FINALS UPDATE:NCIS: Los Angeles (R) (0.7) and Sunday Night Football (7.4) and The Mick (2.8) adjusted up while NFL Overrun (2.1) and Ransom (0.8) and Football Night in America (3.0) and NFL Overrun (5.1) and Family Guy (R) (0.7) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
On the last Sunday of the NFL regular season, as both afternoon networks had a nationally-televised late afternoon NFL lead-in, Fox was the clear winner. A much stronger late-afternoon game boosted new Tuesday-bound comedy The Mick (2.4) to a very solid preview rating at 8/7c, about on par with recent post-NFL episodes of The Simpsons. It led into a one-hour episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.4/1.2) on a special night, which was not particularly different from recent Son of Zorn episodes in the 8:30 slot. A repeat of Family Guy (0.9) rounded out Fox's night.
CBS used its much weaker NFL lead-in on 60 Minutes (1.7) and a rather meager sampling for Saturday-bound drama Ransom (0.9). Like Fox, CBS then aired one of its regular series on an irregular night, with Pure Genius (0.8/0.7), and rounded the night out with a repeat (of NCIS: Los Angeles (0.6)). All these shows started about 10 minutes after their listed times at the bottom of the hours.
On ABC, it was a rough start for the network's winter event season filler, which was all downhill after America's Funniest Home Videos (1.0). A preview special for The Bachelor only mustered up a 0.8 at 8/7c, and the return of game show To Tell the Truth (0.7) went well behind its entire summer 2016 run. Then came a Wicked City-esque showing from fall drama Conviction (0.4), moving to its final resting spot on Sunday at 10/9c.
NBC's Sunday Night Football finale was stripped of a bit of its urgency by the late afternoon results, but still had a solid upper-6 prelim that should adjust to the upper-7's after finals.
FINALS UPDATE:Sunday Night Football (8.1) adjusted up while 60 Minutes (2.3) and Elementary (0.7) and Football Night in America (3.4) and Breakthrough Prize (0.5) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
With a national NFL overrun, CBS was the only network in the original series game with 60 Minutes (2.8), NCIS: Los Angeles (1.4), Madam Secretary (1.1) and Elementary (0.9). These numbers are uncertain in prelims since the shows started at 40 minutes after the hour on the East Coast (or about 10 minutes after their listed times).
NBC easily dominated the night with another dose of Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football; the game's 7.0ish prelim was a top-five rating for the franchise this season.
ABC had its annual four-hour The Sound of Music telecast (0.8/1.2/1.3/1.2), which will be up year-to-year (vs. last year's 1.0). And Fox had the awards show 'Breakthrough Prize' (0.7) leading into comedy repeats (0.7/0.6/0.7/0.4). Prize would be up vs. last year's 0.4, but may be impacted in finals thanks to local NFL overruns.
FINALS UPDATE:Thursday Night Football (6.8) and Legends of Tomorrow (1.2) adjusted up while The Great American Baking Show (1.0) and The Great Indoors (1.3) and Thursday Night Football Pregame (2.7) and Supernatural (0.6) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
ABC began its Thursday dramas' hiatus with the return of The Great American Baking Show (1.1/1.0), which was called The Great Holiday Baking Show in its late fall run last year. It was down a bit from last year's 1.2 premiere. It led out of A Charlie Brown Christmas (1.5), which had a rather soft first showing of the year (down big from last year's 2.0 on a Monday).
NBC took its second crack at Thursday Night Football to hugely improved results, with the ratings magnet Dallas Cowboys vaulting the game to an upper-4's prelim. After finals and the NFL Network simulcast are included, this will likely be the season's biggest TNF game, and maybe even pretty close to last week's Thanksgiving primetime game.
That may have contributed to a rather soft comedy night on CBS. The Big Bang Theory (3.1) and The Great Indoors (1.4) both matched two weeks ago, but Mom (1.3) and Life in Pieces (1.2) were both weaker. Pure Genius rounded it out with a 0.8, unable to bounce back from its Thanksgiving rating.
The CW wrapped up the four-night crossover with Legends of Tomorrow (1.1). It fell from the last couple nights but nearly doubled its usual rating and (like The Flash and Arrow) set a new series high in A18-49+. Supernatural (0.7) was pretty normal at 9/8c.
And after getting hugely inflated ratings for Thanksgiving repeats, Rosewood (0.7) and Pitch (0.7) were back to their normal original numbers this week. It was the last 2016 episode for Rosewood, which will move to Friday after the new year.
