Numbers and analysis coming shortly. ABC rounded out its summer Thursday lineup with its Battle of the Network Stars revival at 9/8c, surrounded by week two of Boy Band and The Gong Show. And CBS launched season three of drama Zoo following the second night of Big Brother.
CBS summer institution Big Brother (1.7) was back with another dominant two-hour premiere, down by two tenths (AKA slightly up in Plus) from last year's 1.9 opener.
MasterChef (1.0) was the best of the competition, and the only original that managed to break even with last week while going head to head with BB. But its lead-out The F Word (0.6) continued to deteriorate. And NBC's Little Big Shots: Forever Young (0.9) and The Carmichael Show (0.7) were also down a tenth.
At 10/9c, episode two of a brief Wednesday run for To Tell the Truth (0.6) was even with last week.
FINALS UPDATE:America's Got Talent (2.5) adjusted up while World of Dance (1.8) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Usual Tuesday leader America's Got Talent (2.2/2.7) had a little more competition than normal as The Bachelorette (1.3/1.2) rounded out a double-episode week. But it was still not much of a contest, as the struggling Bachelorette didn't really ding AGT and went a bit lower than its own usual ratings.
The 10/9c hour was even more of a blowout, as Talent lead-out World of Dance (1.9) went up against the final two episodes of Downward Dog (0.5/0.4) on ABC.
The other three networks had just one original combined, as the CW quietly finished up another season of iZombie (0.3) at 9/8c.
These numbers are current through Monday, June 26.
WHAT MATTERS:
AMC paired its sophomore drama Preacher (0.58) with Fear the Walking Dead (0.96) for a one-time preview on Sunday, then moved the show to its regular Monday timeslot with a 0.43. That 0.43 is barely half of where Preacher started its "regular" run a year ago, but still managed to match the low point from season one. That number was actually achieved early last season, before it grew to 0.5 and eventually a bunch of 0.6's late last season.
FINALS UPDATE:Celebrity Family Feud (R) (0.9), Kevin Can Wait (R) (0.6), Life in Pieces (R) (0.5), Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge (1.0), Superhuman (0.6), Supergirl (R) (0.2), Whose Line Is It Anyway? (R) (0.2) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
The ratings continued to sour for The Bachelorette (1.4), which shed two tenths to (preliminarily) fall behind its Memorial Day low. After it was even-ish in Plus in the early weeks of the season, it's now looking more clearly like a downturn season for the franchise.
But the network had some consolation in the 10/9c hour as a repeat of Celebrity Family Feud (1.0) stepped in and more than tripled last week's anemic Still Star-Crossed rating. It was a rare piece of good news in what has been one of ABC's most dreadful timeslots all season; even regular season occupants Conviction and Quantico never cracked a 1.0!
On NBC, Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge (1.1) gave back a piece of its major week two spike, leading out of a steady American Ninja Warrior (1.5). Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (0.8) inched down while newbie Superhuman made it three weeks in a row at 0.7.
FINALS UPDATE:Madam Secretary (R) (0.3) adjusted up while Code Black (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
After big drops last week, ABC's Steve Harvey's Funderdome (1.1) and The $100,000 Pyramid (1.1) had nice rebounds in week three, while Celebrity Family Feud (1.4) stayed even after taking only a small drop last week.
The ABC reality shows overwhelmed another barren Sunday on the other networks. After getting a small boost from the US Open last week, American Grit (0.4) gave it back in week three. And NBC newsmagazine Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly (0.4) declined for the third straight week since its premiere.
In fall 2013, nearly a year and half after The Avengers became a box office mega-smash, ABC finally unveiled the series that would bring the Marvel Cinematic Universe to TV on a weekly basis. So high were ABC's hopes that the network put it at the start of a full night of new series. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lived up to the billing on premiere night, exploding to 12.12 million viewers and a 4.7 demo rating.
But SHIELD's days as a potential megahit were short-lived: it took a 30% drop to a 3.3 in week two, and it was down again for each of the next five episodes before finally bouncing back a bit in November. It pretty much hung around 2.0 after the new year, which was still a bit above league average. That was enough for a renewal, but not enough to shake the 'disappointment' narrative. And the needle didn't move much when its storyline was tied directly to Captain America: The Winter Soldier toward the end of the season.
