Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 12/4/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC had its best Wednesday of the season with big performances from holiday specials Christmas in Rockefeller Center and Saturday Night Live Christmas, which combined to nearly double the usual entertainment series ratings and go roughly even with the same lineup a year ago. (Rockefeller was up a bit and SNL down a bit.) That may have been a factor in another horrible performance out of The X Factor and a very weak night for ABC's comedy block, led by easily season low showings out of The Middle, Back in the Game and Modern Family. (Super Fun Night also got there after finals.)

• As for the good news: the finals adjustments meant Arrow tied a season high in its introduction of the Flash, while The Tomorrow People ticked down after adjustments to its fifth consecutive 0.6. CBS' only original, Survivor, was also at best-since-October levels.

• On cable, TNT had a soft start from its new series Mob City (2.29 million viewers and a 0.6), which is being double-pumped for three weeks.

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 10/16/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The fun appears to be over on ABC as Super Fun Night dropped substantially again in week three, now managing barely over half of the Modern Family demo rating. What was a promising start two weeks ago is now a low-end Modern Family retainer.

• It didn't go any better for the 8:30 newbie. ABC had a nice uptick in the lead-off slot with a new Toy Story Halloween special that we'll probably see again in the future. But it was of almost no help to Back in the Game.

• The CW made it two straight weeks with a surprising uptick in the 8:00 hour, as Arrow shook off last week's disappointing start and returned to about the level expected pre-season. And newbie The Tomorrow People was down just a tick in week two.

First Two Weeks, Back in the Game

WEEK ONE
ABC premiered its latest post-The Middle newbie Back in the Game to a 2.2 demo, down a few tenths from its 2.5 The Middle lead-in. This was a slightly better number than anything The Neighbors or Suburgatory ever did in the 8:30 half-hour last season (though The Neighbors' series premiere was at 9:30, so that may not be totally fair). It faced off against a fairly underwhelming set of competition, from The X Factor (2.7 at 8:30) to Survivor (2.4) to Revolution (1.8).

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 10/2/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Rebel-lion began quite well for ABC as Super Fun Night was one of the more impressive post-Modern Family launches, as the Rebel Wilson fanbase likely helped the show pretty much match up skew-wise with its young-skewing ModFam lead-in. I totally whiffed on this one, but in my defense, part of my miss was because I didn't remotely see Modern Fam holding 100% of its week-ago premiere rating. Nashville rounded out a strong final two hours for ABC by almost completely holding up week-to-week even in the face of a one-point-plus lead-in downgrade.

• It wasn't nearly as rosy in the 8:00 hour for ABC, though The Middle and Back in the Game both adjusted up in finals to better levels. BITG was even with last year's The Neighbors.

• NBC's relatively huge premiere Wednesday was just extra credit in a week they would've dominated anyway on the strength of The Voice and football. But it doesn't look like the night will be that kind of asset going forward. Revolution mimicked its spring trajectory, with one good week and then a drop in week two (though it got some finals help), Law and Order: SVU came way back to earth (though it's still a big positive, on the year-to-year plus side) and Ironside launched rather terribly at 10/9c. As predicted pre-season, there was a major skew discrepancy here; it matched SVU in viewership but had 30% fewer 18-49ers.

• No broadcast-wide year-to-year comparisons this time since there was a debate on the second Wednesday last year.

SpotVault - Back in the Game (ABC) - 2013-14 Ratings

Back in the Game

Wednesdays, 8:30/7:30c, ABC

Spotted Ratings, Premiere Wednesday 9/25/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC's Wednesday Revolution began, and Revolution itself returned pretty nicely, nearly matching its late-season post-Voice results in a lead-off role. But the night's biggest story by far was the return of Law and Order: SVU, which outrated any result from the last two seasons and grew a whooping 29% from last year.

• ABC got off to a fairly soft start on Wednesday with a one-hour Modern Family and Nashville each down around 25% from last year's premieres and The Middle also down double digits. They didn't get the fall bounce-back they have in years past. But Back in the Game, which outrated all of The Neighbors' 8:30 results last season, started in reasonably positive fashion.

• Despite the SVU breakout, the CBS procedurals did fine, especially Criminal Minds (down just 10%), though a downward adjustment by CSI took it to 20% below last year's premiere. Survivor was down the sharpest of any CBS show, 23% below last year's week two.

• The X Factor decided to swing upward against the return of competition. Gonna need a few to stew on that one. Still -26% vs. premiere Wednesday 2012.

• The big four was -8% vs. premiere Wednesday 2012. ABC's -2% was a bit inflated because they had just one ModFam and a Revenge recap special on this night last year.

Fall 2013 Best Case/Worst Case, Wednesday 8/7c

The Basics:

	bc	Rank	y2y	Rank	TPUT	Rank	bc/TPUT	Rank
Wednesday 8:00	9.3	10	-13%	16	32.2	13	29%	8

Though Wednesday 8:00 wasn't the weakest weeknight 8:00 hour on broadcast (it edged Tuesday 8:00 by less than a tenth), none of the big four broadcasters really had anything positive to report this year. ABC saw The Middle take a downturn, while The Neighbors was much weaker than 2011-12's Suburgatory. CBS' Survivor continued to trickle downward, NBC had weak comedies, and Fox saw its singing shows keep crumbling. The year's best story by far was on the CW, where Arrow was without a doubt the second-most impressive new show the network has ever developed.