Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/20/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• After a promising start to the spring, it seems to be falling apart in April for Once Upon a Time (1.7), down another three tenths week-to-week and now down seven tenths over the last two weeks. But after seeing the week-to-week HUT decline on Easter Sunday, it seems a bit more reasonable. It also had a much worse lead-in than usual from a Peanuts Easter special (0.9), and the network had low-rated Hallmark Hall of Fame movie In My Dreams from 9-11 (1.0, down 23% from the April movie last year).

• The absence of Resurrection at 9/8c may have been of some benefit to the competition, as NBC's Believe (1.1) was up a tick. It also had a better lead-in from Dateline (0.8), even if its flip to 8/7c with American Dream Builders (0.5) at 7/6c didn't net any growth over the first two hours. And Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.4) also had its first week-to-week growth despite the animated lead-in going into repeats.

• CBS was on the downswing across the board with The Amazing Race (1.7), The Good Wife (1.3) and The Mentalist (1.4).

• Cable also had some Easter ugliness:

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/13/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• The finals helped ABC, as Resurrection (2.1) was down just a single tenth, and it can probably deflect a lot of the blame for that over to Once Upon a Time (2.0), which still had an oddly large week-to-week decline (but not as bad after finals).

• Fox's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.3) dropped into problem territory, though it too got some finals help that made it not quite as bad. Not sure if it's low enough for Fox to start considering moving it and re-installing the 8-10 animation block, but that scenario could at least be on the radar at this point. The toons are in repeats next week, so the network may want to see how Cosmos fares in that scenario.

• CBS had an 11-minute overrun from The Masters, but it was not much of an 18-49 lead-in to their all-original lineup. The Good Wife (1.5) gave back most of last week's big spike.

• The only steady Sunday lineup was NBC's already weak one, but that meant American Dream Builders (0.7) didn't benefit from last week's tryout after The Voice.

• UPDATE: AMC's Mad Men kicked off its two-year final season with 2.3 million viewers and a 0.8 demo rating. The show was already showing some signs of having peaked last season, but this marks a particularly steep 30%ish year-to-year decline. The silver lining for AMC is that Mad Men's presence seemed to help week two of Turn (0.61) skew a bit younger; that show was up 16% in the demo from the premiere despite a roughly 10% drop in overall viewership.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 4/7/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• CBS dominated Monday with the NCAA basketball national championship game. The final was a 7.2 A18-49 rating, down 14% from last year.

• NBC tried American Dream Builders (1.5) after The Voice (3.5) in an academically interesting test of what a really low-rated show would do with this kind of timeslot upgrade. While the show more than doubled its rating from Sunday, this tryout will need to make a difference in next Sunday's rating to not have been a waste.

• On a night otherwise light on original entertainment programming, Bones (1.6) inched up for the second straight week. Dancing with the Stars (2.2) was the only show to take a hit against the big game, but it was just a tenth after finals. It remains a pretty good season for the show; this was actually slightly above last year's rating on this night.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/6/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Walking Dead may be over, but the ABC Sunday bleeding isn't. Resurrection (2.2) took another multiple-tick drop, going behind its Once Upon a Time (2.4) lead-in for the first time. (But a two-tenth surge in finals for Once makes it a big positive; this 2.4 is better than anything it scored in the last couple months of last season.) If this is not the end of it, things might start to get interesting. I've chalked much of this up to the lead-in, but I think it's becoming noteworthy that Revenge (1.3) has also fallen each week since Resurrection's debut, and this time that meant a tie for a season low.

• CBS got a major week-to-week boost thanks to the Academy of Country Music Awards (3.3), though the show was significantly down from last year's 4.3. (Low-to-mid-3's seem to be the norm across the last decade or so, though, so it looks like last year was the fluke.)

• NBC's three newbies all downticked again: American Dream Builders (0.7 leading into a tryout after The Voice tonight), Believe (1.0) and Crisis (1.0). Fox's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.5) was steady for the first time, and its Family Guy (2.3) lead-in was up.

• UPDATE: The return of Game of Thrones easily scored a series high with 6.6 million viewers, about 20% above the previous high. If the show has the same skew as last year, that'll translate to about a 3.5 rating in 18-49, so this could very well edge the ACM Awards as the night's top program. Lead-out comedies Silicon Valley (2 million total viewers) and Veep (955,000) dropped big from there.
• UPDATE #2: Final 18-49 ratings: Game of Thrones (3.61), Silicon Valley (1.08) and Veep (0.51). GoT was 51% above last year's premiere.
• The finale of Shameless (0.85) was 7% behind last year's finale.
• It's pretty tough to really get at what AMC's "standards" are. We could say the premiere of Turn (0.53) got literally one-fifteenth the rating of last week's occupant The Walking Dead, or we could say this number stacks up in the same ballpark with recent seasons of Hell on Wheels and The Killing.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/30/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• Week four of ABC's Resurrection (2.4) saw yet another drop, though this one wasn't that severe compared to last week's 2.5, especially after it adjusted up. The good news for this show is that it's through the against-The Walking Dead half of its season at what would still be a winning level for ABC. But it's not a given that TWD was making much of an impact. Next week promises to be telling.

• The death blow was probably dealt to all of NBC's Sunday shows, as Crisis (1.1) became the latest big week three dropper (though it adjusted up) and American Dream Builders (0.8) and Believe (1.1) inched down again as well.

• CBS benefited from an even bigger basketball overrun lead-in than last week, posting a 6.1 in the first 20 minutes of primetime, and some major developments on The Good Wife, which vaulted it to tie a season high.

• And Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.5) also took another hit. As a show that has some heavy male 18-34 interest (like its cartoon lead-ins), this will be another show to watch next week with The Walking Dead gone.

• UPDATE: The much-aforementioned The Walking Dead finale (8.0 with 15.7 million viewers) was the series' first spring finale not to set a new series high, but it was easily a finale record and darn close to the 8.2's that opened the fall and the spring. This marks roughly 20% growth from last week's 6.7 and about 25% growth from the spring 2013 finale (6.4). And as usual, there's simply no comparison between it and anything else scripted on TV. Its lead-out Talking Dead grew even more strongly, shattering the previous series high in Andrew Lincoln's first live appearance.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/23/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• ABC's Resurrection (2.5) was down another 19% in week three. It was actually down more by percent in week three than in week two, which is not a promising trend. The show still has a lot of room to fall before being in the bubble conversation, but its potential as a game-changer for ABC is looking more limited. And it will have to try to fend off The Walking Dead's finale, which looms next week. One thing to note in its defense is that its lead-in Once Upon a Time (2.1) was also down quite a bit this week.

• Sunday got worse for NBC, too. The second timeslot originals for Believe (1.2) and Crisis (1.3) were each down the usual 20%ish from last week, and new reality series American Dream Builders (0.9) did not make an impact at 8/7c. (It was way behind last week's The Voice recap special.)

• And week three of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.7) also took a larger drop in week three than in week two.

• CBS had a very large lead-in from an NCAA basketball game with a really unfortunate result, delaying its lineup by about 40 minutes. This boosted 60 Minutes but made no real impact on the other shows.

SpotVault - American Dream Builders (NBC) - 2013-14 Ratings

American Dream Builders

Sundays, 8/7c, NBC

Best Case/Worst Case, Mid-March 2014: Resurrection, Believe, The 100 and More!

Best Case/Worst Case returns today to preview the next nine shows premiering on broadcast, spanning from this Sunday (March 9) through two weeks from this Sunday (March 23). BC/WC will be back in roughly three weeks to hit the very end of March (Surviving Jack, Friends with Better Lives) and into April.