Moving Later in the Night
The network launched comedies after SHIELD in season one when there was hope it could be something huge, but starting in season two ABC was more inclined to put the comedies at 8:00. That meant SHIELD was at 9:00 in seasons two and three, and both years took significant hits in the ratings. Some of its best trends came early in season three when The Muppets briefly livened up the night at 8:00, but SHIELD came back a weaker show once again in the second half of the season.
In season four, ABC had the comedy horses to go for a two-hour block on Tuesday, and SHIELD was pushed into the 10:00 hour. The erosion continued at double-digit levels with this move, and it seemed to be in serious danger during the winter months when it had five 0.6 ratings in a six-episode span. But it came back a little stronger after the spring hiatus, and lived to see another day.
Even Lower Priority Treatment
In fall 2017, ABC handed Friday night to veteran dramas Once Upon a Time and Agents of SHIELD. Both got hit in the ratings, but it was much worse for Once (which lost several main cast members), while SHIELD actually looked like the stronger of the two shows at 9/8c. In ABC's last scripted renew/cancel decision of the season, they decided to give SHIELD yet another season, though it didn't return until the summer.
FINALS UPDATE:Hollywood Game Night (0.9) and The Wall (1.0) adjusted up while Superior Donuts (R) (0.7), Supernatural (R) (0.2) and Supernatural (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Full table will be posted next week. ABC and NBC both launched their regular summer Thursday lineups. The alphabet had newbies Boy Band (two hours) and The Gong Show, while NBC was all returnees with game shows Hollywood Game Night and The Wall and drama The Night Shift.
FINALS UPDATE:MasterChef (1.0) adjusted up while Arrow (R) (0.1) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Full table will be posted next week. Wednesday featured NBC's premiere of Little Big Shots spin-off Little Big Shots: Forever Young, plus the return of To Tell the Truth on ABC.
The Gold Standard for Monday Voice Lead-Outs We're now over half a decade into The Voice's run of Monday dominance, and there's still nothing that has looked better in the 10:00 lead-out slot than James Spader's The Blacklist. It opened with 12.58 million viewers and a 3.8 demo rating, which was pretty similar to where the previous year's occupant Revolution began (4.1). After dropping each of the next three weeks (3.3 -> 3.1 -> 3.0), The Blacklist stayed at 3.0ish for the rest of the fall, and its comparisons vs. Revolution became more favorable.
Unlike with Revolution, NBC felt good enough about The Blacklist to give it a shot during the winter months, while Voice was on hiatus. And The Blacklist passed that test big-time, posting a 2.5 -> 2.3 -> 2.5 for the three-week January run, with lead-ins that were somewhere in the ones. With the return of The Voice, The Blacklist went back into the high-2's. That made it an even bigger win vs. the year-ago Revolution, which had fallen off significantly in the spring half of the season. The Super Bowl and the Thursday Move The Blacklist seemed strong enough to take on another night for an NBC that still had depth issues, but NBC was hesitant; instead, it announced that The Blacklist would return to Monday at 10/9c for the fall before eventually moving to Thursday, and that Thursday move would be preceded by an episode after the Super Bowl. Not pictured in the averages below, it averaged 25.72 million viewers and an 8.4 demo, and was enough to start the Blacklist Thursday run at the low end of its usual Monday level.
That sort of level was not sustainable; The Blacklist fell about 30% to a 1.7 the next week. It hung in the high-1's for quite awhile after that, but ended season two with some pretty alarming results, including an almost flop-level 1.2 at the end of April before bouncing back in the last couple weeks.
