WHAT MATTERS:
- The first new series result of the fall is in the books, and Fox's big unscripted investment Utopia (1.9) had a rather sluggish start following an NFL game (albeit a lopsided one). The final breakdowns for its NFL overrun lead-in will be interesting to see, but the impact was clear in Utopia's major drop after the first half-hour. Final breakdowns were 2.6 -> 1.9 -> 1.7 -> 1.6. The show did have to face Big Brother (2.4), whose audience would probably overlap as much as anything, but this doesn't inspire much optimism.
- NBC had a blowout (that got close again late) for its first Sunday Night Football (8.0), which is about a point down from last year's prelim. And while CBS' Reckless (0.7) gave back some of its oddly massive spike from last week, its last Sunday episode stayed ahead of all the results prior to last week. Lead-in Unforgettable (1.1) was also on the high end.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Of these four nights from Thursday to Sunday, the only one noticeably depressed week-to-week in overall viewing due to the holiday was Sunday, and most broadcast/cable shows were down considerably on that night. The other nights may have been lower in PUT as well if not for the return of college football.
- It's also worth noting that Thursday was one of the wonkiest days of the TV year due to massive NFL preseason pre-emptions. Not too much should be made of the ratings on this night because many shows had much lighter market coverage than usual, but The Quest (0.3) and the one-hour finale of renewed Welcome to Sweden (0.4/0.3) were particularly putrid.
- The return of broadcast college football did not go well on Saturday, with ABC's Florida State/Oklahoma State game (1.9) 39% below last year's opener and Fox's USC/Fresno State (0.4) down 64%. Both of these were much worse matchups than the networks had on opening night last year, with ABC's game just barely topping the late primetime game on ESPN (1.77).
- By far the weirdest ratings of this long weekend belonged to Reckless, which first held its usual 0.5 in a special Saturday airing due to that two-hour golf overrun a few weeks back. Then it skyrocketed to a 0.9 on Sunday. It had incredibly light competition from an America's Got Talent repeat (0.5) and an ABC telethon (which didn't count in finals but had a 0.2 in prelims). But for a show that had either a 0.5 or 0.6 for the first nine episodes, that is extremely weird. It's got one more Sunday airing to try to prove it wasn't a fluke, then will burn off the last two eps the following Saturday.
WHAT MATTERS:
- ABC Sunday was on the upswing, thanks mostly to a huge lead-in from the World Cup Final in the late afternoon. This effect was evident in the huge 0.6 spike week-to-week from America's Funniest Home Videos at 7:00, and it got smaller as the night wore on with Wipeout (up 0.3, but still hitting its highest rating in the last two summers) and Rising Star (up 0.1).
- CBS got another very good Big Brother result, up 0.3 week-to-week and slightly up vs. the same week last year. The Unforgettable/Reckless switch put two tenths into Unforgettable and took one from Reckless, a trade-off that CBS will happily take.
- On cable:
- FX dove into a crowded Sunday fray that it's generally avoided in recent years, and it had a good start with new vampire drama The Strain (1.2). This tied TNT's The Last Ship as the biggest scripted premiere on cable this summer and was a fair bit stronger than recent FX premieres like The Bridge (0.9), Fargo (0.8) and Tyrant (0.6).
- Elsewhere, The Last Ship (1.0) stayed in the ones for a fourth straight week. And Lifetime's Devious Maids (0.8) finished out a largely rough sophomore season with a new season high; it may have helped its renewal case in the last couple weeks.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Reckless held its egregious 0.6 in week two, while Unforgettable plunged to a new low 0.7. This prompted CBS to flip the two dramas starting next Sunday, a move that will probably not make much difference for either show (but may bring Reckless low enough to get outright pulled).
- Against no formidable music-themed competition (NBC's Miley Cyrus special bombed), Rising Star (1.2) was steady in week three. For whatever it's worth, this was even with week three of Duets from two years ago, so the show at least seems to be avoiding real disaster territory.
- Cable:
- HBO's The Leftovers (0.7) was down less than a tenth in week two while its True Blood lead-in (1.7) inched up;
- Lifetime brought back Witches of East End (0.5), tying its low point from season one and below the 0.7 series premiere from last year;
- And AMC wrapped up a solid The Walking Dead marathon over the 4th of July weekend with a special season preview edition of Talking Dead (1.0). Illustrating the unreal gap between The Walking Dead and everything else, even this middle-of-summer Talking Dead easily more than doubled the network's recent original drama results.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Sundays in the summer remain a tough nut for the broadcasters to crack. ABC was first to give it a crack, but it had a relatively soft start from new singing competition Rising Star (1.5 on 6/22). This may have been a bit stronger than ABC's last major music competition premiere foray, Duets (1.7 on 5/24/12), given it's over two years later and the show skewed a little younger than Duets. However, the general point is the same: this is not ABC's game-changer, and it's even farther from being that after a 20% week two drop (prelim 1.2 on 6/29). It soundly lost to NBC's special America's Got Talent (2.1) on 6/22 and had to deal with the always potent BET Awards (3.1) last night.
- It got even uglier last night as CBS entered the fray. Though Big Brother (1.8) continued its solid start, nearly even with the 2013 Sunday premiere (1.9), CBS continued to surround it with weak and highly incompatible pieces. New drama Reckless (0.6) retained a paltry third of the BB demo (yet 70% in total viewership). Since the return of Unforgettable (0.9) actually picked up some steam at 10/9c, CBS may be tempted to try flipping the dramas around here (or they may just kill Reckless altogether).
- The biggest cable story on 6/22 was the solid premiere of TNT's drama The Last Ship (1.2 with 5.33 million viewers), the closest thing to a new breakthrough on cable this summer to date. It joined a softening Falling Skies (1.0 on 6/22), which tied its series low and was down big from last summer's 1.5 start. HBO brought back True Blood (2.2 on 6/22) for its final run in relatively healthy fashion, down just a bit from last year's 2.4 start, and starting last night it led into new HBO drama The Leftovers. Much more cable to come!
- 6/29 UPDATE: The Last Ship (1.1) had a solid week two hold; not so much for True Blood (1.6), which plummeted to easily its lowest number since season one (excluding a 4th of July episode in season four). The Leftovers (0.8) opened at half of True Blood's delivery.
Reckless
Sundays, 9/8c, CBS
|
| Tonight, CBS unspools the first of its two new dramas this summer. Unlike upcoming Extant, the legal drama Reckless wasn't originally planned for summer. Despite one of its worst new drama classes, CBS couldn't find a place for this show in the regular season, and that's probably not a good sign. And while lead-in Big Brother has a nice 18-49 audience, it's also wildly incompatible with the CBS drama stable, as seen in Unforgettable's rather low-rated turn in this slot last year. Unforgettable premiered at a 1.3 in July 2013.
CBS is trying to appeal to the Big Brother contingent by playing up the steamy factor in promos, but that probably won't be enough to make it a much better option than Unforgettable. However, since this is a series premiere and not a known old-skewing quantity like Unforgettable, I don't think it'll do much worse, either... at least for now.
Over/Under: 1.25. |
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