Premiere Week Year-to-Year: Winners, Losers, Networks

With Premiere Week 2014 in the books, let's take a look at how it compared with Premiere Week 2013. We'll examine the shows and timeslots that changed the most vs. 2013, plus the network race.

Demos Year-to-Year, November Sweeps 2013 Winners/Losers

While I've long retired the daily Demos Year-to-Year posts, I do want to continue doing the recap posts that spotlight the top gainers/losers of the week vs. the same time a year ago. Here's November sweeps 2013; since sweeps began a week later on the calendar last year, I'm actually comparing week two of this sweeps vs. week three of last year. This seemed the best combination of weeks to ensure that almost all entertainment programs got a comparison.

Demos Year-to-Year, May Sweeps 2013 Winners/Losers

Though I retired the formal daily year-to-year posts, after the premiere week I did pledge to shoot for at least one weeklong summary to put a spotlight on where we are vs. one year ago during each sweeps period. I'm trying to pick out the most "normal" week from each period, so this time I'm dipping back to week one (April 25 to May 1), when almost all regular schedules were still airing. Would've done this a week earlier but all the upfront coverage got in the way!

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Top 10 year-to-year SHOW losers
1. Smash (Sa 8-9pm vs. M 10-11pm) -78%
2. Touch (Fr 9-10pm vs. Th 9-10pm) -68%
3. Fashion Star (Fr 8-9pm vs. Tu 10-11pm) -53%
4. 90210 (Mo 9-10pm vs. Tu 8-9pm)  -50%
5. American Idol Wed -38%
6. Dancing with the Stars Tue -38%
7. Once Upon a Time -33%
8. Hawaii Five-0 -32%
9. The Cleveland Show -31%
10. American Idol Thu -30% 

In one year, Smash has quite literally moved from the best timeslot on NBC to the worst. Touch and Fashion Star can also blame timeslot downgrades for much of their problems. Beyond that, most of these declines are unfortunately fairly "real."

Demos Year-to-Year, February Sweeps 2013 Winners/Losers

Though I retired the formal daily year-to-year posts, after the premiere week I did pledge to shoot for at least one weeklong summary to put a spotlight on the year-to-year landscape during each sweeps period. I'm trying to pick out the most "normal" week from each period, and it looked like week three was by far the best this time. (Namely, it was the only week without a big event on Sunday.)

Top 10 year-to-year SHOW losers
1. Smash (Tu 10-11pm vs. M 10-11pm) -61%
2. The Mentalist (Su 10-11pm vs. Th 10-11pm) -41%
3. Glee (Th 9-10pm vs. Tu 8-9pm) -39%
4. The Good Wife -38%
5. Last Man Standing (F 8-8:30pm vs. Tu 8-8:30pm) -36%
6. Hawaii Five-0 -31%
7. Raising Hope (Tu 8-9pm vs. Tu 9:30-10pm) -29%
8. The Vampire Diaries -29%
9. 60 Minutes -28%
10. American Idol Thu (Th 8-9pm vs. Th 8-10pm) -27% 

Should note here that Valentine's Day probably puts the Thursday shows (Glee, TVD and Idol) in worse shape than they would normally be. It was a particularly ugly point for The Vampire Diaries, which has been close to even for much of the year, but Idol and Glee would've been down big anyway (just not quite as big). The three CBS Sunday shows also had a pretty horrifying evening compared to their usual results. The others were not that far off of their typical year-to-year losses.

Demos Year-to-Year, November Sweeps 2012 Week Three Winners/Losers

Though I've retired the formal daily year-to-year posts, after the premiere week I did pledge to shoot for at least one year-to-year summary for each sweeps period. I'm trying to pick out the most "normal" week from each period, and it looked like week three was by far the best this time. (No weather-related pre-emptions, no election pre-emptions, no awards shows, no Thanksgiving Eve.)