Though the trend didn't seem that good, The Blacklist turned in a fairly consistent third season, perhaps helped a bit in the early going by a reasonable lead-in from the early weeks of Heroes Reborn. But in the winter and spring, The Blacklist had very little help, leading out of drama bomb You, Me and the Apocalypse and unscripted bomb Strong. It never fell below the 1.2 from late in season two. Sliding Around
However, The Blacklist got downgraded to the 10/9c hour for 2016-17, as NBC looked to shore up the rest of the night with its most promising sophomores Superstore and Chicago Med. Though Med provided The Blacklist with the best lead-in it'd had on Thursday, being at 10:00 meant another season of significant ratings decline. Another schedule downgrade appeared possible at the 2017 upfront... but instead, it got moved to Wednesday for the first time, and to the 8:00 hour for the first time. That brought the show's most stable season yet, but it was just a temporary upgrade; in season six, it moved to Friday and took another big (if excusable) hit.
FINALS UPDATE:The Wall (R) (0.7) and US Open Golf (0.3) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Numbers coming shortly. It was a night without a single entertainment original on broadcast as NBC threw two hours of The Wall repeats into the game show logjam against another three hours of ABC repeats. Fox's Love Connection was also in repeat mode, leading out of US Open golf coverage.
This is a compilation of all the broadcast networks' Schedules Plus averages on Monday, providing a look at how the network race has evolved over time on this night. These averages come directly from the night's Schedules Plus posts, which are linked in the table headers below. As with the individual Schedules Plus, it is important to keep in mind that these are not averages of every single thing that aired on the network, but just the most frequent occupant in each timeslot in each section of the year. See the Schedules Plus primer for more. The 'Avg' column and the charts cover only ratings for the big four networks.
FINALS UPDATE:Superstore (R) (0.5) adjusted up while This Is Us (R) (0.4), Arrow (R) (0.1) and Legends of Tomorrow (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
With sports competition out of the way, it was a bounce-back Wednesday for Fox's MasterChef (1.1) and The F Word (0.8). However, that still leaves F Word at two tenths behind its premiere rating, and noticeably weaker than the MasterChef lead-in.
On NBC, Little Big Shots posted another 1.1 to end its three-week summer run, making way for spin-off Forever Young next week. The Carmichael Show was also even with a 0.8.
The other three networks stayed in full repeat mode, including the Wednesday 9:30 debut of American Housewife (0.7) which matched its Modern Family lead-in (0.7). An encore of Steve Harvey's Funderdome (0.6) filled in at 10/9c, and the alphabet will add an original hour here with To Tell the Truth starting next Wednesday.
These numbers are current through Monday, June 12.
WHAT MATTERS:
TNT and USA each premiered female-led (and relatively female-skewing) dramas late last week. For TNT, it was newbie Claws (0.44), which started on exactly the same demo rating as season two of Animal Kingdom. And USA had sophomore Queen of the South (0.40), which was within a league average drop from its year-ago series premiere. Even better for QotS is that it didn't have a WWE lead-in this year. It looks like that difference might lead to the show skewing more female this season. (Its 0.50 W18-49 tied the highest rating from season one, but the 0.30 M18-49 was below the season one average.)
FINALS UPDATE:NBA Finals (9.0) and Man with a Plan (R) (0.7) adjusted up while Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night (1.2), NBA Countdown (2.2), Scorpion (R) (0.4) and Supergirl (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
The fifth and final game of the NBA Finals vaulted to a 9.0 demo rating, 18% above last year's fifth game and almost two full points above the first four games of this series. The series ended with double-digit year-to-year growth for each of the last three games.
NBC's American Ninja Warrior (1.4) and Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge (0.9) returned with significantly lower ratings than the 1.9/1.5 they pulled on this night against a (lower) NBA game last year. (Warrior's season opener last year came a couple weeks earlier, on a Wednesday, but the year-ago evening was Warrior's first Monday episode of the season.)
And Fox brought back So You Think You Can Dance (0.9) leading into new series Superhuman (0.7). Dance finally offered some hope for stabilization after years of decline, falling just a tenth behind last year's premiere. Superhuman had a much weaker start than The F Word and the Thursday game shows but still has some hope of being an improvement on last year's flop drama Houdini and Doyle.
