Spotted Ratings, Weekend Roundup 6/5-6/7/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE:
• The NBA Finals Game 2 on Sunday adjusted up to 19.17 million viewers and 7.4 demo rating, up a whooping 23% from Game 2 last season. This was the biggest Game 2 in viewership since 1998, and the biggest Game 2 demo in my 14 years of records.
• Also on Sunday, The Tony Awards (1.0) avoided going sub-1 for the first time, and a few of the Fox comedies including Golan the Insatiable (0.5) also went up. Game of Thrones had a very impressive 3.65 for HBO.
• On Saturday, the Stanley Cup Finals adjusted up to 1.9, tying Game 1. Friday's What Would You Do? (1.1) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) adjusted up while The Messengers (0.2) was down.

• ABC got overtime once again for Game 2 of the NBA Finals, which averaged a preliminary 6.1 A18-49 rating from 8:00 to 11:00. This was up from a 5.0 prelim average in the same period last year, which later adjusted up to 6.0. This game started an hour earlier so it may not adjust up as much as the Thursday game, but the time zone-adjusted household overnight was very similar to Thursday's Game 1 (which ended up with a 6.9 final).

• ABC's dominance left little for everyone else. The Tony Awards on CBS (0.9) preliminarily dipped below 1.0 for what is likely the first time ever. And scripted originals A.D. The Bible Continues (0.7), American Odyssey (0.4) and Golan the Insatiable (0.4) all got crushed. 

• Friday's winner was the NBC re-air of the film Jurassic Park (1.2), which had pretty great numbers by movie standards the week before Universal's new installment Jurassic World is released in theaters. Meanwhile, What Would You Do? (1.0) came back to earth for ABC, but a very good showing from 20/20 (1.4) made up for it.

• Saturday was all about NBC's Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, which started before primetime but had a prelim 1.7 for the two primetime hours. I'll update after finals.

Spotted Ratings, Weekend Roundup 5/29-5/31/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UDPATE: NBC's Saturday NHL hockey went up to 1.5. HBO had a significant rebound from Memorial weekend with Game of Thrones (3.45).

• On Sunday, Fox got no interest in Golan the Insatiable (0.6), an import from Fox's late night animation block that led out of Family Guy (0.9). A.D. The Bible Continues (0.9) and American Odyssey (0.5) had minor rebounds for NBC.

• Friday saw the return of newsmagazine Primetime: What Would You Do? (1.2) in solid fashion. This was down a tenth from the summer premiere last season and built noticeably on its lead-in from a Shark Tank repeat (0.9). CW's volatile Whose Line Is It Anyway? shot back up to 0.5 for the 8:00 original.

• Saturday was all about NBC, which had Game 7 of the NHL Western Conference finals (preliminary 1.3).

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 5/17/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: The Simpsons (1.3) and The Billboard Music Awards (3.8) ticked up. AMC's series finale of Mad Men (1.08) was more than 50% ahead of the show's average over the past couple years. The last time it had a higher rating was the season six premiere on 4/7/13 (1.14).

• ABC beat the combined broadcast competition on the last Sunday of the season with the Billboard Music Awards (3.7), up a couple tenths from last year to the show's biggest rating since 2003. Leading in was Tom Bergeron's finale on America's Funniest Home Videos (1.4), which did no better than its usual solid late-season delivery.

• The scripted shows on broadcast took minor hits. Finale night for Fox's comedy lineup saw The Simpsons (1.2), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.1) and Family Guy (1.3) all tie or hit their lowest ratings since the depth of event season in mid-February. (The year-to-year trends were brutal, as Simpsons/Guy hit a respective 1.6/2.0 on this night last year.) 

• NBC's A.D. The Bible Continues (0.8) and American Odyssey (0.4) and two hours of CBS' Battle Creek (0.6/0.6) all inched down again.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/26/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Family Guy (1.6) adjusted up to top all the other Fox programs.

• ABC saw the prospects further brighten for new drama Secrets and Lies (1.7). After seven weeks at very close to its series premiere number, it finally shot above that premiere rating for the first time, and it's remained a significant promotional priority for the network. Surrounding dramas Once Upon a Time (1.7) and Revenge (1.0) were even.

• NBC didn't have such good news as week four of A.D. The Bible Continues (1.1) was unable to bounce back from last week's stinker, and neither did the somehow-still-airing American Odyssey (0.5). This is a disheartening point for NBC because 1) it had much less competition than last week with The Academy of Country Music Awards; and 2) it also had a much better lead-in as NBC moved its two-hour Dateline Mystery franchise to Sunday. It averaged a 1.4 in the 8:30 half-hour, up from last week's 0.6 A.D. repeat.

• Fox had all five of its Sunday comedies in originals for the first time in a whooping six weeks. The last two hours were extremely consistent, which meant a below-average Family Guy (1.5) but a solid number from the return of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.5). The Simpsons (1.5) and The Last Man On Earth (1.4) were closer to recent results.

