WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: The Amazing Race (1.1) once again dodged a new season low by upticking in the finals. Probably due to preemptions, The Messengers adjusted down to its usual 0.2.
- It was a promising third and final episode of this initial Beyond the Tank run (1.5), as it tied its Shark Tank (1.5) lead-in and inched up week-to-week.
- NBC had a decent finale from Grimm (1.1), which got this high for only the third time in its nine episodes at 8/7c. Meanwhile, CBS finished up The Amazing Race (1.0) on what would be a new season low, though it's had a prelim 1.0 and adjusted up earlier in the season. CBS then did no better than procedural repeats with a 0.6/0.7 for two hours of an Academy of Country Music special.
- After spiking in its return to 8/7c, CW's Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.3) gave it all back in its second try at the slot. The Messengers (0.3) went up a tick.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: Shark Tank (1.6) and the second half of Hawaii Five-0 (1.1) adjusted up.
- Week two of Beyond the Tank (1.4) was down two tenths week-to-week, leading out of a Shark Tank (1.5) that was down a tenth.
- Just in case the Hawaii Five-0 finale ratings actually mean anything to CBS' decision at this very late stage, it wasn't an ideal way to go out: the two hour finale tied a season low 1.1 in the 9:00 hour and dropped to a 1.0 at 10:00. The Amazing Race, with which Five-0 may be competing for a fall spot, was also at a season low 1.0.
- The CW quietly pulled Cedric's Barber Battle, and the local programming lead-in significantly benefited an original Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) in its return to 8/7c. But the 8:30 Whose Line? repeat (0.3) and 9/8c drama The Messengers (0.2) didn't show improvement.
- NBC's Grimm (1.0) inched up from its first 0.9 last week, while Scream (0.4) did significantly worse than Fox's other recent Friday movies.
One last softball to end the season! Results should be up sometime in the next couple weeks.
WEEK ONE
Rating: 0.278
Lead-in: Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4)
Competition: Shark Tank (1.5),
The Amazing Race (1.1 overall, 1.0 at in 9:00 hour),
Dateline (R) (0.8), Movie:
Bad Teacher (0.6 overall, 0.6 in 9:00 hour)
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: Shark Tank (1.8) adjusted up. I will understand if you disagree, but I'm counting the Bruce Jenner interview as a special and not under the 20/20 banner. It was never referred to as "20/20" in my TiVo listings, and I have used the special distinction on other one-off news telecasts in the past. Kinda got the sense the network was trying to lump it in with 20/20 after the fact. Shrug.
- Just over two months after NBC's breakthrough SNL40 special, ABC had its own stunningly enormous piece of event television. A two-hour interview in which Olympic legend Bruce Jenner came out as transgender (5.2) averaged 16.86 million viewers overall. It had a 5.0 demo rating in the 9:00 hour that grew to 5.3 at 10:00. On a Friday in late April, these numbers are practically unthinkable, roughly four times what a "normal" ABC News 20/20 outing tends to deliver.
- Pre-tune for the Jenner interview surely helped Shark Tank (1.7), which was up a couple ticks in its move to 8/7c for the last four weeks of the season.
- Though 8/7c shows like The Amazing Race (1.1) and Grimm (1.0) were flat, the interview clearly took a toll in the last two hours. Dateline (0.8/0.9) was below 1.0 for a Friday original for the first time this season, while Blue Bloods (1.0) on CBS also took a major hit. Hawaii Five-0 staying at its previous low 1.1 feels like a win by comparison.
- Week two of the CW's lineup of Cedric's Barber Battle (0.4), Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4) and The Messengers (0.4) was preempted in top market New York City, so downward adjustments are expected.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: 20/20 adjusted down and the two-hour rating for The Amazing Race adjusted up to 1.1.
- The CW's new Friday night lineup did... what a lineup introduced this late in the regular season tends to do. But newbie Cedric's Barber Battle (0.2) was rejected in particularly sound fashion, which prevented an original Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4) from doing any better than last week's repeats. Whose Line? hit a bunch of 0.4's at this time last spring, so this isn't exactly a catastrophe, but the network may end up moving it to 8/7c to take advantage of the local programming lead-in. Leading out of Whose Line? was new drama The Messengers (0.3); it built narrowly from Whose Line? in total viewers but clearly didn't do enough to make the network look bad for treating it this way.
- Finale night for ABC's comedies saw Last Man Standing (1.1) and Cristela (0.9) each inch down. Cristela had pretty decent retention these last few weeks, but it will likely end up suffering from ABC having so many other comedy options. And Shark Tank (1.5) was #1 as usual but unable to rebound from last week's irregularly low point.
- Without originals for the crime dramas, CBS had a low-end two-hour edition of The Amazing Race (1.1/1.0), while NBC's Grimm (1.0) gave back last week's slight uptick.
The Messengers
Fridays, 9/8c, CW
It's the season finale of Best Case/Worst Case, covering the last few shows that will air a significant stretch of episodes before the end of the regular season. But since all of these except Weird Loners
should continue airing into the summer, I will again note that these averages only cover regular season episodes.
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