FINALS UPDATE:60 Minutes (0.8) and Stanley Cup Finals (2.3) adjusted up while Steve Harvey's Funderdome (1.3) and Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly (0.6) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
After wowing with repeats on Thursday, ABC's Sunday Fun & Games fared only a little better in its return to originals on Sunday with Celebrity Family Feud (1.5), newbie Steve Harvey's Funderdome (1.4) and sophomore The $100,000 Pyramid (1.2). It was still a decent hold compared with last year's launch; Feud was down just a tenth, Funderdome went three tenths behind the year-ago Pyramid premiere, and Pyramid was three tenths behind the year-ago Match Game at 10/9c.
ABC premiered against the sixth and final game of the Stanley Cup Finals on NBC (1.7/2.1/2.4), which beat the year-ago sixth game (a 1.9 for what was also a series-ender). Leading in was week two of Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly (0.9). This should be adjusting down in finals because the prelim includes hockey on the West Coast.
The night also housed The Tony Awards on CBS (0.9). Tony was always going to come way down from last year's Hamilton-boosted show (1.6), which hit the highest numbers in over a decade, but it also fell a bit below the lows from two years ago.
And Fox had the almost invisible return of American Grit (0.4) in the 9/8c hour, leading out of a leftover Bob's Burgers (0.7) original.
Chicago Fire Gets a Spin-Off When Chicago PD was announced, there were a lot of questions about whether a one-season, below-league average series like Chicago Fire should already be tapped as the start of a franchise. But on premiere night, PD appeared to pass the test, with a solid enough 2.0 leading out of a well above-average 2.1 from Law and Order: SVU. Then it took a similar path to the opening weeks of Fire, with a sizable drop to 1.5 in week two (but it actually built on its 1.4 SVU lead-in), but then a bounce-back to high-1's for most of the rest of the season. In what would become a trend, the season highlight came thanks to a crossover event; it grew to a season high 2.2 for its first crossover with Law and Order: SVU on 2/26/14. The crossovers have been a big boon for PD in years to follow: historical-adjusted series high so far came in another crossover, a 1.9 / 155 Plus sandwiched by Fire and the premiere of Chicago Justice.
Growth, Growth and More Growth
After four seasons, there isn't a whole lot more to say about PD's story because it's the same thing every year: it has always been on Wednesday at 10/9c after SVU, and it has always been up year-to-year in A18-49+. Combined with Chicago Fire's continued growth on Tuesday, Dick Wolf has set up quite the little dynasty in the 10:00 hour.
Season three was the biggest growth season, but two and four were notable as well because those years had a noticeably better trend compared with the SVU lead-in. The retention has subtly improved over the years, to the point that PD had a higher average than SVU for the first time in 2016-17. A 10/9c drama pulling that off as the hour seems to get tougher every year is quite a success story. Next year, the familiar pairing with SVU continued into a fifth season, and in the Dick Wolf tradition, the loss of series lead Sophia Bush didn't make a lot of difference.
In 2018-19 came more improvement, as the tail end of a three-hour #OneChicago night with Chicago Med at 8/7c and Chicago Fire at 9/8c. While the other shows had moved around a lot, for Chicago PD it marked a sixth consecutive year in the same timeslot, and the compatibility helped it eke out a new series high. In season seven, the whole lineup took a major upswing to new series highs, with PD's growth the most robust of all.
Game 4 of the NBA Finals (5.0/5.9) is headed for a third straight y2y growth (after Game 4 posted a 4.7 prelim -> 6.0 final last year). It also ensured that ABC will get its fifth game of the series on Monday.
FINALS UPDATE:Celebrity Family Feud (R) (1.5) and Stanley Cup Finals (1.5) adjusted up while Supernatural (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Week three of Fox's Beat Shazam (1.0) and Love Connection (0.8) were down another tenth as they went up against another sports event, but Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals (1.4) paled in comparison to last week's NBA. (The Cup had been up year-to-year for all four games this year, but it looks like that streak will end here.)
The Fox game shows may have actually had more trouble with great showings from the game show repeats on ABC; Celebrity Family Feud (1.0/1.4) tied Shazam and roared ahead of Connection in the 9/8c hour. The $100,000 Pyramid rounded out the night at 1.1. Both shows had several original episodes that went lower than this last summer.
