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 3/15/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: 60 Minutes (1.5) and the three brand new shows The Last Man on Earth (1.7), Secrets and Lies (1.4) and Battle Creek (0.9) all inched up. We can now say Secrets is having a pretty impressive post-premiere hold, and the Last Man drop looks a bit more excusable now when considering what happened to Family Guy.

• A few of the shows that withstood the opening post-DST Sunday had trouble on the second one. On ABC, the biggest example was Once Upon a Time (1.8), which followed last week's solid one-tenth decline with another three tenths this time. It's still not at its December low yet, but it's pretty close, and that 1.7 in December had a mere 0.5 lead-in. The other two scripted hours on ABC were relatively stable as Secrets and Lies (1.3) shed just a tenth for the second straight week and Revenge was flat at 1.1. 

• Fox's worst news was a second straight 20%ish drop for The Last Man on Earth (1.5), still a passable number but now miles away from that extremely promising premiere a couple weeks ago. It's worth noting it had little help from its Family Guy lead-in (1.7), which was down almost as much. The other Fox shows Bob's Burgers (1.0), The Simpsons (1.5) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.4) also inched down.

• CBS still looks pretty dire, but it got some minor consolation as Madam Secretary (1.2) inched back up. The Good Wife (1.0) and Battle Creek (0.8) were both even.

First Two Weeks, Battle Creek

Reminder: The Last Man on Earth and Secrets and Lies games are also open till Monday!

WEEK ONE 
Rating: 1.0
Lead-in: The Good Wife (1.1 overall, 1.1 at 9:30)
Competition: Secrets and Lies (1.5), Dateline (0.9)

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/8/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Fox had a big night of adjustments, as all the originals except for The Simpsons went up a notch, reducing The Last Man on Earth's week-to-week drop to -21%. Revenge (1.1) also adjusted up.

• Last Sunday's big breakthrough The Last Man on Earth (1.8) was down 25% in week two, falling slightly behind its new lead-in from Family Guy (2.0). It's a steep drop, but it gave itself room to withstand this. Like The Simpsons last week, Family Guy did a good job bouncing back from bad event season ratings,but Fox saw the arrival of DST take a toll earlier in the night as Bob's Burgers (1.1), The Simpsons (1.6) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.4) were all down multiple tenths from last week.

• On ABC, week two of Secrets and Lies (1.4) had a good post-premiere hold, down just a tenth from last week's premiere. I hesitate to call it "promising" since it's holding from a premiere that did not do that well, but this at least keeps it from dropping out of the conversation. Its lead-in Once Upon a Time (2.1) absorbed DST well, also down just a tenth from last week's return, while Revenge (1.0) bounced back a bit from the January event season numbers, though this was still on the low end of its fall ratings.

• For CBS, last week's nightmare only intensified. Battle Creek was down two tenths to a horrific 0.8, but the more meaningful story is probably how ugly it's getting in the previous two hours. Madam Secretary (1.1) and The Good Wife (1.0) were down again from already miserable return ratings last week.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/1/15

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: The Last Man On Earth (2.4) and Dateline (0.9) adjusted up.

• For the second straight year, the Sunday after the Oscars brought a significant positive surprise, but this time it wasn't on the network with the Oscar promotion. Fox's The Last Man On Earth premiered at a very strong 2.3 rating, which it fully held in the 9:30 half-hour. This was more than double Mulaney's premiere rating from the fall. Though clearly this simple concept pulled in significant interest on its own, it also had more help than expected from the rest of the night; The Simpsons (1.8) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.8) both had massive spikes from their event season ratings. And the return to 7:30 for Bob's Burgers (1.4) actually did better than most of its 9:30 ratings.

• Meanwhile, the Oscar network ABC had a pretty healthy return from Once Upon a Time (2.2), which was above the last three episodes from the fall and just two tenths below the strong spring 2014 premiere. But this year's post-Once Upon a Time launch was certainly no Resurrection, as the two-hour premiere of Secrets and Lies (1.5) had a modest start at best. Of course, comparing to the 3.8 breakthrough from Resurrection isn't that fair, and a 1.5 in 2015 is clearly somewhat better than the disastrous 1.5 premiere from Red Widow a couple years ago. And it was obviously a big improvement on recent Resurrection and Revenge numbers. But it's going to have to hold up very well to have a future.

• The big loser was CBS, which bombed pretty much across the board with new season lows for Madam Secretary (1.3) and The Good Wife (1.1) and a DOA series premiere for Battle Creek (1.0).

SpotVault - Battle Creek (CBS) - 2014-15 Ratings

Battle Creek

Sundays, 10/9c, CBS

The Question, Sunday 3/1/15: Will the New Sunday Series Be Well-Kept Secrets?

It's the first Sunday after the Oscars, which means it's time for the broadcast networks to start programming original series on Sunday again. It's often a multiple-premiere night, and on this evening there are three: the two-hour premiere of ABC mystery drama Secrets and Lies, CBS comedic procedural Battle Creek and Fox post-apocalyptic comedy The Last Man On Earth.

This was a big night a year ago, as ABC got a huge 3.8 opening from new drama Resurrection and Fox was very much on the map with the documentary series Cosmos. But I'm far more down on this batch of series than I even was on last year's crop before they happened. Two of them will have to self-start; Battle Creek and Last Man will both probably have lead-ins that are (perhaps significantly) smaller than the required number. Only Secrets and Lies follows a series (Once Upon a Time) that is likely to go over, and I'm not sold ABC can get the Once audience interested or make this child murder concept work where others have failed. But it only takes one strong showing for "Over" to cash. Will the new Sunday series be well-kept Secrets? That's The Question for Sunday, March 1, 2015.

Best Case/Worst Case, Early March 2015: The Last Man on Earth, CSI: Cyber, American Crime and more!

Best Case/Worst Case is back to preview one of the busiest five-day stretches of midseason. We're covering just the seven premieres from Sunday to Thursday here. There should be another post in a couple more weeks or so.