The Breakdown: Fox Sunday in 2015-16 (The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Last Man on Earth, Bob's Burgers and more!)

It's time for a journey through the Fox Sunday schedule in 2015-16...

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 6/12/16

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC may end up winning Sunday night after finals with the sixth and final game of the Stanley Cup Finals (1.4/1.5/1.8). But it looks the network got a real run from CBS' Tony Awards (1.6/1.6/1.5), which had a massive year-to-year surge in the year of Hamilton. This is gonna end up being Tony's best 18-49 rating since 2003, and may be the most-watched telecast since long before that.

• ABC was on the map with pretty strong repeats of America's Funniest Home Videos (0.8/1.0) and Celebrity Family Feud (1.2) leading into coverage of the Orlando shootings (1.2) at 10/9c. Fox burned off two episodes of Cooper Barrett's Guide (0.3/0.3) in the 7/6c hour, leading into comedy repeats (0.6/0.5/0.7/0.4).

• ABC won the Saturday race with two hours of the O.J. Simpson documentary O.J.: Made in America (0.9), which will air the rest of its run on ESPN starting this Tuesday. (FX actually had an all-day marathon of The People v. O.J. Simpson as counter-programming.) Leading into the doc was the new entertainment newsmagazine People's List (0.3).

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

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Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/6/16

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Madam Secretary (1.1) and Once Upon a Time (R) (0.6) adjusted down.

• ABC had a rough start to its return to Sunday drama programming, with The Family (0.8) completely bombing in its timeslot premiere at 9/8c. That means it's gonna be another rough (if not even rougher) run of lead-in support at 10/9c for Quantico (1.1), which was back at a new low. And Once Upon a Time (1.3) didn't fare much better at 8/7c, tying its low from the last couple fall episodes.

• Fox also shuffled the deck on Sunday, and at least in the prelims Bordertown (1.5) actually got an inflation in its move to 7/6c due to a late-afternoon NASCAR lead-in. It's possible/probable that this number includes some NASCAR coverage, so stay tuned for updates.
• The rest of the lineup looked fairly normal with Bob's Burgers (1.1), The Simpsons (1.3), sore spot Cooper Barrett's Guide (0.8) and Family Guy (1.3). And the network improved markedly at 9:30 with the return of The Last Man on Earth (1.1). 

• NBC will be back in the entertainment series game next Sunday but did rather well this week with a two-hour The Voice repeat (0.8/1.3) and a two-hour Dateline (1.4).

• And CBS' lineup of 60 Minutes (1.3), Madam Secretary (1.2), The Good Wife (0.9) and CSI: Cyber (0.8) inched down in the second half of the night.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 2/21/16

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Apparently Shark Tank was actually an original, which makes it look a lot worse... and it adjusted down to a new season low 1.1 in finals. The Walking Dead (6.58) was just barely down in week two, beating the year-ago week two that got slammed by SNL40.

• In a duel of two-hour specials, neither was anywhere close to an SNL40-esque breakout but both were acceptable enough filler. ABC's celebration of the Disneyland 60th Anniversary (1.8) beat out NBC's tribute to legendary Must See TV director James Burrows (1.3).

• The Disneyland special was surrounded by a season high America's Funniest Home Videos (1.3) and a solid repeat of Shark Tank (1.2), while NBC's All-Star Tribute had two hours of Dateline (1.0/1.3) leading in.

• Fox saw some minor rallies from last week's disheartening comedy results, as most of Bob's Burgers (1.1), The Simpsons (1.4), Cooper Barrett's Guide (0.8), Family Guy (1.3) and Bordertown (0.7) were by up a tenth from last week. 

• And the CBS dramas Madam Secretary (1.2), The Good Wife (1.0) and CSI: Cyber (0.9) were even across the board.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 2/14/16

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: The Bachelor (1.1), Cooper Barrett's Guide (0.8) and the 7:00 The Simpsons (0.8) adjusted up.
• The Walking Dead returned with a 6.75, down 15% from the last spring premiere.
  

• After a nearly a month off, Fox's comedies made rough if not disastrous returns to the schedule, as The Simpsons (1.3), Cooper Barrett's Guide (0.7), Family Guy (1.2) and Bordertown (0.7) were all down about a half point from their last eps in mid-January. This marked a new season low for The Simpsons and a tie for Family Guy, while Cooper and Bordertown basically fell off the competitive map. (By comparison, Bob's Burgers (1.0) held up swimmingly at 7:30, matching its January 17 ep.)

• ABC had America's Funniest Home Videos (1.2), a two-hour The Bachelor 20th season special (1.0), and a new series low for Castle (0.8) in a special Sunday original.

• NBC won the evening with Dateline (0.9) and Valentine's Day specials from Saturday Night Live (0.9) and The Tonight Show (1.3/1.6).

• On CBS, 60 Minutes (1.2) and Madam Secretary (1.2) were up a tenth, but The Good Wife (1.0) was steady and CSI: Cyber (0.9) was down a tenth.

• In addition to Valentine's Day, which usually depresses viewing a bit, the broadcast offerings were further overshadowed by the return of The Walking Dead on AMC, plus the NBA All-Star Game on TNT. More after finals!

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 1/17/16

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Adjusting for live West Coast viewing meant NBC's Dateline went down to 0.6/1.0, while the presidential debate was up to a 2.1. 60 Minutes adjusted up to 4.8 (its highest rating in over three years), and Family Guy (1.7) and The Good Wife (1.4) also went up a notch.

• CBS got a turn at a playoff NFL lead-in, and it looks like Denver and Pittsburgh (with a preliminary 12.0 in the 7:00 hour) provided a far bigger one than Fox got last week. That helped boost 60 Minutes (4.7), Madam Secretary (2.0) and even The Good Wife (1.3) at 10/9c to new season highs. Madam would actually tie its series high from last season if it holds in finals. (And they probably won't adjust much since they actually started exactly on time.)

