SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - 2019-20 Ratings

Shameless

Sundays, 9/8c, Showtime

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - Fall 2018 Ratings

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - 2017-18 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.

Cablemetrics: Westworld, The Walking Dead, Shameless, The Royals

These numbers are current through Monday, December 5.

WHAT MATTERS:

• After a big penultimate week spike, Westworld followed it up on finale night by only staying flat week-to-week at a 1.02 demo. (However, it did set new highs in both total viewers and the 18-34 demos.) It still goes down as one of the cable elite, but a long wait for season two begins.

Cablemetrics: Vikings, Westworld, Shooter, Incorporated

These numbers are current through Wednesday, November 30.

WHAT MATTERS:

• Wednesday saw the return of History's resilient Vikings with a 0.71 demo rating. It's technically the second half of season four, but the year-to-year comparisons will be against the first half of season four since it was almost a full year ago (premiering on February 18). By that measure, it's down a relatively decent 13%.

Cablemetrics: Westworld, Shameless, Fear the Walking Dead, American Horror Story

These numbers are current through Monday, October 3.

WHAT MATTERS:

• HBO's much-hyped sci-fi drama Westworld opened to a 0.77 demo rating and just under 2 million total viewers on Sunday night. It didn't skew that young (with half its viewership falling in the 18-49 demo) but it was definitely super-male, with a 0.96 in males 18-49 vs. 0.58 in females 18-49. I've already seen a lot of comparisons to the modest beginnings of Game of Thrones' run back in spring 2011 (just 2.222 million viewers and a 0.9). Clearly, this is a much better start than that when looking at the 2016 environment, but it's also clear that very, very few shows take the kind of trajectory that Thrones has since then. With this start, it's not hard to envision Westworld as either an elite cable drama or a disappointment. (Or both?)

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - Fall 2016 Ratings

Cablemetrics: The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul, Billions, Girls

These numbers are current through Thursday, February 25.

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Walking Dead held nearly all of its premiere audience in week two, dropping just 3% to a 6.58. The year-to-year trend improved a lot since it dropped big against the Oscars in week two of last season, but that effect will be cancelled out next week when last night's rating against Oscar is added.

Cablemetrics: The Walking Dead, Vinyl, Better Call Saul, Vikings

These numbers are current through Thursday, February 18.

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Walking Dead opened the back half of season six with a 6.75 demo rating, which is still unthinkably high in today's landscape... and yet down by 15% from the last spring premiere, and nearly 10% from the fall 2015 premiere. It's the lowest TWD half-season premiere in three years. (For perspective, only one non-Walking Dead regularly-scheduled scripted episode has done a higher number in that three-year span: the Empire season one finale.)

Cablemetrics: The People v. O.J. Simpson, Shameless, Billions

These numbers are current through Thursday, February 11.

WHAT MATTERS:

• Week two of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was down 23% to a 1.51. That's a bit steeper than average for a scripted show in week two, but still a good number overall (nearly double the next highest entry on this week's chart, after all).

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - 2015-16 Ratings

Shameless

Sundays, 9/8c, Showtime

Cablemetrics: Shadowhunters, Pretty Little Liars, Colony, Shameless

These numbers are current through Thursday, January 14.

WHAT MATTERS:

• It was a promising opening night as ABC Family made a channel name change to Freeform; first was the premiere of amazingly resilient Pretty Little Liars (1.06), which was actually up a tenth from its last winter premiere (presumably still riding the high from the huge 1.39 summer finale).

• That led into newbie Shadowhunters (0.76), which was one of the network's most impressive recent premieres. For comparison, summer 2014 lead-out Chasing Life and summer 2015 lead-out Stitchers each opened with a 0.53 out of 1.1ish PLL lead-ins.

War of 18-49 Update, Shameless (2014-15)

Let's take a look at the 2014-15 season (the fifth overall) of Shameless on Showtime.

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - Winter 2015 Ratings

Shameless

Sundays, 9/8c, Showtime

The War of 18-49, Shameless

SHAMELESS (SHOWTIME)

Scheduling history: All seasons of Shameless have aired on Sunday at 9:00.

