Spotted Ratings, Friday 1/31/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• CBS came back into originals on the last pre-Olympics Friday, while NBC sat out its usual scripted duo. This dynamic most benefited CBS, which did high-end numbers from top to bottom with Undercover Boss (1.7), Hawaii Five-0 (1.8, a new season high) and Blue Bloods (1.6).

• Meanwhile, Fox came back to earth after last week's big surges by Bones (1.6) and Enlisted (0.8); both shows were down two tenths. The week's scheduling news made for a double whammy for Enlisted, as is that it turns out this will be the last original Bones to air on Friday this season. (It does have a consolation prize in the huge failure of Rake, which could perhaps inch open the door to another timeslot upgrade in some capacity.)

• Elsewhere, ABC was above average at 8/7c with Last Man Standing (1.5) and The Neighbors (1.1), while The Carrie Diaries adjusted down in finals to its normal 0.3. Point still stands, though; this show did not do as badly on Friday as I thought it would.

Spotted Ratings, Friday 1/3/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• A truly unique college football clash ruled the first Friday of 2014, with a BCS bowl game (ESPN's Orange Bowl) actually having to compete head-to-head with another high-profile bowl game. Fox's Cotton Bowl dominated broadcast but pulled only a shadow of last year's 3.5 rating; it's partly because of a worse matchup, partly because of this abnormal competition. As predicted on Saturday, the Orange Bowl (3.6) was much higher.

• In the entertainment programming realm, NBC's Grimm and Dracula lineup returned to normal. The former bounced back from its weak two-hour fall finale and the latter regressed after an abnormal spike to 1.1 in its last ep.

• Meanwhile, NBC's Dateline had a season high, while several repeats (led by Shark Tank) did better than usual. And an episode after its first 0.2, the CW's The Carrie Diaries held up after finals with its first 0.4. For now, we can probably just say those points cancel out to leave that show at its usual 0.3, but some more 0.4's going forward would be nice.

SpotVault - The Carrie Diaries (CW) - 2013-14 Ratings

The Carrie Diaries

Fridays, 8/7c, CW

Spotted Ratings, Friday 10/25/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• There's just something about that last Friday before Halloween on NBC. For the third straight year, the network got a nice number out of Grimm on this night, and the premiere of Dracula was a bit of a pleasant surprise in fully retaining that Grimm number... at least for now. Keep in mind that Grimm has only done better than 1.8 a couple times in its Friday history (both of which happened to be this week on the calendar in previous years).

• The CW was also in premiere mode with the return of The Carrie Diaries, which brought a 0.3 A18-49 and 780,000 viewers to its Friday debut. Pretty bad, though I don't know how anyone who followed its usual 0.4 Monday ratings from last spring could've reasonably expected any better from a Friday move.

• The other Friday originals were pretty steady against the new competition, and 20/20 was up a good bit, perhaps benefiting from no longer having to air against Dateline. (Dateline is now at 8/7c leading into NBC's drama block.)

Fall 2013 Best Case/Worst Case, Friday 8/7c

The Basics:

	bc	Rank	y2y	Rank	TPUT	Rank	bc/TPUT	Rank
Friday 8:00	5.0	19	-5%	3	27.9	20	18%	19

Though Friday 8:00 remained one of the least-viewed and least-broadcast viewed hours of the week, it actually had the third-smallest year-to-year decline among the broadcasters. ABC really got its act together, first with Shark Tank and then with the return of TGIF comedies, while CBS aired strong Friday option Undercover Boss in this hour across a much larger part of the season.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 3/4/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Despite CBS (mostly) going into repeats, programming on the other four networks was uniformly even to slightly down. The only preliminary riser (The Carrie Diaries) was adjusted down after finals.

• The only CBS original was Rules of Engagement, which was well below average but still managed to stick out in a sea of mid-to-upper 1's comedy encores.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 2/18/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Yet another resurgence from the never-say-die franchise The Bachelor hit a new zenith with a number higher than any from this or last season. It just about tied an all-original CBS comedy lineup and boosted Castle back into the 10/9c lead (and a season high of its own).

• It was also a positive night for Fox, as week five of The Following provided a huge sigh of relief after a couple massive drops recently. It looks like we can keep the conversation at the "Is this a legit success?" level rather than having to resort to the "Will this get renewed?" level.

• On the negative side, CW Monday reached new depths with The Carrie Diaries and 90210. I guess their audience is all bailing to watch The Bachelor?

Spotted Ratings, Monday 2/4/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The "Super Monday" bounce for CBS was really only evident in the 8:00 hour, where How I Met Your Mother hit a new season high and Rules of Engagement had an expectedly solid return, coming back well above its spring post-The Big Bang Theory level. The other hours have to be considered disappointments; 2 Broke Girls, Mike and Molly and Hawaii Five-0 were even to down slightly from their last originals.

• Almost everything else was also down, especially Fox, where Bones and week three of The Following each dropped back following last week's growth. And the winner of The Bachelor vs. The Biggest Loser now appears clear. Are we now on the doorstep of seeing, at least for a month or so, a network where nothing gets a 2.0?

• A notable exception to the slippage was the CW, where The Carrie Diaries had a very good week four, bouncing up to above the premiere number.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 1/28/13: Follow-Up

WHAT MATTERS:

• It was a big-time showing for Fox Monday as newbie The Following became the first broadcast series this season to grow in week two. It's up a tick from last week's already very solid premiere. And Bones at 8/7c had its second straight multi-tick upswing to a new season high. This is its best number since returning to Monday last April. Surely CBS' comedy lineup going into repeats helped somewhat, but these numbers buck the trend enough that we can still call it a big win for now.