• Over on Fox, there were significant week-to-week drops from last week's NFL-boosted results with the return of Bob's Burgers (1.0), then The Simpsons (1.8), Cooper Barrett's Guide (1.2), Family Guy (1.6) and Bordertown (1.2). But maybe the NFL exposure last week actually helped a smidge, as the new comedies were even with (Cooper) or up a tick from (Bordertown) their premieres two weeks ago, even as the animated anchors were down a bit. They're still not impressive, but these ratings in week three don't look quite as bad as they did in week one.

• ABC had another brutal winter Sunday; the Galavant nightmare continued as it stayed flat at a 0.6 rating, even against probably the easiest competitive situation it will face in its five-week run. America's Funniest Home Videos (0.8) stayed low against the end of the huge CBS game, while Quantico got 0.3/0.4 for two more repeats.

• And NBC had two hours of Dateline (0.8/1.1) leading into a Democratic presidential debate (1.9). It edged the previous two debate averages in broadcast primetime (1.7 on November 14 and 1.3 on December 19), though those were both on Saturdays.

First Two Weeks, Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life

WEEK ONE 
Rating: 1.2
Lead-in: The Simpsons (2.0)
Competition: Galavant (0.9), Undercover Boss (1.6), Sunday Night Football (7.9)

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 1/10/16

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: Fox's comedies adjusted as follows: The Simpsons (3.6), Cooper Barrett's Guide (2.1), Family Guy (1.8), Bordertown (1.5). Thanks to the NFL, Cooper Barrett was up 75% from last week's premiere and Bordertown up 36%, but the comedies as a whole were down almost 30% from the night Fox had a playoff NFL lead-in last year (4.7/3.0/2.8/2.0 on 1/4/15). The Good Wife (1.1) also adjusted up.

• Week two for Fox's new Sunday comedies almost certainly brought an upswing due to a huge lead-in from the NFL playoffs. But we'll have to wait for finals since these shows all started at roughly 20 minutes after their regular timeslots on the East Coast.
• The prelims are 6.7 at 8:00 (20 minutes of NFL and 10 of The Simpsons), 2.8 at 8:30 (20 Simpsons/10 Cooper Barrett's Guide), 2.0 at 9:00 (20 Cooper Barrett/10 Family Guy), 1.6 at 9:30 (20 Family Guy/10 Bordertown) and 1.4 at 10:00 (20 Bordertown/10 local programming). More after finals!

• NBC dominated primetime with the Golden Globe Awards, which averaged 15.5 million viewers and roughly a 4.6 18-49 rating from 8:00 to 11:00. This rating typically adjusts up significantly since the live West Coast viewing isn't counted in these prelims; it had a 5.0 prelim/5.8 final last year, so it will probably end up declining a bit year-to-year.
• UPDATE: The time zone-adjusted numbers are 18.5 million viewers and a 5.5 A18-49 rating, each down just a bit from last year. Still, it outrated Gervais' previous hosting stints from 2010-12.

• CBS was back in the scripted original game with the returns of Madam Secretary (1.0), The Good Wife (1.0) and CSI: Cyber (1.0). That marks a new season low for Madam Secretary (which should get some help from the NFL next week), but was actually another above-average result for Cyber.

• And ABC's already rough winter Sunday lineup got further obliterated by the Globes, as America's Funniest Home Videos (0.8) and Galavant (0.6) each shed three tenths. That meant Galavant roughly matched its brutal percent drop from week two a year ago (and thus remained down over 50% year-to-year). Quantico repeats got 0.3.

SpotVault - Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life (Fox) - 2015-16 Ratings

Cooper Barrett's Guide

Sundays, 8:30/7:30c, Fox

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 1/3/16

WHAT MATTERS:

• FINALS UPDATE: CBS finals put 60 Minutes at 2.8, Undercover Boss at 1.6 (tying the season premiere) and the Limitless repeats at 0.8/0.6. The final 7.9 for Sunday Night Football was the franchise's best rating in over a month.

• Week 17 in the NFL always sees a late-afternoon national window for both CBS and Fox. This year, CBS was the big winner in that window with Peyton Manning's return in Denver (a prelim 5.4 average in the 7:00 hour), while Fox was the loser with blowouts in its relevant games (3.3 at 7:00 and 2.2 at 7:30). That was very inconvenient for Fox, since it was premiering two new comedies on the night. But even light of that, it was a very unpromising start for Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life (1.2) and Bordertown (1.1). Each show shed over a third of its respective lead-in (The Simpsons (2.0) and Family Guy (1.7)). These shows should get a bit more help with a playoff game lead-in next week, but beyond that it's gonna get even tougher.

• ABC also had a rough comedy premiere night as the return of sophomore Galavant (0.9) could only tie its low from last season (which was set against the AFC Championship Game). This night wasn't quite as ripe for sampling as last year's opening night, when Galavant scored a 2.0; on this night, Galvant still had to deal with primetime NFL. But it was still about as easy as it'll ever be, as the Golden Globes loom next week.
• ABC sandwiched Galavant with America's Funniest Home Videos (1.1) and the beginning of a repeat run for Quantico (0.4/0.4).

• The CBS prelims were 2.4 for 60 Minutes (8:00-9:00), 1.4 for Undercover Boss (9:00-10:00) and 0.7 for a repeat of Limitless (10:00-11:00). If anything, these shows should adjust up in finals since they all started about five minutes before the hour on the East Coast. More on that and NBC's solid-rated NFL game (7.2/7.1/6.9 prelims) after finals!

Best Case/Worst Case: Galavant, Cooper Barrett's Guide..., Bordertown

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