Spotted Ratings, Thursday 10/17/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• For now, anyway, it seems the CBS and NBC comedies have finished collapsing. Newbies The Millers, Sean Saves the World and Welcome to the Family all made minor week-to-week rallies (while The Crazy Ones dropped to even after finals). However, CBS continued leaking further in the second half of the evening as Two and a Half Men and Elementary each dipped by multiple ticks.

• The CW made it three straight crazy rallies in the 8/7c hour as The Vampire Diaries (1.3) was way up to season high levels. Did the affiliates start airing The Walking Dead at 7:00 or something? Given how much stronger the 8:00 hour was, it was a very mediocre start for Reign at 9/8c. It's not a totally unworkable number, but it's gonna have to hold very well from here if it wants to keep this slot away from the midseason dramas.

• ABC had very mixed news as the amazing Scandal swung back up in the 10/9c hour, but Once Upon a Time in Wonderland looks pretty much dead and Grey's Anatomy inched down again even as competing young females draw Glee went on hiatus.

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 10/10/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The night's headline event was the tribute to Cory Monteith on Glee, and the show nearly doubled last week's ratings, adjusted up to outright take the 9/8c crown, and hit the show's best level since early last season. Still, this seems unlikely to make any real difference for the show when it returns from baseball hiatus in four weeks (it certainly didn't in the episodes leading in).

• You could argue the Glee surge was a one-time cultural event and that the rest of the hour's numbers could be somewhat written off. But it was actually similar-skewing Grey's Anatomy that held best, while CBS saw The Crazy Ones post a rather distressing week three number. And NBC may have to spring into action immediately as The Michael J. Fox Show had an even more miserable week three, dropping just as much week-to-week as the second-week comedies ahead of it (Welcome to the Family (0.8) and Sean Saves the World (1.0)).

• ABC was not without its own disappointment as new spin-off Once Upon a Time in Wonderland became ABC's latest soft starter in the still-problematic Thursday 8/7c hour, building by just a tenth on last week's Scandal recap. Usually the point of a spin-off is that you assure that some baseline audience from the parent show will show up, but I was worried that in this case the Once brand might actually be a negative for this kind of show's audience, as many of them have rejected the mothership. Those worries seem to have been even more founded than I expected. 

• A couple other quick notes: The Millers held well for CBS in week two. And the CW's The Vampire Diaries was down in week two, but overall it seems like they probably get high marks just for keeping the Reign premiere out of that mess in the 9:00 hour.

First Two Weeks, Welcome to the Family

WEEK ONE
NBC's Welcome to the Family is currently broadcast's weakest premiere of the 2013-14 season, opening its run on Thursday at 8:30 with a pathetic 1.1 demo. The only "positive" here was that it was just a tenth behind its lead-in from Parks and Recreation (1.2). But a series that can't at least hold a 1.2 for its premiere is not a series that will be around for very long.

SpotVault - Welcome to the Family (NBC) - 2013-14 Ratings

Welcome to the Family

Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, NBC

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 10/3/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The hottest show on broadcast TV took another big step up in its season three premiere, as ABC's Scandal went 0.4 points above its high point at the end of last season and 71% above the season two premiere.

• NBC filled out its comedy Thursday with the very weak premieres of Welcome to the Family and Sean Saves the World (which only got worse after Cleveland pre-emptions were taken out). On premiere night they were already well behind even the weak Up All Night and The Office of yesteryear. Said pre-emptions also made The Michael J. Fox Show (now down 23% from the premiere) and Parenthood (now down a tick) look even worse.

• CBS also rounded out its comedy lineup with a mediocre premiere from The Millers, which held just 63% of its The Big Bang Theory lead-in. The Crazy Ones dropped 26% in week two, but that's not so bad given its lead-in was down a massive 2.8 points. Two and a Half Men had a stinky second week, shedding a half point.

• The CW began its drama season by welcoming back The Vampire Diaries and premiering modestly at 9/8c with spin-off The Originals, which probably wanted to take a bit more demo than this to its Tuesday timeslot. Both were well below the TVD/Beauty and the Beast premieres from last year on this night, though that may have been largely due to simulcast debate competition last year.

• And week two of Glee took the show's trademark huge post-premiere drop. The Cory Monteith tribute comes next week.

The Question, Thursday 10/3/13: Does The Millers Have More Gas Than the Other Premieres?

Somehow broadcast TV ended up with an evening after the premiere week that contains four series premieres, all of them at least somewhat interesting. CBS has its permanent The Big Bang Theory lead-out The Millers, NBC hopes to avoid complete disaster by adding not-good-enough-for-premiere-week Sean Saves the World and Welcome to the Family to its already struggling lineup, and the CW opens its 2013-14 season by spinning off its most successful brand with The Originals. The ratings expectations are pretty wildly different here; while The Millers would be considered very weak at a 3.0, the others would kill to hit 2.0 (or maybe even 1.5). Does The Millers have more gas than the other premieres? That's The Question for Thursday, October 3, 2013.

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

The Basics:

	bc	Rank	y2y	Rank	TPUT	Rank	bc/TPUT	Rank
Thursday 8:00	10.3	6	-8%	7	32.1	15	32%	4

Even with ABC a mess as always, and even with NBC still airing low-rated comedies, and even with Fox's singing shows collapsing, this was still the weeknight 8:00 hour down the least year-to-year. Credit another incredible year of raw numbers growth from The Big Bang Theory, a really strong 8:30 import in Two and a Half Men, and a surprisingly stout The Vampire Diaries.