Spotted Ratings, Memorial Weekend Roundup 5/23-5/25/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• The return of Primetime: What Would You Do? (1.3) continued ABC's Friday unscripted momentum, matching last year's May Friday premiere (and vastly outrating its brief return on Tuesdays in December).

• NBC's one primetime NHL playoff game prior to the finals (0.8) didn't go very well; it was well below the pre-Finals game from this night a year ago (1.1). But that was still enough to win Saturday, and it doubled up the debut of Fox's Saturday night MLB coverage (0.4).

• Sunday, as always, was the most viewer-depressed night of the holiday weekend, with a PUT miles below all Sundays from the regular season. That sent the burn-off returns of Believe (0.7) and Crisis (0.7) down by 30% apiece. Fox's Coca-Cola 600 was down 16% from last year.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 5/4/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• The slippage streak finally ended on Resurrection's finale night (2.1), as the show was up two ticks week-to-week as its lead-in Once Upon a Time (2.1) was slightly down. Even ekeing out the 2.1 after finals, this won't exactly inspire much confidence in a season two. But a pessimistic season two outlook would likely still be a better option than many of ABC's recent Sunday efforts.

• Fox had a pretty good night with a LEGO-themed The Simpsons (2.0), Family Guy (2.2) and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.6) all hitting their best numbers in at least four weeks. Dramas on the other networks remained low; Believe (1.0), Crisis (1.0), The Mentalist (1.2) and Revenge (1.3) were all flat at or very near their lows and The Good Wife (1.1) took a hit in finals to hit a new series low.

• Cable: Game of Thrones hit another new high, while WGN America's Salem (0.18) has now lost over 60% of its premiere demo audience in just two weeks.

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.

First Two Weeks, Believe/Crisis

WEEK ONE Another NBC tandem on the same night gets combined into one post. Though Believe technically had a preview on Monday, March 10 (2.7), the official week one was the next Sunday, when Believe launched to 6.57 million viewers and a 1.5 demo rating. That was slightly ahead of its The Voice recap special lead-in (1.4). Then came Crisis, which surprisingly grew by another tick at 10/9c, posting 6.53 million viewers and a 1.6 demo rating. Not quite what I would call DOA, but close enough that the shows definitely needed to overachieve in the coming weeks.

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.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/16/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• Premiere Sunday on NBC didn't go very well, as Believe (1.5) took a whooping 44% drop in its first episode in its regular timeslot. Crisis (1.6) actually did garner an OK amount of initial interest (more than I expected, especially if you'd told me Believe had a 1.5), but it still likely needs to overachieve in the coming weeks to give itself a shot at a long-term future.

• On ABC, Resurrection (3.1) is still looking quite promising, down 18% from last week's huge premiere. That's basically an average drop, and that premiere number would've been quite tough to sustain anyway. And Once Upon a Time (2.4) and Revenge (1.7) were even to down minimally, managing to avoid the huge week two drops that their fellow long hiatus shows (Grey's Anatomy/Scandal) experienced.

• Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2.0) remained pretty solid, down just a tenth in week two for Fox (though it might have been a bit steeper drop if not for the week one simulcast). CBS' only notable was a sizable decline for The Mentalist (1.3), ending its long streak of high-1's ratings.

SpotVault - Crisis (NBC) - 2013-14 Ratings

Crisis

Sundays, 10/9c, NBC

The Question, Sunday 3/16/14: Will NBC Have a Sunday Drama Crisis?

After six months of sports, specials and repeats, it's finally time for NBC Sunday to get turned over to original entertainment programming, starting with tonight's timeslot premieres of new dramas Believe and Crisis. Believe got a decent 2.7 on Monday after The Voice and with little drama competition, but the situation is getting massively worse tonight. The huge lead-in's going away, and it's being thrown up against genre dramas The Walking Dead and Resurrection. Tonight the shows may have an OK lead-in from The Voice's "Best of the Blinds" recap special. (It got a 3.0 in the fall, but that was in the show's regular original timeslot, so it'll be nowhere near that tonight.) Breaking 2.0 would be a win for Believe, but I'm expecting mid-to-high 1's, with Crisis dropping a bit more from there.

 Believe PLUS Crisis Over/Under: 2.95.

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.