• ABC and NBC didn't really benefit from the repeat CBS, with Deception dropping another tenth despite both competing dramas going into repeats. The CDub dropped a tenth in each successive half-hour (0.6 -> 0.5 -> 0.4 -> 0.3), but The Carrie Diaries swung back up a touch in viewers in week three.

• TNT had the two-hour return of Dallas (0.8), which was more or less at the show's level for most of the season one stretch run. That's got to be considered quite disappointing considering the show's big finale spike at the end of last summer (to 1.3) and the hopes that Larry Hagman's death might pull some people in. We'll see if there's any benefit when the character's death is mourned later in the season.

First Two Weeks, The Carrie Diaries

WEEK ONE
The CW's Sex and the City prequel The Carrie Diaries got off to a disappointing start, opening its run on January 14 with 1.61 million viewers and a 0.6 demo rating. That was better than what 90210 averaged in the slot during the fall (0.48), but not by all that much. It faced a full-fledged slate of winter-time broadcast competition: The Bachelor, How I Met Your Mother and a high-rated The Big Bang Theory repeat, The Biggest Loser and Bones.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 1/21/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Fox got off to a pretty solid start with The Following. It adjusted up in finals to nestle right between Fox's fall 2011 debut of Terra Nova (3.1) and Alcatraz (3.3), which premiered at roughly the same part of last season on Monday. It built significantly out of Bones. The good news looking forward is that while Alcatraz had to deal with a mammoth The Voice starting in week three, The Following will go about two months without having competition any tougher than it was tonight. In fact, it'll be easier next week as the CBS comedies go into repeats.

• The other Monday newbies remain underwhelming, with Deception taking what looks like a fatal drop in week three. And the CW's The Carrie Diaries dropped a tick in its second outing, but it was ahead of the 9/8c premiere of 90210.

SpotVault - The Carrie Diaries (CW) - 2012-13 Ratings

The Carrie Diaries

Mondays, 8/7c, The CW

Spotted Ratings, Monday 1/14/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• If this was the most important data point of the CW's midseason, it's gonna be a long midseason. The Carrie Diaries began with just 1.6 million viewers and a 0.6 demo rating. That's just a tick better than the fall's DOA premiere of Emily Owens M.D., and only about a tick better than 90210's average in the slot this fall. On the CW, it'll still be in the mix if it can settle at a 0.5, but I'm pretty sure most would agree this is a disappointing beginning.

• The other scripted newbie also had a tough time. NBC's Deception dropped 20%, which is on the high end of typical week two declines. It'd have a shot if it stabilized here, but the odds are not in favor of that happening.

• CBS triumphantly brought its comedy block into the between-Voice Monday landscape with an outright season high from How I Met Your Mother and a tie-for-high from 2 Broke Girls. They again got a big assist from an 8:30 repeat of The Big Bang Theory, which posted the best repeat number for anything this season.

• Week two of The Bachelor vs. The Biggest Loser saw The Bachelor get adjusted up in finals to a narrow win head-to-head, and it was up two ticks from last week's premiere. Both shows are now on the year-to-year upside.

The Question, Monday 1/14/13: Will Tonight Carrie the CW Back Into Teen Soaps?

In the last couple years, the Mark Pedowitz regime has been phasing out the heavily female-skewing soaps for which previous head Dawn Ostroff became infamous. And yet, here we are again, with the CDub kicking off its midseason with Sex and the City prequel The Carrie Diaries. Beyond the SatC packaging, it sounds like there's another reason they picked it up: it's actually good. Will tonight "Carrie" the CW back into the teen soap game? That's The Question for Monday, January 14, 2013.

Winter 2013 Best Case/Worst Case, Monday

My extensive Best Case/Worst Case previews from the fall are BACK for the midseason. For the most part, these posts are the same as in the fall. You can refer to the Intro post from last summer to explain most of what you'll see below.

The main difference is that the timeslot info in "The Basics" and in the timeslot portion of each show card now cover the fall 2012 numbers, from September 24 through December 23. (In the Fall Best Case/Worst Case, they covered all of the 2011-12 regular season.) So the slot averages are all across that three-month fall span, and the "Occupants" are things the network aired in the slot this fall.

To avoid covering stuff that's too far down the road, I'm just hitting the January and February premieres here. I tried to figure out how to break these up with a similar number of shows in each post but couldn't really crack it. So I'm just doing one post for each day of the week until Friday, which will cover Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

Other Winter 2013 BC/WC: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Fri/Sat/Sun

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The Basics:

	bc	Rank	y2y	Rank	TPUT	Rank	bc/TPUT	Rank
Monday	9.6	2	-5%	4	36.7	2	26%	4

Monday's broadcast numbers have been a clash of inflationary and deflationary events. Though The Voice and Revolution have lifted NBC by triple digits, that's been more than cancelled out by significant declines across the board on all the other networks, resulting in a fairly typical 5% average decline. The decline is biggest in the 9:00 half-hour (-13%), where hyper-inflated Two and a Half Men departed in favor of an often underwhelming 2 Broke Girls. Broadcast has had something of a revolution (get it?!) in the 10:00 hour: +12% at 10:00 and +9% at 10:30.

Though the bc/TPUT number suggests Monday is not all that competitive, it doesn't include ESPN's Monday Night Football. With ESPN and NBC both much weaker this winter, the landscape should become more manageable for the other networks.