FINALS UPDATE:NBA Finals (7.2) and The Carmichael Show (0.8) adjusted up while Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night (1.1), NBA Countdown (1.7) and The F Word (0.7) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
ABC looks to be headed for another stellar ratings result with Game 3 of the NBA Finals (5.9). Last year, Game 3 averaged a 5.2 prelim and adjusted up to a 6.1 final. The game result was not so welcome for ABC; a 3-0 Warriors lead means the series could still end as early as this Friday.
The NBA bomb dropped right into week two of the Fox vs. NBC summer programming battle, and led to a bunch of drops. Fox's MasterChef (0.9) and The F Word (0.8) were each down two tenths from last week. NBC's Little Big Shots (1.1) was the most resilient of the bunch, but its lead-out The Carmichael Show (0.7) was down two tenths from last week's 9:00 episode. Superstore repeats (0.5) took over at 9:30 after Carmichael.
FINALS UPDATE:America's Got Talent (2.7) adjusted up while The Middle (R) (0.5), The Flash (R) (0.1) and iZombie (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Week two of NBC's largely-unchecked Tuesday dominance saw America's Got Talent (2.6) come very close to last week's premiere rating. Whether it adjusts up to tie the premiere or not, it will crush the year-ago 2.3 for the second week. At 10/9c, World of Dance (1.9) was down about 20% from last week's breakthrough premiere, but still an absurd improvement on last year's occupant Maya and Marty.
Elsewhere, iZombie is hoping to hang onto what would be its first 0.4 since the season premiere if it can hold in finals. After last week's big drop, Downward Dog stayed at 0.7 this time.
The Walking Dead's spin-off Fear the Walking Dead returned for what looks like another year of disappointment in the making, with a 1.18/1.04 for its two-hour season premiere. Both those hours were well less than half of the the first two hours of last season (3.08/2.53, which premiered in April 2016). And it was even a significant notch below the mid-1's it was usually getting when we last saw it in early fall 2016. Of course, it should be noted that it is still at over double the rating of everything else on this table...
FINALS UPDATE:The Bachelorette (1.7), Man with a Plan (R) (0.8), Life in Pieces (R) (0.7), Stanley Cup Finals (2.0) and Gotham (1.0) adjusted up.
WHAT MATTERS:
It was the second week of ABC's The Bachelorette (1.6) vs. the Stanley Cup Finals on NBC (1.6/1.9/2.0), and it looks like NBC will score a second straight win in that head-to-head. Both events were up from last week, but Bachelorette saw less of a post-Memorial Day bounce than it usually gets. After a terrible debut last week, Bachelorette's lead-out drama Still Star-Crossed managed to hang at 0.5 in week two.
Fox had the two-hour season finale of Gotham, which ticked down to 0.9/0.9.
Week two of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.3) was up a notch from last week's soft start.
FINALS UPDATE:NBA Finals (7.1) and 60 Minutes (0.7) adjusted up while Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night (1.0) and NBA Countdown (1.6) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
It was all ABC with Game 2 of the NBA Finals (5.2/6.3/5.6). After Game 1 was down 5% year-to-year, it looks like this one is going to finish on the year-to-year upside, as last year had a 5.5ish prelim.
NBC had the much-promoted debut of newsmagazine Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly (0.8) in the 7:00 hour, and it was basically in line with the originals that Dateline aired in the 7:00 hour during the regular season (while skewing much older), and was a nice step up from the newsmagazine Dateline: On Assignment which aired around this time last year. It led into a three-hour American Ninja Warrior special (1.1), eight days before its new season premieres.
Early Lead-in Changes Mom was one of two new comedies in CBS' fall 2013 Monday comedy lineup, airing at 9:30 after 2 Broke Girls. It opened with 7.99 million viewers and a 2.5 demo rating, retaining just under 90%ish of its lead-in. It then took typical drops in week two (2.2) and week three (2.1), continuing to post about the same 2BG retention.
