WHAT MATTERS:
- It's been a season of many embarrassments for American Idol, but the finale (2.6) brought a little redemption. (Provided you don't think it's an embarrassment that people are raving over an Idol finale rating in the mid-2's.) At least on a percentage basis, this was pretty much a vintage Idol finale spike, up by 24% from last week's final performance Wednesday and by over 50% from the deflated Tuesday performance finale. It was 28% behind last season's finale, which is one of the show's better recent year-to-year points, but last year's finale faced piles of competition (including The Big Bang Theory and the series finale of The Office).
- After finals factored in the last 13 minutes, Survivor (2.6) adjusted up to tie Idol in the reality duel. Being even week-to-week would normally be a bit disappointing, but this show typically hasn't generated much additional finale interest in recent seasons. Its audience is its audience, start to finish. This was a single tenth below last spring's finale (and tied with the fall one).
- Opposite the big reality duel, it was Modern Family (3.7) emerging as the runaway #1 program, spiking week-to-week for its wedding finale. A finals uptick made it even year-to-year, and the one-hour The Middle adjusted up to narrowly exceed last year's finale. The network launched season two of Motive (0.9) at 10/9c. It was down nearly a third from last year's series premiere but basically in line with what it did in the last two thirds of the season. Even with ABC comedy Wednesday going into repeats next week, its lead-ins probably won't be that much worse than Mixology (1.3).
- Even with no CBS procedurals in play, NBC got no real finale heat out of Revolution (1.1), Law and Order: SVU (1.6) and Chicago PD (1.6). And the CW's The 100 (0.5) held on pretty well with usual lead-in Arrow departing.
WHAT MATTERS:
- A week after the last two hours of ABC's Wednesday block fell apart, there was no rally for Mixology (1.3) and Nashville (1.2) on this night, and only a tiny one for Modern Family (2.9). And this time, the 8/7c hour joined in the late spring struggle, as The Middle (1.6) and Suburgatory (1.3) were still at new lows after adjusting up in finals!
- Things were also pretty brutal on NBC; Revolution (1.1) hit a new low, while Chicago PD (1.4) was tied for a low. And on Fox, American Idol (1.8) hit a new Wednesday low even with its finals uptick.
- Only CBS had some relief, with Survivor (2.4), Criminal Minds (2.3) and CSI (1.9) all posting small week-to-week upticks.
WHAT MATTERS:
- It was the first Wednesday in a good while with every network fully in originals, and several networks seemed to suffer. It was worst on ABC, where Suburgatory (1.5), Modern Family (2.8), Mixology (1.3) and Nashville (1.2) all experienced double-digit drops. Modern and Nashville were particularly weak, each down 20% to outright season lows. This puts a screeching halt to Modern's minor momentum of late, and ABC will desperately hope it's just a blip night.
- After adjustments, American Idol (1.9), Survivor (2.3) and Criminal Minds (2.2) all avoided outright season lows, but all tied for lows. CSI (1.7) adjusted down to dead even in a point bound to be scrutinized because it introduced the potential Patricia Arquette spin-off.
- NBC emerged largely unscathed. Revolution (1.3) was the only Portland pre-emption casualty, adjusting down to its usual number, and Chicago PD (1.9) seemingly benefited from another Dick Wolf universe cross-over (this time with Chicago Fire). And the CW's The 100 (0.6) held up in the face of all the drama competition returning.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Another big episode on Law and Order: SVU (2.0) had yet another spike in it, breaking a two for the sixth time this season. (It did this just three times last year.) That helped the show pull close to a sagging Criminal Minds (2.3) in the 9/8c crime drama duel. A below-average CSI (1.7) kept CBS narrowly ahead of NBC's Chicago PD (1.6) at 10/9c.
- Week four of The 100 (0.5) brought a third straight drop, though this one was to be expected given Arrow (0.4) went into repeats. All we can say is that the show avoided the 0.4 disaster scenario in this spot, and it feels like whether it can get back to 0.6+ when Arrow returns next week will be key.
- ABC was all repeats except for Mixology (1.2), which adjusted up to tie its previous episode with no original lead-in.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Week two of the CW's The 100 (0.7) was down two tenths week-to-week as its lead-in Arrow (0.9) perked up by another tick. Not a great trend, but still a pretty good raw number. Stay tuned for week three.
