It's time for a journey through the ABC Tuesday schedule in 2025-26...
fall
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | Dancing with the Stars | High Potential | 194 | ||||
| 245 | 245 | 93 | |||||
| 2025-26 | Dancing with the Stars | High Potential | 347 (+79%) | ||||
| 465 (+90%) | 465 (+90%) | 113 (+21%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +264% | +251% | +44% | +208% | |||
| Rank | 1/27 | 1/27 | 3/27 | 1/27 | |||
Thanks to uniquely massive upward adjustments in finals, presumably due to its Disney+ simulcasts, Dancing with the Stars nearly doubled last year's Plus. That created a bit of a retention mirage for season two of High Potential, which didn't get to air directly after the Disney+ audience. However, it was up significantly, and I'm skeptical that can only be explained by the ABC-only DWTS lead-in. (More on that below.)
winter
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | Will Trent | High Potential | The Rookie | 115 | |||
| 121 | 136 | 88 | |||||
| 2025-26 | Will Trent | High Potential | The Rookie | 110 (-4%) | |||
| 109 (-10%) | 126 (-7%) | 95 (+8%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +18% | +43% | +31% | +30% | |||
| Rank | 7/27 | 4/27 | 5/27 | 4/27 | |||
Will Trent and High Potential returned to thrive in the early winter while the CBS competition was on hiatus, but they were not quite as strong as last year. If anything, these averages might be a bit generous, because the CBS hiatus lasted much longer this year (almost the whole winter window). The Rookie's average here includes only the three episodes that aired at the start of the winter before its move to Monday; its trends looked similar to the other two in those three weeks and probably would've dropped off if it had aired longer.
spring
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | Will Trent | The Rookie | Bad Romance | 75 | |||
| 98 | 87 | 39 | |||||
| 2025-26 | Will Trent | High Potential | RJ Decker | 79 (+5%) | |||
| 91 (-8%) | 90 (+3%) | 56 (+42%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +9% | -3% | -19% | -3% | |||
| Rank | 9/27 | 12/27 | 21/27 | 11/27 | |||
After wrapping in February during season one, High Potential's longer season two took a month off and returned for six episodes in March and April, where it took a big dip against CBS competition and spring viewing levels, but still looked a little better than The Rookie last year. Newbie RJ Decker took a bigger step down at 10/9c than we're used to from The Rookie, then briefly moved to 9/8c after High Potential ended.
Rating the Ratings (about grades)
| Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dancing with the Stars Fall* | 1.0 | 1.36 | 2.1 | +81% | 455 | megahit | +92% | detail |
| Will Trent | 0.2 | 0.30 | 0.4 | -13% | 100 | solid | -7% | detail |
| High Potential | 0.2 | 0.33 | 0.4 | -8% | 111 | solid | -3% | detail |
| RJ Decker | 0.1 | 0.18 | 0.2 | 61 | flop |
Dancing with the Stars Fall: The prelims averaged a 223 Plus, though if you took the adjustments out of the league average as well, you'd get a number (232) almost exactly on par with last year's finals average (237). Including ABC-only adjustments and whatever audience Disney+ cannibalized, it seems pretty certain the show would've been up noticeably in Plus even if it were only on ABC. But I kinda doubt it would've hit the +47% growth that it pulled off last year. However, building on last year's number at all is still quite impressive, not to mention the fact that it's essentially a megahit on two separate platforms. I'm gonna withhold the A+ because of the uncertainties involved, but if it did better than I'm speculating, there's a world in which it deserves it again. Grade: A.
Will Trent: A modest step back from last year in both periods, but still a touch stronger than its first year at 8/7c in 2024. Grade: C+.
High Potential: When looking at High Potential's fall performance, we have to speculate on what the ABC-only DWTS audience actually was (as opposed to the DWTS analysis, where we speculated what it would've been without Disney+). Compared to just the DWTS prelims, High Potential had significantly better retention than last year (53% vs. 44% of the DWTS finals last year). For the retention to be equal, ABC-only DWTS would've had to adjust all the way up to almost 0.80, and I don't see that happening. All this to say it almost certainly retained DWTS better in the fall, possibly quite a bit better. But it also wasn't quite as strong in the winter during the CBS hiatus, and the post-hiatus spring eps were considerably below last year's run that faced CBS competition. It kinda gave off the Abbott Elementary vibe where it did well after the great lead-ins and not as well on its own. Maybe the NBA competition mattered too. Putting all these cross-cutting things together, I'll go with Grade: B.
RJ Decker: Looked kinda similar to the final season of The Good Doctor in 2024 at 10/9c. It got a bit of a bounce when it moved to 9/8c after Trent but probably still no better than what The Rookie: Feds did there a few years ago. Those are not flattering comparisons, but not exactly the worst thing ABC has ever tried either. ABC is giving it another shot. Grade: C-.
The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.
Previous Breakdowns for ABC Tuesday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25
Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for ABC Tuesday.
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