FINALS UPDATE:Sunday Night Football (6.9) and Pitch (R) (1.1) adjusted up while The Great Indoors (1.1) and Football Night in America (4.1) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
On Thanksgiving night, CBS was again the only network with original series programming. The Big Bang Theory (1.4) was the only repeat, leading into The Great Indoors (1.2), Mom (1.2), Life in Pieces (1.0) and Pure Genius (0.8). The younger-skewing Life in Pieces took a sizable hit, but everything else was only down in the 10-15% area.
NBC had its usual Thanksgiving primetime football game, but with a 6.0ish prelim, Steelers/Colts looks like it will decline significantly from last year's evening game (which averaged a 9.0 final).
Fox had a presumably massive late afternoon NFL game, boosting repeats of Rosewood (2.2) and Pitch (1.0). These numbers are ridiculous enough (including a 2.8 at 8:00) that I'm assuming the postgame show bled into the 8:00 hour a bit, but maybe somebody can clarify.
ABC went with a two-hour Wonderful World of Disney special (1.0) and comedy repeats (0.6/0.5). The CW had a four-pack of Whose Line Is It Anyway? repeats (0.3/0.3/0.3/0.3).
FINALS UPDATE:60 Minutes (3.4) and Sunday Night Football (7.7) adjusted up while NCIS: Los Angeles (1.6) and Madam Secretary (1.0) and The OT (6.7) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
CBS' 60 Minutes (3.2) got a big ratings pop with the first major interview with the new president-elect. This includes some local NFL overruns in some rather sizable markets, so it could come down some, but it still has a shot at a season high (beating a bunch of episodes that had national NFL support). Again, wait for finals, but that 60 Minutes bounce appears to have helped NCIS: Los Angeles (1.9), but not done much for Madam Secretary (1.1) and Elementary (0.7).
On ABC, the end-of-DST bounce evaporated for America's Funniest Home Videos (0.8) and Once Upon a Time (0.9), which may have been undone by a much stronger NFL week. But Secrets and Lies (0.7) and Quantico (0.7) came at least a touch off of the ledge.
Fox had a huge national NFL overrun from Cowboys/Steelers, and its comedy lineup of The Simpsons (3.1), Son of Zorn (1.6), Family Guy (1.6) and The Last Man on Earth (1.1) looked pretty similar to the last time the network had a national overrun back on October 16 (when Simpsons had a Treehouse of Horror episode).
On the first Sunday after the election, there were some positive signs for the NFL, which also had excellent matchups for both the Fox late afternoon game (preliminary 8.1 at 7:00) as well as NBC's Sunday Night Football. The mid-6 prelim for SNF was the franchise's best preliminary rating since September.
FINALS UPDATE:Sunday Night Football (6.5) and World Series (6.7) adjusted up while 60 Minutes (1.2) and Football Night in America (2.9) and NFL Overrun (7.3) and The OT (4.5) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Sports took center stage on Sunday, with another point of massive year-to-year growth for Game 5 of the World Series. It had a low-6's prelim, easily the highest of the series to date and well above the clincher on this night last year (which had a 4.8 prelim and 5.1 final). It was also a fantastic game result for Fox, which now gets at least one more game on Tuesday.
And NBC's Sunday Night Football, featuring the always ratings-reliable Dallas Cowboys, had a 6.0ish prelim, its highest in a month even with that competition.
The entertainment options got left far behind once again. On a week-to-week basis, it was actually a worse week for CBS' NCIS: Los Angeles (1.2), Madam Secretary (0.8) and Elementary (0.6), with LA and Madam each going multiple tenths behind their previous season lows. But even 'just' one-tenth drops were very unwelcome news for ABC's Once Upon a Time (0.9), Secrets and Lies (0.6) and Quantico (0.6).
FINALS UPDATE:Presidential Debate (2.8) and Presidential Debate (3.8) and Sunday Night Football (5.9) adjusted up while America's Funniest Home Videos (0.9) and Once Upon a Time (1.2) and Presidential Debate Analysis (2.3) and NFL Overrun (5.2) and 60 Minutes (2.6) and Football Night in America (2.9) and The Simpsons (R) (0.9) and Son of Zorn (R) (0.9) adjusted down.
FINALS UPDATE:Presidential Debate (2.8) and Presidential Debate (3.8) and Sunday Night Football (5.9) adjusted up while America's Funniest Home Videos (0.9) and Once Upon a Time (1.2) and NFL Overrun (5.2) and 60 Minutes (2.6) and Football Night in America (2.9) and The Simpsons (R) (0.9) and Son of Zorn (R) (0.9) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Once again, the broadcasters (mostly) stepped aside from normal programming at 9:00 ET to air the second presidential debate. However, in this case, NBC stuck with its regularly scheduled Sunday Night Football. Without NBC on board, the early overnights across all networks were down 19% from the enormous first presidential debate.