See (who saw) how it all began: Showtime's dramedy Shameless was based on a British series of the same name, but that series clearly didn't bring a mass American following to the table out of the gate. Shameless premiered at a modest 982,000 viewers and 0.4 demo rating on 1/9/11. It dropped to 810,000 viewers (and held the 0.4) in week two, but it was pretty much all uphill from there. It grew to 903,000 viewers in week three, then over a million (and spiked to a 0.6 demo) in week four. Most of the second half of its season saw 0.5 ratings.

The best of times: Shameless, like many cable dramas before and since, took a massive leap between seasons one and two. After a season one full of 0.4's and 0.5's, Shameless generally hit 0.7's and 0.8's in season two (only dipping to 0.5 against the Super Bowl). Season three began with another huge spike to 1.1 on the 1/13/13 premiere night (0.3 above any previous result), and that remains the series high. The spike for the full season didn't end up quite living up to that 1.1 promise (it settled around 0.8), but it was still another significant leap.

The worst of times: Shameless has never returned to the depths from early season one. Until the sixth season, its last 0.4 rating came in episode eight. After double-digit growth in seasons two and three, though, the show did have its first ever decline in season four (albeit by a miniscule amount), and it dropped more significantly in season five.

Then vs. now: Though Homeland looked like the new Showtime darling after its season one Emmy win, Shameless may have quietly become Showtime's biggest ratings success in a post-Dexter world. Though Homeland had that Emmy and two years with the Dexter lead-in, Shameless season four narrowly outrated Homeland's first season without Dexter. And it pulled this off in what many would argue is a more difficult time of year: Sunday event season. Though Showtime has sat out Shameless against the Oscars the last few years, it's still faced the Super Bowl in each of its first five seasons.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Winter 2011	Sunday 9:00	0.47		0.4	0.6	detail
	1		Winter 2012	Sunday 9:00	0.71	+52%			0.5	0.8	detail
2	Winter 2013		Sunday 9:00	0.82	+16%	0.6	1.1		detail
3	Winter 2014		Sunday 9:00	0.81	-1%	0.6	0.9		detail
4	Winter 2015		Sunday 9:00	0.71	-13%	0.5	0.9	detail	B+
5	Winter 2016		Sunday 9:00	0.64	-9%	0.5	0.8	detail	B+
6	Fall 2016		Sunday 9:00	0.54	-16%	0.4	0.6	detail	B
7	2017-18		Sunday 9:00	0.54	+1%	0.2	0.7	detail
8	2018-19		Sunday 9:00	0.35	-34%	0.2	0.5	detail

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now19	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Winter 2011	18				16	24	16	20
	1	Winter 2012	30				23	35	34	31
2	Winter 2013	39				28	51	51	43
3	Winter 2014	43				31	47	46	45
4	Winter 2015	42				32	52	48	42
5	Winter 2016	44				32	52	43	45
6	Fall 2016	44				34	51	40	51
7	2017-18	49				21	67	67	55
8	2018-19	37				25	49	49	47
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	39

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

Spotted Ratings, Olympics Roundup 2/12-2/17/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• Through 2/17, the 2014 Winter Olympics average is running 13% behind the 2010 average over the same span. Most individual days have been relatively close to that trend, with a couple major exceptions to the positive (Tuesday 2/11 and Monday 2/17 were both up vs. the corresponding 2010 days) and a couple major exceptions to the negative (Wednesday 2/12 and Saturday 2/15 were each down about 40%, failing to grow on days when the 2010 Games had huge spikes). 2014 is running closer to the corresponding 2006 average (-4%), which may be a fairer comparison due to time zone differences.

• There was little excitement in the entertainment programming world from Wednesday to Sunday, but here are a few quick notes:

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - Winter 2014 Ratings

Shameless

Sundays, 9/8c, Showtime

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - Winter 2013 Ratings

Shameless

Sundays, 9/8c, Showtime

SpotVault - Shameless (Showtime) - Winter 2012 Ratings

Shameless

Sundays, 9/8c, Showtime