The problem for CBS was that the other new comedy, single-cam We Are Men, was a huge disaster at 8:30. Not only was it pulled from the schedule after two weeks, but CBS decided to move the surprisingly soft 2 Broke Girls back to its season one timeslot, at 8:30 after How I Met Your Mother. That meant Mom's late October episodes (2.0 -> 2.3 -> 2.1), had to lead out of repeats of The Big Bang Theory, and the show got a third new lead-in starting in November as Mike and Molly came off the bench. Despite all of this turbulence, Mom just kept plugging away at 9:30, usually doing somewhere in the ballpark of 90% of the lead-in it was given. It was an easy bet for season two. Timeslot Moves in Season Two In season one, Mom stayed put while the rest of the comedy lineup was constantly rearranged around it. But in season two, CBS showed no hesitation whatsoever in moving Mom itself around. First came its major upgrade to Thursday at 8:30 after The Big Bang Theory, where Mom proved to be one of the most promising TBBT lead-outs historically. It included a couple 2.8 ratings in the winter, which still stand as Mom's strongest episodes on an A18-49+ basis.
Despite those results, by the late winter CBS was once again ready to use Big Bang to lead into a new comedy, so Mom headed back to the 9:00 hour (splitting time between 9:30 and 9:00) as The Odd Couple took over at 8:30. Mom fell back into the low 2's, but that was still even or better with the raw numbers it had been doing throughout season one. It was clear that the Big Bang exposure had some lasting impact. Settling In As An Anchor
Since then, Mom has remained a fixture in the 9:00 timeslot while CBS has continued trying with new series at 8:30. For the first two years, the network couldn't find anything to perform as well as Mom did during season two, just modest newbies Life in Pieces and The Great Indoors. And with middling surroundings, Mom itself came down from its highs in the 8:30 season.
But in season five, the arrival of The Big Bang Theory's first spin-off Young Sheldon was a massive success, and much of that juice extended to Mom at 9/8c. In season five, Mom almost made it back to the Plus levels it attained after Big Bang in season two. Though the first 90 minutes of Thursday seemed like an abundance of riches, CBS kept them together for the 2018-19 season and saw modest declines across the board. While other CBS comedy staples have not made it past season six, CBS really needed Mom in a post-TBBT world, so it was renewed for two more years. But the whole night was much weaker without Big Bang, and both of Mom's last two seasons went below the league average.
FINALS UPDATE:NBA Finals (6.9), The Amazing Race (0.8) and Love Connection (0.9) adjusted up while Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night (1.1) and NBA Countdown (2.0) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Numbers coming soon. ABC had the opener of the NBA Finals, while the Fox game shows Beat Shazam and Love Connection returned for week two after strong premieres last week.
It's been six years since the last time I put out an official word on how I come up with the seasonal grades that I hand out in the posts now known as "The Breakdown." The old rubric using raw numbers is actually not too far off of my current standards, once you consider that the league average decline is now almost twice what it was back in those days. Maybe it's just a bit harsher. An updated version of this was probably long overdue anyway, and even moreso now that I've added the complication of doing it with new shows.
There is still a lot of room for subjectivity due to all the different kinds of changes in timeslots. And I'm well aware that no matter how much explanation, it is impossible to please everyone with this kind of practice. But since there actually is an "objective" starting point rolling around in my head, may as well put it out there.
FINALS UPDATE:Modern Family (R) (0.7) and MasterChef (1.1) adjusted up while Little Big Shots (1.1), The Carmichael Show (0.7), This Is Us (R) (0.5), The F Word (1.0), Arrow (R) (0.2) and Legends of Tomorrow (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Wednesday provided the first big head-to-head battle of summer programming, as Fox's MasterChef returned (1.0) with about a league average decline from last year's 1.2 premiere. It led into a nice start for the latest newbie from Gordon Ramsay, The F Word (1.1).
On NBC, Little Big Shots (1.2) kicked off a three-week summer run at close to its typical Sunday spring level, and was reunited with its spring 2016 lead-out, comedy The Carmichael Show (0.9/0.8). After some really ugly results late last season, Carmichael was able to get back to around the same kind of level it was doing early in season two. This Is Us encores took over in the Wednesday 10/9c hour (0.6).