That left another miniature version of the usual primetime entertainment night, and even less interesting than it could've been since Fox snuck in a repeat of Son of Zorn (1.0) at 8:30. So the only entertainment originals were ABC's America's Funniest Home Videos (1.2) and Once Upon a Time (1.3), and Fox's comedies Bob's Burgers (1.2) and The Simpsons (1.5). Preliminarily, all were up from last week, perhaps getting some help from debate pre-tune/West Coast post-tune (and local NFL overruns in Fox's case). With the national NFL overrun, CBS' 60 Minutes averaged a preliminary 2.6 in the 8:00 hour.
FINALS UPDATE:Grey's Anatomy (2.5) and Thursday Night Football (6.1) and Superstore (1.5) and The Good Place (1.4) adjusted up while Notorious (1.1) and The Flash (R) (0.2) and Supernatural (R) (0.2) adjusted down.
RENEWOLOGY:
The model became more pessimistic along with the ratings on night four of the season, opening Rosewood (28%) and Notorious (25%) as big long-shots to be renewed. (These numbers may still be too high, though.) Subjectively, Pitch actually could be a bit low at 41%, but this formula doesn't weigh lead-ins as heavily as our eyes do sometimes.
WHAT MATTERS:
After three solid days to open the new season, Premiere Thursday brought plenty of red meat for the broadcast TV schadenfreude crowd. For ABC Thursday, usually the night's defining scripted lineup, it was immediately clear that Scandal is missed. Grey's Anatomy (2.4) was still pretty close to its usual self, down just four tenths from last year's premiere. But its lead-out Notorious (1.2) was a very, very pale imitation of Scandal even on premiere night with measly 50% retention. How to Get Away with Murder (1.4) managed to perk up at 10/9c, but was still at barely half of last year's 2.6 premiere!
NBC's Thursday revamp may have some potential for long-term improvement, but it was far from a breakout and demonstrated the difficulty of starting over on the night. Sophomores Superstore (1.4) and Chicago Med (1.4) both returned toward the low the end of their season one raw numbers. Superstore's lead-out The Good Place (1.3) had good retention, while The Blacklist (1.3) made a fair transition to the 10/9c hour.
And Fox had a rough start to its latest remake of Thursday night, as sophomore Rosewood (0.7) opened even lower than all of its without-Empire episodes from last season, and provided the year's first fractional scripted result by a wide margin. New drama Pitch (1.1) built by a lot on its lead-in, and can safely be called a better start than Notorious in context, but the concept clearly didn't bring in interest on a wide scale.
CBS had its second week of Thursday Night Football; more after finals.
FINALS UPDATE:Primetime Emmy Awards (2.8) and NFL Overrun (5.9) and Sunday Night Football (8.2) adjusted up while Emmy Awards Red Carpet (0.9) and 60 Minutes (2.6) and NCIS: Los Angeles (R) (0.7) and Football Night in America (3.2) and Bob's Burgers (R) (0.4) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
On the eve of a new TV season, ABC celebrated the old one with the Primetime Emmy Awards from 8:00-11:00 (2.4/2.6/2.4). This should adjust up a good bit due to live West Coast viewing, probably to somewhere in the high-2's, but it will still significantly trail the year-ago 3.6 on Fox (as well as all previous years).
On CBS, numbers are muddled by the national NFL overrun, which went deep into the 7:30 half-hour. But it looks like a very solid start for JonBenet Ramsey miniseries The Case Of, as CBS averaged a 2.1 in the 8:30 to 10:30 prelims. It will continue into Premiere Monday later tonight.
NBC's Sunday Night Football continued what seems like a shaky start to the NFL season (at least by its standards), as the 7.8/7.6/6.9 prelims should end up well behind the 9.7 final from the second Sunday last year. And Fox had one last night full of comedy repeats, with some early help from local NFL overruns (1.1/0.7/0.7/0.7/0.8/0.5).
FINALS UPDATE:Sunday Night Football (9.4) adjusted up while Football Night in America p3 (4.3) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
Opening night of the NFL regular season took center stage on NBC, as the Thursday opener for Sunday Night Football averaged roughly an 8.5 demo in the prelims. This was a point behind last year's prelim and should adjust up into the 9's after finals. (Last year's opener had a preliminary 9.5 and final 10.3.)
