Spotted Ratings, Thursday 3/5/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: The Big Bang Theory (4.8), American Idol (2.2) and The Blacklist (1.8) adjusted up. So Idol's Thursday ep beat the Wednesday ep that was paired with Empire but against The Voice.

• How to Get Away with Murder is already missed. ABC premiered newbie American Crime at a lukewarm 2.0 demo rating, two thirds of its lead-in from Scandal (3.0). The show clearly brought a different skew than the TGIT norm to the table, with noticeably better retention among older viewers (88% in total viewers, 8.4 million vs. 9.6 million) and noticeably worse among younger viewers (61% in A18-34, 1.4 vs. 2.3). 

• Though Scandal's 3.0 was its lowest rating in 2015, Grey's Anatomy (2.4) snuck in one last rise on the Thursday before DST.

• CBS was this Thursday's big winner, at least in the first two hours. Though it had some help from a bigger The Big Bang Theory (4.7), The Odd Couple (3.0) looks like the real deal at 8:30, and Mom (2.2) inched up in its second try at 9:30. But Elementary (1.3) was weak at 10/9c, perhaps suggesting the older-skewing American Crime cut into its audience a bit.

• NBC saw The Blacklist regress back to 1.7 after last week's growth, and it was surrounded by 0.8's from The Slap and Allegiance. Fox was close to even with American Idol (2.1) and Backstrom (1.0).

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 2/19/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Scandal (3.3) and How to Get Away with Murder (2.9) made it a full night of 0.2 gains for TGIT. The Big Bang Theory (4.5) and Two and a Half Men (3.2) were also up a tenth.

• The second long-running series finale in as many nights went a lot better for CBS, as twelve-year vet Two and a Half Men (3.1) spiked by nearly 50% week-to-week. It wasn't quite a How I Met Your Mother-sized spike, but it was pretty close. This was the show's highest rating in the two seasons since it lost The Big Bang Theory as a lead-in.

• The network had more middling results in the 8/7c hour. The Big Bang Theory (4.4) didn't see any real benefit from the events later in the night, and it led into a 3.1 premiere for The Odd Couple. While this was about 10% above Mom's high point in the slot, it will take a very good post-premiere hold for this show to settle in as a Mom-sized player. Considering a two-week March Madness hiatus is coming in just a few weeks, that will be difficult to say the least. 

• Week three of NBC's all-drama Thursday saw a big 8/7c drop from The Slap (0.8), but The Blacklist (1.7) was even against increased CBS competition and Allegiance (0.9) rebounded a bit. It's not a major surprise that the shows held up this week since last week seemed like such a ridiculous underachievement, but let's see if they've got a rebound in them going forward.

•  TGIT had another particularly stellar night, as Grey's Anatomy (2.5), Scandal (3.2) and How to Get Away with Murder (2.8) were all up week-to-week.

• Fox was the only network that really seemed to suffer, as Backstrom (0.9) gave back last week's rebound and then some. American Idol (2.1) also hit a season low.

First Two Weeks, Allegiance

WEEK ONE 
Rating: 1.1
Lead-in: The Blacklist (2.4 overall, 2.3 at 9:30)
Competition: How to Get Away with Murder (2.7), Elementary (1.5)

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 2/12/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: The Backstrom comeback got a little less exciting with a downward adjustment to 1.2.

• Reasonable minds could disagree about what to make of The Blacklist's opening 2.4 on Thursday. But it's hard not to see a nearly one-third drop to 1.7 in week two as a severe disappointment, and one that suggests the show got more Super Bowl help than it might have seemed at the time. Dropping even more was Allegiance (0.7), which went completely off the map in just its second week. It's now on immediate death watch. In the context of Allegiance's 1.1 premiere with a big lead-in last week, The Slap filling out the lineup at an identical 1.1 at 8/7c doesn't seem that bad, really. But it's not gonna serve as any real consolation for what happened in the last two hours.

• CBS squeezed in one last 8/7c repeat of The Big Bang Theory (2.1) in the week before The Odd Couple's premiere. With more competition than in January, an original Mom (2.1) did not fare as well as in previous post-repeat showings, and the rest of the originals were also down a touch.

• On this night, TGIT's steadiness with Grey's Anatomy (2.3), Scandal (3.1) and How to Get Away with Murder (2.7) looked pretty awesome by comparison.

• And it looks like some of those lost Blacklist viewers may have funneled back into Backstrom (1.3), which had a surprisingly large week four rebound.

SpotVault - Allegiance (NBC) - 2014-15 Ratings

Allegiance

Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 2/5/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: The Big Bang Theory (4.6) rose to tie Empire for the top (broadcast) scripted series of the week. Scandal (3.2), The Blacklist (2.4) and Grey's Anatomy (2.3) also added a tenth, while The Vampire Diaries (0.7) was down.

• Despite a bold move of its top drama, Thursday remains a very tough nut for NBC to crack. The Blacklist (2.3) was a disappointment in its Thursday premiere, below its entire Monday run this season and tying the 2.3 low point when it didn't have a Voice lead-in last season. This was not a good result but not a total disaster, and it should still settle in as a massive improvement over NBC's recent fare on the night. But NBC still put one in the total disaster column with the unwatched pilot of Allegiance (1.1). It couldn't even hold onto half of The Blacklist's demo on premiere night. It's the latest and perhaps biggest fail in what remains a miserable season for NBC's new series.

• TGIT took its usual significant week two hit, with Grey's Anatomy (2.2) suffering the most on a week-to-week basis (down over 20%) compared with Scandal (3.1) and How to Get Away with Murder (2.7) (which were down in the low teens).

• With a second major drama competitor in the mix, Fox's Backstrom (1.0) actually took an even bigger drop in week three than in week two, and this should take it completely out of any renewal conversation. And this came despite a second straight night of week-to-week growth for American Idol (2.4). 

• The biggest winner in all this was CBS, which was completely unscathed in the first 90 minutes with The Big Bang Theory (4.5), Mom (2.8) and Two and a Half Men (2.3). And they were improved in the last 90 minutes with the return of The Big Bang Theory repeat (1.9) at 9:30 and Elementary (1.5) ticking back up at 10/9c.

The Question, Thursday 2/5/15: How Many Viewers Pledge Allegiance to NBC Thursday?

Last week, I was uncertain whether to make a Question for this night about just NBC or about the showdown between Scandal and The Blacklist. I decided to leave it up to what The Blacklist's ratings were after the Super Bowl; if it did decently or better, then Scandal vs. The Blacklist could be hugely intriguing. Unfortunately, The Blacklist was a post-Super Bowl disappointment, posting the worst ratings for a lead-out starting before 11:00 (8.4) in recent memory. To me, that has made this night much more about NBC just doing well by its own standards than about NBC actually aspiring to knock off ABC. Maybe The Blacklist can still be a world-beater, but the network would probably take something less than that if offered right now. How many viewers pledge Allegiance to NBC Thursday? That's The Question for Thursday, February 5, 2015.

Best Case/Worst Case, February 2015: Fresh Off the Boat, The Blacklist, The Odd Couple and more!

Welcome to the Best Case/Worst Case for broadcast television's ten February premieres!