- Only ABC aired original scripted programming out of all the other networks. The results were mixed, as Modern Family (3.6) adjusted up to its best number since November and it helped Mixology (1.6) also outrate the last couple episodes (though it adjusted down to behind the first couple). But bubble show Nashville (1.3) tied its low point, which seems particularly soft since both its broadcast competitors were in repeats. (Suburgatory tied its low in prelims but adjusted up in finals.)
- Once again, Survivor (2.3) > American Idol (2.2), though Survivor was down a bit this week while a finals uptick kept Idol even.
- Cable: the series finale of Psych (0.72) was up 37% week-to-week, though that still left it behind a couple episodes from early in the season.
WHAT MATTERS:
- It's been a pretty good season for CW newbies, but The 100 was arguably their most impressive premiere yet. It opened with 2.73 million viewers and a 0.9 A18-49 rating, actually building on its lead-in from Arrow (0.8). Though this is only a bit above the premiere of previous occupant The Tomorrow People (2.32m/0.85, which rounded up to 0.9), it's a few notches more impressive given its later placement on the calendar. The 18-34 skew isn't as promising (it had a 0.7 out of Arrow's 0.8), and it doesn't have to underachieve that much to find itself in real trouble, but the CW will very happily take this start.
- The usual Wednesday reality battle continues to swing more heavily toward CBS' Survivor (2.5), widening its lead over a cratering American Idol (2.2, and just a 2.0 in the 8:00 hour). And the usual Wednesday crime drama battle got kinda ugly on both sides; Criminal Minds (2.2), Law and Order: SVU (1.5) and Chicago PD (1.4) were all at or near season lows. NBC's Revolution (1.2) also hit a new one.
- ABC sat out most of its lineup, so Mixology (1.2) got its first taste of life without an original Modern Family lead-in.
WHAT MATTERS:
- The first Wednesday after DST was actually pretty steady for most of the 8/7c occupants, but that may be because they picked up some pieces from American Idol's (2.4) latest double-digit drop. The show dropped behind Survivor (2.5) in the 8:00 hour as well as overall. (Also worth noting the week-to-week decline in PUT didn't appear as significant as the last couple days.)
- On ABC, the shows that appeared to overachieve last week each dropped back this week, though a big uptick in finals helped reduce Suburgatory's drop to just a tenth. But Mixology (1.5) still followed up its 100% week two hold by losing two tenths in week three. (Modern Family (3.4) retention is now at 44%.)
- And on CBS, Survivor (2.5) was up a notch even against DST (it also grew this week last year), while the crime dramas remained consistently inconsistent; Criminal Minds (2.3) was down noticeably and CSI (2.0) was back up noticeably.
- Cable: lots of drops, but it was most brutal for The Americans (0.39). I thought there was no way this show would maintain the same 40%+ year-to-year slippage from premiere night, but here we are... this was 41% behind week three of season one.
WEEK ONE
Modern Family had never led into a truly disappointing series premiere before, but
Modern Family had never met anything quite like
Mixology. The show managed a terrible
1.7 demo in its premiere, 45% below an also underachieving
Modern (3.1). There was a lot of competition from
American Idol,
Survivor and a well above average
Law and Order: SVU, but there was really no spinning this one. It was only a couple ticks ahead of the last
Super Fun Night to air after an original
Modern.
WHAT MATTERS:
- A week after the Mixology premiere debacle and a terrible all-around Wednesday, ABC was in bounce-back mode. The Middle (1.9), Suburgatory (1.7), Modern Family (3.4) and Nashville (1.5) were all up multiple tenths. Even Mixology (1.7) pulled off the improbable, going dead even and becoming the season's first new show to break even in week two (excluding preview situations like About a Boy and The Originals). Though it's still an unacceptable number, it at least keeps it a bit ahead of the recent Super Fun Night results. So it remains on the schedule at least for now.
- NBC's Law and Order: SVU (1.6) and Chicago PD (1.5) duo crashed back to earth after last week's big crossover, perhaps also suffering from Criminal Minds (2.6) returning to the 9:00 hour.
- And the last hurrah for the Arrow (0.7) and The Tomorrow People (0.4) combo was shockingly weak, with each show posting a new series low. The CDub is gonna have to hope Arrow shows a bit better when The 100 premieres after it in a couple weeks.