The only other big four original was CBS' Big Brother (1.7),which upticked slightly from last week's preemption-riddled result. It was surrounded by repeats of comedies (1.2/0.8) and Code Black (0.5). BB will be back on Friday next week due to the arrival of CBS' Thursday Night Football.
ABC's game show repeats (0.7/0.6/0.6) edged Fox's drama repeats (0.4/0.5), while the penultimate episode of Beauty and the Beast had its usual 0.2 for the CW.
Finals are in. Even though these are the 'real' ratings, they are still hurt by significant irregularities in coverage because of all the preemptions. That resulted in a new Thursday season low for both originals, CBS' Big Brother (1.6) and ABC's two-hour BattleBots finale (0.6).
CBS' repeats of The Big Bang Theory (1.1), Life in Pieces (0.8) and Code Black (0.5) all tied their summer lows from August 11 against the Olympics. The other repeats fared pretty normally:
NBC's Running Wild (0.6) and American Ninja Warrior (0.8);
Fox's Rosewood (0.5) and Bones (0.4);
And the CW's Legends of Tomorrow (0.2) and Beauty and the Beast (0.2)
The last week of the NFL preseason takes place entirely on Thursday night (with the one Wednesday exception this year), making the preliminary ratings completely overrun by local preemptions. The only original programming last night was ABC's two-hour BattleBots finale and Big Brother on CBS. See you after finals!
FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (2.1) and NFL Preseason Football (1.8) adjusted up while Madam Secretary (R) (0.4) and The Timeline: Peyton Manning (0.7) and The Simpsons (R) (1.1) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (R) (0.7) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
It was an underwhelming end for ABC's Sunday Fun & Games on their last evening together. With a horrible 7/6c lead-in from charity special WE Day (0.3), Celebrity Family Feud (1.0) dipped to tie its against-Olympics low, while The $100,000 Pyramid (1.0) and Match Game (0.9) tied last week's below-average results. Feud will be back here in two weeks to lead into the Miss America pageant, while the other two air their finales after the first two Mondays of Dancing with the Stars.
CBS' Big Brother (2.0) was back into the twos for the second time this week, leading into Madam Secretary (R) (0.5) and BrainDead (0.3).
NBC wrapped up a long weekend of NFL preseason football with a preliminary 1.7 average from 8:00 to 11:00. CBS' national games averaged a preliminary 1.3 on Friday and 1.0 on Saturday.
Fox's comedy repeats (1.2/1.1/0.8/0.8/0.6) got a good bit of help from the network's afternoon NFL preseason games, which overran into primetime with a 1.7 in the 7:00 half-hour.
FINALS UPDATE:NFL Preseason Football (1.8) adjusted up while Life in Pieces (R) (1.1) and Code Black (R) (0.7) and Rosewood (R) (0.4) and Bones (R) (0.5) adjusted down.
WHAT MATTERS:
There was only one locally-broadcast Thursday night NFL preseason game, and it started at 10:00 ET. So the adjustments may not be as severe as other preseason Thursdays, though every network had at least some minor preemptions:
ABC featured the original return of BattleBots (0.8) at what would be a pretty typical rating if it holds, plus repeats of The $100,000 Pyramid (0.7) and Match Game (0.8).
CBS had comedy repeats (1.4/1.2), Big Brother (1.9) and Code Black (R) (0.9).
Fox had drama repeats (0.7/0.8).
And the CW had Legends of Tomorrow (R) (0.2) and Beauty and the Beast (0.2).
Meanwhile, NBC had the season's first national NFL preseason game in broadcast primetime on Thursday, averaging a 1.6/1.8/1.5 in the prelims. Presumably the Olympics had something to do with none of these happening to date, but this week there will be one national game in primetime each day through Sunday.
FINALS UPDATE:Summer Olympics (9.1) adjusted up while literally everything else adjusted down due to local preemptions. Check the table below.
WHAT MATTERS:
The Summer Olympics (8.9) picked back up by over a point with the return of women's gymnastics on Thursday. But once again, this path was also seen in the last couple Olympics, so it stayed on the downside by nearly 25% vs. London in 2012.
Thursday also featured the return of the NFL preseason, usually a source of rampant local preemptions, so it's probably good to wait till finals before saying much on the rest of the networks.
CBS was the only network other than NBC that was really trying, with its comedy repeats (1.4/1.2), Big Brother (1.8) and Code Black (0.7) repeat.
