SpotVault - The Americans (FX) - Spring 2018 Ratings

War of 18-49 Updates for Cable 2017: Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Pretty Little Liars and more!

Here's a quick catch-up on War of 18-49 pages for cable shows that have already existing War pages. Click the names in each one of these tables to see the now-updated War of 18-49 page. The last version of this was 11 months ago, so we're covering seasons that have concluded since then. (I'm gonna try to start doing these more frequently so that these pages don't go many months without updates.) See also last week's summer broadcast update.

SpotVault - The Americans (FX) - Spring 2017 Ratings

The War of 18-49, The Americans

Front-loaded Early Seasons

FX's new spy drama The Americans opened on 1/30/2013 with 3.22 million viewers and a 1.24 demo rating. This was a rather solid number by FX standards at the time, about on par with a typical episode of the just-wrapped American Horror Story season, whose timeslot The Americans was inheriting. But it was quickly clear that level was not sustainable for The Americans; it fell nearly a third to a 0.85 in week two, then nearly a quarter more to 0.66 in week three. It hung in the general vicinity of 0.6 for most of the rest of season one.

That front-loaded trajectory became the norm for The Americans in the next two seasons, perhaps suggesting the show had huge promotional pushes. Season two opened on a 0.68 but took big drops the next two weeks, ultimately settling around 0.4. And season three made it all the way back up to 0.63 for the premiere, just barely below the season two premiere, but had a massive collapse to 0.35 the next week and was below 0.30 for the majority of episodes. These were pretty discouraging ratings, but FX kept bringing it back.

Steadier in Season Four

Season four was the first time that the critically-beloved drama was able to slow its bleeding to a reasonable level. After opening on what seemed like an awful 0.28, it really bucked the Americans trend by growing to 0.29 in week two. It hung in the low 0.2's to low 0.3's range for the entire season and actually never got down to the 0.19 low point from season three. Overall, it was a relatively steady season for the same-day ratings (by cable standards), even as The Americans remains one of the very biggest DVR percentage gainers on TV.

Near the end of season four, The Americans was renewed for two final seasons. The window has probably passed for this show to become a Breaking Bad-esque grower, but season four at least offered some hope that it can avoid becoming a bigger liability in the same-day ratings. The declines sped back up with a move to Tuesday in season five.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2013	Wednesday 10:00	0.69		0.4	1.2	detail
2	Spring 2014		Wednesday 10:00	0.44	-36%	0.3	0.7		detail
3	Winter 2015		Wednesday 10:00	0.31	-29%	0.2	0.6		detail
4	Spring 2016		Wednesday 10:00	0.26	-18%	0.2	0.3		detail
5	Spring 2017	Tuesday 10:00	0.19	-27%	0.1	0.3	detail	C
6	Spring 2018	Wednesday 10:00	0.16	-15%	0.1	0.2	detail

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now19	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2013	33				21.01	59	59	29
2	Spring 2014	24				17.44	36	36	24
3	Winter 2015	19				11.30	37	37	20
4	Spring 2016	18				14.42	22	19	14
5	Spring 2017	15				9.80	23	20	16
6	Spring 2018	15				11.87	20	13	20
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	20

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.

SpotVault - The Americans (FX) - 2015-16 Ratings

Cablemetrics: The Americans, Outsiders, Underground, Stitchers

These numbers are current through Monday, March 28.

WHAT MATTERS:

• Added a few shows to the table, several of which have been on for awhile. A few things worth pointing out:
• FX's mega-acclaimed The Americans was back with a 0.28 two weeks ago and inched up to 0.29 last week. The 0.29 is actually kinda significant for a show that has typically taken enormous post-premiere drops; while the premiere was down fifty-six percent from the 2015 premiere, week two was down just 17%.
• WGN America has had some more success of late with the new dramas Outsiders and Underground, both of which have been in the 0.2's in recent weeks. Doesn't seem like much, but it's a massive improvement on the micro-rated (and recently cancelled) Manhattan, and also better than the 0.1-range ratings that previous flagship original Salem was pulling last summer.
• Also added MTV's Awkward and Faking It back to the list. After really rough spring premieres at 0.25/0.13, they rebounded considerably to 0.31/0.21 in week two.

SpotVault - The Americans (FX) - 2014-15 Ratings

The Americans

Wednesdays, 10/9c, FX

SpotVault - The Americans (FX) - 2013-14 Ratings

The Americans

Wednesdays, 10/9c, FX

SpotVault - The Americans (FX) - 2012-13 Ratings

The Americans

Wednesdays, 10/9c, FX

The Question, Wednesday 1/30/13: How Many Americans Will Watch FX's New Drama?

Tonight, FX premieres new drama The Americans, about two KGB spies living in Washington D.C. in the 1980s. The network is back in the new drama game after not premiering a single one in 2012. And the critical acclaim has been considerable so far. How many Americans will watch FX's new drama? That's The Question for Wednesday, January 30, 2013.