistic. It would be incredible if the show could move to what is so clearly a worse timeslot and still score the same ratings.

Spot said...

Read carefully what I said.
Year ago, in times before Empire, The Blacklist was #2 drama closely behind #1 Scandal. Today it's scoring barely over 50% of Scandal ratings. Only for delusional people as disastrous drop is not awful.

Spot said...

Of course, that's a product of the worse timeslot for the most part, but... the last two 1.7s graded Truly weaker than any post-Voice episode. Even this 1.9 out of a 0.7 provisionally comes in at the low end of post-Voice numbers in True.

The show has legitimately weakened in this move, and for what? Firstly for State of Affairs, and secondly for a summer show - that wasn't even strong in the summer! I liked the scheduling idea at the time - they decided they needed to do everything they could to make The Blacklist work on Thursday on an island, and they built their entire schedule around that decision, and I thought that made sense. Time has proven you comprehensively right, Silvio.

Spot said...

It would be embarrassing if it fell to that level but given NBC's current state of scripted programming you never know.

Spot said...

Exactly, the move had more losses than gains, all it really did was weaken their top show and replace it with lower rated shows.

Spot said...

The spin off itself was already problematic to begin with.

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