Elsewhere, ABC had summer unscripted repeats (0.7/0.6/0.5), Fox had drama repeats (0.6/0.6) and the CW had Legends of Tomorrow (R) (0.4) and Beauty and the Beast (0.3).
FINALS UPDATE:The X-Files adjusted up to an enormous 6.1 in finals, marking broadcast TV's second biggest entertainment episode of the season behind only the Empire season premiere.It nearly doubled last year's 3.2 from Scorpion in the same spot. After accounting for a 5-minute NFL overrun, CBS' two hours of 60 Minutes adjusted down to 1.8/1.1.
Fox dominated NFL Championship Sunday in primetime, but probably wasn't particularly happy to see Carolina running away from Arizona late in the NFC Championship Game. The return of The X-Files started at 10:24 ET/7:24 PT and averaged a preliminary 5.1 demo rating in the 10:30 half-hour. Last year, Scorpion with a roughly similar start time averaged a 3.0 in the 10:30 prelim and adjusted to a 3.2 final, so The X-Files is clearly going to blow that out of the water. Stay tuned for time zone-adjusted numbers.
The only entertainment original outside of Fox was week four of ABC's lowly Galavant, down another tenth to 0.5. It was surrounded by repeats of America's Funniest Home Videos (0.8) and Agent Carter (0.4).
CBS rode an enormous lead-in from the afternoon's AFC Championship Game to dominate the non-Fox evening, averaging a 2.0 for 60 Minutes at 7:00, 1.2 for an additional hour at 8:00.
NBC had Dateline (0.6) and their annual showing of the movie Bridesmaids (0.9).
FINALS UPDATE: Adjusting for live West Coast viewing meant NBC's Dateline went down to 0.6/1.0, while the presidential debate was up to a 2.1. 60 Minutes adjusted up to 4.8 (its highest rating in over three years), and Family Guy (1.7) and The Good Wife (1.4) also went up a notch.
CBS got a turn at a playoff NFL lead-in, and it looks like Denver and Pittsburgh (with a preliminary 12.0 in the 7:00 hour) provided a far bigger one than Fox got last week. That helped boost 60 Minutes (4.7), Madam Secretary (2.0) and even The Good Wife (1.3) at 10/9c to new season highs. Madam would actually tie its series high from last season if it holds in finals. (And they probably won't adjust much since they actually started exactly on time.)
Over on Fox, there were significant week-to-week drops from last week's NFL-boosted results with the return of Bob's Burgers (1.0), then The Simpsons (1.8), Cooper Barrett's Guide (1.2), Family Guy (1.6) and Bordertown (1.2). But maybe the NFL exposure last week actually helped a smidge, as the new comedies were even with (Cooper) or up a tick from (Bordertown) their premieres two weeks ago, even as the animated anchors were down a bit. They're still not impressive, but these ratings in week three don't look quite as bad as they did in week one.
ABC had another brutal winter Sunday; the Galavant nightmare continued as it stayed flat at a 0.6 rating, even against probably the easiest competitive situation it will face in its five-week run. America's Funniest Home Videos (0.8) stayed low against the end of the huge CBS game, while Quantico got 0.3/0.4 for two more repeats.
And NBC had two hours of Dateline (0.8/1.1) leading into a Democratic presidential debate (1.9). It edged the previous two debate averages in broadcast primetime (1.7 on November 14 and 1.3 on December 19), though those were both on Saturdays.
FINALS UPDATE:Blood and Oil (0.8) adjusted up to avoid a new low on finale night. Sunday Night Football had a 7.0 final, a lower-end rating this season but still up 0.3 from last week.
With Once Upon a Time wrapped for the fall last week, ABC filled its timeslot with a special on the making of the 1930s animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (0.7). It pulled only about half of a typical OUaT rating, and that was of no help to the series finale of Blood and Oil (0.7) at 9/8c. But at 10/9c, Quantico (1.3) was able to go up a touchdespite the depressed ratings earlier in the evening.
Fox had the national overrun again, this time without a presidential address buffering it, but it still had pretty similar numbers to last week's finals from The Simpsons (2.4), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.7), Family Guy (1.7) and The Last Man on Earth (1.3).
CBS wrapped up its Sunday slate for the fall with season average-ish numbers from Madam Secretary (1.3), The Good Wife (1.1) and CSI: Cyber (0.8).
NBC looks a little below average in the Sunday Night Football prelims for New England/Houston (6.4/6.5/5.9), but perhaps up a bit from last week. More after finals!
Here are War of 18-49 records for currently airing news/sports series.