- Cable numbers are up! Week two of FX's The Americans (0.56) took a noticeable post-premiere drop, down 0.12 from last week's premiere. The year-to-year gap only narrowed a bit from premiere night; this point was still down over a third from week two of season one.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Week two of The Voice (4.5) began with only a two-tenths drop from last week and remained only a hair behind the corresponding night last spring (4.7). But The Blacklist (2.7) took a noticeable drop in its second week back, dipping well behind any other post-Voice episode.
- While How I Met Your Mother (3.3) was down a bit more after overachieving last week vs. The Voice, the other CBS comedies 2 Broke Girls (2.6), Mike and Molly (2.2) and Mom (2.0) all rebounded by a tick.
- ABC tried a repeat of Mixology (1.1) after a 90-minute The Bachelor (2.3), which helped Castle (1.6) find a new low.
- And Fox's Almost Human (1.5) did not plead its case very well on finale night, limping to the end of season one at a new series low. The finals didn't help it this time, though it did narrow the gap with The Following (down to tie its 1.6 low).
- On cable, A&E's Bates Motel (1.3) was back in solid fashion, roughly even with its series premiere and the 1.3 series high it would hit four more times later in the season. But it did not help new lead-out Those Who Kill (0.5) get off to much of a start. The night's big mover was TNT's Dallas (0.4), which completely imploded the week after a 0.75 premiere.
Mixology
Wednesdays, 9:30/8:30c, ABC
WHAT MATTERS:
- As we said yesterday, no series premiere has ever really disappointed with the Modern Family lead-in. But then again, no series premiere had nearly as little going for it as Mixology, and that really showed as the show debuted to a paltry 4.98 million viewers and 1.7 demo rating. It's worth noting that the rejection might be a bit exaggerated because the show got very little help from Modern Family (3.1), which plummeted to a season low on this night. But the show has given itself no real cushion with this start; a typical post-premiere drop from Mixology would put it at/below Super Fun Night levels, and it could easily get uglier than that.
- The hours that surrounded ABC's 9/8c debacle were just as bad, though they switched roles after finals; it was The Middle (1.7) and Suburgatory (1.4) at new season lows, while Nashville (1.3) went up to merely tie its low.
- With CBS adding a second hour of Survivor at 9/8c, that meant no crime dramas to compete with Law and Order: SVU (2.0). As usual, that was a positive for that show. But the real eye-opener was the second half of a cross-over between SVU and Chicago PD (2.2), as the latter grew in the 10/9c hour and hit a series high even with the crime drama competition from Criminal Minds (2.3). Expect the Dick Wolf empire cross-overs to continue at full steam after this result.
- Fox's rough week continued as American Idol (2.7) only barely bounced back from last week's Wednesday episode against the Olympics. It widened the gap with the Survivor premiere somewhat after finals, as that show adjusted down perhaps due to basketball pre-emptions. But Survivor still had a good night, even with last spring's premiere, and it could easily start winning head-to-head fairly soon.
- On cable, FX's The Americans (0.68) returned for season two with no real sign of picking up any heat during the hiatus. However, the 45% drop year-to-year is (hopefully!) a bit exaggerated because the premiere last year was miles ahead of any other result.
|
| Tonight's premiere of Mixology after Modern Family is a classic unstoppable force vs. immovable object situation. The unstoppable force? Mixology is going to fail. I can't come up with any good reason to feel otherwise. It's incompatible with Modern, the cast is all no-names, the reviews are lukewarm to bad, the concept is a weird gimmick, and the promos are dumb. (Now I'll tell you how I really feel!) But there's also this immovable object: every single Modern Family lead-out premiere has done pretty well, even incompatible ones. One of these things will win out, resulting in this line being way off, but I have no idea which one. I'm trying to show some respect for the ratings history, but I
can't help but feel this could do much worse than any of the previous shows. The
incompatible ones in the past at least had good reviews (or Rebel Wilson).
Over/Under: 2.05. |
The Winter Olympics interruption has created an irregularly crowded "premiere week" to kick off the last three months of the broadcast TV season. Today, Best Case/Worst Case returns to preview the eight broadcast shows premiering this week. There's then over a week before the next broadcast premieres on March 9, so we'll be back toward the end of next week to hit the March premieres closer to when they happen.
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