• After some recent increases on sports overrun nights, CBS' Madam Secretary (1.0) got obliterated to a new low on this night, while The Good Wife (1.0) inched down as well.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/19/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: The ACM Awards adjusted down to 3.6, still up 9% year-to-year. Once Upon a Time (1.7), Secrets and Lies (1.5) and A.D. The Bible Continues (1.2) got welcome upticks, while American Odyssey (0.5) dropped to what seems like a very clear pull-me-now level. On cable, Game of Thrones (3.6) took a larger than usual post-premiere drop, but it remained on the narrow year-to-year upside and tied the ACM Awards.

• After two weeks very much on the map, it only took three for A.D. The Bible Continues (1.1) to become yet another facepalm situation for NBC. It dropped a whooping six more tenths following the six-tenth week two drop, putting it already at less than half of the premiere rating. Last week, it was still Sunday's #1 broadcast series in 18-49. This week, it was a pretty distant fourth place just in its timeslot. The show's best hope now is that the similarly middle America-skewing Academy of Country Music Awards on CBS were very unfavorable competition for this show, but it would take a huge rebound to change the narrative here. And the surrounding 8/7c A.D. repeat (0.6) and American Odyssey (0.6) also took sizable week-to-week hits.

• ABC fared much better against the added CBS competition. Though Once Upon a Time (1.6) failed to rebound from last week's low, Secrets and Lies (1.4) and Revenge (1.0) both inched up, and America's Funniest Home Videos (1.4) may have benefited from the NBA playoffs airing late in the afternoon on ABC.

• Fox had animated anchors The Simpsons (1.4) and Family Guy (1.7) both in originals for once, with the former ticking down and the latter benefiting from a return to its usual 9/8c slot. The Last Man on Earth (1.4) was also up a bit.

• And CBS more than tripled its usual Sunday 8-11 delivery with an above-average The Academy of Country Music Awards (3.7), whose three-hour prelim was up from last year's 3.3.

First Two Weeks, American Odyssey

WEEK ONE 
Rating: 1.1
Lead-in: A.D. The Bible Continues (2.3 overall, 2.4 at 9:30)
Competition: The Ten Commandments (1.4 overall, 1.5 in 10:00 hour), Battle Creek (0.7)

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/12/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: CBS ended up with a 3.3 in the last 16 minutes of Masters coverage leading into an above-average 1.8 for 60 Minutes and 1.4 for Madam Secretary. The Good Wife (1.1) was also up a tenth week-to-week.

• CABLE UPDATE: The Game of Thrones premiere averaged 8 million viewers and a 4.19 A18-49, up 16% from last year's premiere and a new series high (beating the 3.95 from late last season). The season two premiere for Silicon Valley (1.26) was up an almost identical 17% year-to-year. MTV's Movie Awards (0.78) garnered a lot less interest than usual.

• Opposite a lot of cable competition, it was not a positive week two for NBC's Sunday lineup, as A.D The Bible Continues (1.7) and American Odyssey (0.8) each tumbled by over 25%. Odyssey is certainly dunzo now, and the question becomes whether A.D. can hold on from here. (The Bible actually dropped nearly the same amount in week two, but it went up from there and the week two number ended up being the series low.)

• The other networks were also in at least mostly original mode. Fox saw a below-average Family Guy (1.5) in an odd 8:30 airing that led into yet another full hour of The Last Man on Earth (1.3/1.3). ABC saw both Once Upon a Time (1.6) and Revenge (0.9) inch down again, though Secrets and Lies held at 1.3. And CBS probably got at least a small boost with the end of the Masters leading in, but we'll have to wait for finals since it overran about 15 minutes into primetime.

SpotVault - American Odyssey (NBC) - 2014-15 Ratings

American Odyssey

Sundays, 10/9c, NBC

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 4/5/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC's twelve-part series A.D. The Bible Continues opened with a perfectly fine but unspectacular 9.5 million viewers and 2.3 demo rating. This was below every point from History's parent series The Bible, which premiered at a 3.3 and dropped to its 2.5 low in week two. Matching those numbers was always going to be difficult, so this definitely isn't a disaster, but personally I would say it's in the bottom half of the range NBC would be content with.

• That audience didn't really take to lead-out drama American Odyssey (1.2), which didn't start off meaningfully better than fellow NBC midseason dramas The Slap (1.1) and Allegiance (1.1). It's probably got to hold roughly 100% of this going forward to have a shot, and that is always unlikely.

• ABC tried to temper the A.D. interest by airing its annual presentation of The Ten Commandments (1.4) on Easter Sunday for the first time in over a decade. It was ahead of the last couple years of Saturday ratings and probably had about the same Plus as the last Sunday airing in 2004 (3.3).

• CBS was in original regular series mode and had nothing unusual to report, other than 60 Minutes (0.9) and Madam Secretary (1.1) giving back the boosts they got from recent basketball lead-ins. Fox was in full repeat mode.

Above based on preliminary adults 18-49 ratings unless otherwise noted. Full table forthcoming!

Best Case/Worst Case, April 2015: Weird Loners, A.D., American Odyssey and more!

It's the season finale of Best Case/Worst Case, covering the last few shows that will air a significant stretch of episodes before the end of the regular season. But since all of these except Weird Loners should continue airing into the summer, I will again note that these averages only cover regular season episodes.