Top 10 year-to-year SHOW losers
1. Private Practice (Tu 10-11pm vs. Th 10-11pm) -61%
2. Happy Endings (Tu 9-9:30pm vs. W 9:30-10pm) -59%
3. Nikita (F 9-10pm vs. F 8-9pm) -50%
4. Last Man Standing (F 8-8:30pm vs. Tu 8-8:30pm) -38%
5. Whitney (W 8-8:30pm vs. Th 9:30-10pm) -38%
6. New Girl -37%
7. Hawaii Five-0 -36%
8. How I Met Your Mother -35%
9. Dancing with the Stars Mon -34%
t-10. Gossip Girl (M 9-10pm vs. M 8-9pm) -33% 
t-10. 2 Broke Girls (M 9-9:30pm vs. M 8:30-9pm) -33%

As always with the show lists, many of these numbers were inevitably going to be bad because of timeslot downgrades: namely Private Practice, Happy Endings, Last Man. But I don't think anyone would argue any of these shows (except maybe Last Man?) are doing "well." There's a big CBS Monday presence on this list, and Mike and Molly (at -32%) just barely misses.

Demos Year-to-Year, May Sweeps 2012 Week Four Winners/Losers

As usual with my year-to-year posts, at the end of each week I take a look at the biggest gainers and losers among adults 18-49. I stick to only original-vs.-original comparisons for these lists.

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. Dancing with the Stars Mon -38%
2. Glee -37% 
3. American Idol Tuesday -31%
4. American Idol Wednesday -30%
5. American Idol Thursday -30%

This is not a week of particularly useful comparisons, since so many shows sat out the final week of the season. But this one paints a pretty good picture of some of the biggest falls from grace of the 2011-12 season, especially if you add in #6 (the DWTS finale, -28%) and #7 (Celebrity Apprentice, -27%).

Demos Year-to-Year, Wednesday 5/23/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Tuesday 5/22/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Monday 5/21/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Sunday 5/20/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Friday 5/18/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Thursday 5/17/12

This -29% evening was the worst weeknight of the sweep-to-date. A lot of the blame for that goes to CBS (no Big Bang Theory) and NBC (no Office) for not trying nearly as hard this year.

Demos Year-to-Year, May Sweeps 2012 Week Three Winners/Losers

As usual with my year-to-year posts, at the end of each week I take a look at the biggest gainers and losers among adults 18-49. I stick to only original-vs.-original comparisons for these lists.

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. Cougar Town (Tu 8-9pm vs. W 9:30-10pm) -50%
2. America's Next Top Model -50%
t-3. Dancing with the Stars Mon (M 8-9:30pm vs. M 8-10pm) -43%
t-3. The Cleveland Show (Su 7:30-8pm vs. Su 9:30-10pm) -43% 
5. Nikita (F 8-9pm vs. Thu 9-10pm) -43%

While DWTS has been on the fringes of this list all season, it got even worse this week since the episode was just 90 minutes long and it had to face a similar-skewing America's Got Talent. Otherwise, this is a fairly familiar group of faces (get used to me saying that in this last full-strength week of the season), with three of them undergoing major timeslot downgrades from this time a year ago.

Demos Year-to-Year, Wednesday 5/16/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Tuesday 5/15/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Sunday 5/13/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Monday 5/14/12

Demos Year-to-Year, Friday 5/11/12

The overall decline is a little exaggerated since the CW had to go up against the two-hour Smallville finale, but CBS' total meltdown on the evening in the last few weeks also gets a lot of the blame.

Demos Year-to-Year, Thursday 5/10/12

Demos Year-to-Year, May Sweeps 2012 Week Two Winners/Losers

As usual with my year-to-year posts, at the end of each week I take a look at the biggest gainers and losers among adults 18-49. I stick to only original-vs.-original comparisons for these lists.

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. America's Next Top Model -60%
2. Nikita (F 8-9pm vs. Th 9-10pm) -50%
3. Bones (M 8-9pm vs. Th 9-10pm) -41%
4. Private Practice (Tu 10-11pm vs. Th 10-11pm) -39% 
5. American Idol Wednesday -37%

This list is almost completely overhauled from last week, with only disastrous Top Model returning. Nikita has been a fixture on the list all season thanks to its Friday move, while Bones and Private Practice (which faced the Voice finale) join the list this week thanks to major timeslot downgrades vs. last year. American Idol, which was dominating this list during February, sneaks back on this week, and the Thursday edition was a very close sixth.