First Two Weeks, The Cape

Bureaucratic note: I'm gonna count "previews" as part of the "first two weeks" only if they occur within two weeks before the official timeslot premiere. It seems fair to use something like The Cape's Sunday premiere or Outlaw's post-Got Talent premiere but using the Perfect Couples ep that was randomly placed after The Sing-Off a month before the premiere seems hinky. We'll see how that goes. It's my damn blog, so I reserve the right to change that at any time and for any reason ever.

 THE CAPE (NBC)

First Two Weeks, Bob's Burgers

Remember me? I'm a series of posts about the first two weeks of new shows, and I haven't been around for awhile! But I'm back with...

 BOB'S BURGERS (FOX)

Ratings Five-Spot, WE 1/16/11 - The Game, Tosh.0, Being Human, Piers Morgan Tonight, Skins

I initially was gonna make this largely about the new broadcast shows, but I realized much or most of that would end up being redundant with all the upcoming "First Two Weeks" posts, so I decided to look through some cable highlights of the last week and a half or so. The "week ending" guideline is even less accurate than usual, as three of these five actually happened on January 17. But anyway, here's your Ratings Five-Spot for the "week" "ending" January 16, 2011:

The Game - I wrote much more about the almost unthinkably huge return of The Game in a previous post than I could in these six lines. If that's tl;dr, the jist is that this fairly unassuming CW sitcom that got shoved out the door after three seasons because it didn't fit the network's vision suddenly quadrupled its audience in the transition to cable despite not airing an original in almost two calendar years. In a matter of hours we'll see just how big of a one-week fluke last Tuesday's result was.

Scheduling Five-Spot, WE 1/16/11 - ABC Renewals, Raising Hope, Terra Nova, The Big Bang Theory, Law & Order: Los Angeles

I actually had to be fairly discerning this week with lots of news coming out of the broadcast portion of the press tour. Lemme know if you think I missed something huge. Also, in case you're wondering, no Opinion Five-Spot this week; due to travel, I have watched practically zero TV. Aiming to get the Ratings one out sometime on Tuesday rather than the regular Wednesday. Here's your Scheduling Five-Spot for the week ending January 16, 2011:

ABC Renewals - Coming out of the ABC press tour was the news that the alphabet has renewed six veteran shows: Castle, The Middle, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice. None of these are major surprises, though some thought Cougar Town might be in trouble because of its big drops out of Modern. While concerning (and would likely be the end on a net like CBS with a less spotty recent comedy history), it's not concerning enough to discard Cougar just yet. A timeslot downgrade may be in order.

Back From Vacation with a Bang!

No, I'm not talking about myself. OK, maybe a little. But mostly I'm talking about The Game.

It had a much longer vacation than I did (20 months vs. five days) and it came back with a much bigger bang. Widely reported is that The Game premiered huge on BET with 7.7 million viewers, a 3.6/10 adults 18-49 rating, and a 6.4 rating in the CW's target women 18-34 audience. Back in my Tuesday midseason preview I said in my typical ride-the-fence fashion that "The Game could transfer its audience to cable much better than previous shows to make the leap." I am happy to report that, well, I was correct about that much! But... it was the understatement of the century.

Opinion Five-Spot, WE 1/9/11 - HIMYM, V, Grey's Anatomy, The Cape, Bob's Burgers

Here's my Opinion Five-Spot for the week ending January 9, 2011:

How I Met Your Mother - It wasn't a standout HIMYM episode by any means, in fact probably one of the lesser episodes of what's been one of the lesser seasons of the show. But we may well look back on this one and say it had a big impact on the show going forward. Will Marshall's bad news take the show into full-on drama mode? I'm sure hoping not. In other news, can't say I was a fan of the "countdown" gimmick that led up to Marshall's bad news, but maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't notice it till the single digits!

Scheduling Five-Spot, WE 1/9/11 - Hawaii Five-0, "Combat Hospital," Mad Men, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, The Kennedys

Here's your Scheduling Five-Spot for the week ending January 9, 2011:

Hawaii Five-O to Air After AFC Championship Game - I did a post last week about some of the other shows that have gotten the fairly high profile "mini-Super Bowl" lead-ins over the last few years, and Hawaii Five-0's airing will come on January 23. Five-0 has been widely proclaimed a ratings disappointment, but it's still easily broadcast TV's strongest new drama

Ratings Five-Spot, WE 1/9/11 - The Bachelor, Pretty Little Liars, Live to Dance, Wipeout, Jersey Shore

Since some interesting things actually happened in TV this week (unlike the last two), the Five-Spots return! But there's a catch; I'm at the airport as this post goes up and will be in Las Vegas (mostly away from technology) till Friday night. So I can't exactly cover the whole week, and these are all kind of quickly cobbled together. Ratings and Scheduling this morning, Opinion tomorrow. Should get back to normal starting next week!

The Bachelor - I never really bought that the return of Brad Womack to the Bachelor franchise would be guaranteed ratings gold. His first season was one of the lowest-rated Bachelor seasons, and the show's resurgence didn't begin until the Jason Mesnick season when Brad was pretty much out of the narrative. The new season started in fairly underwhelming fashion with a 2.9 demo, but I still think some media descriptions of that rating were overblown. "Bomb"? Really? The highest premiere in the last three years was just a 3.3...

Hawaii Five-0 and Other "Mini-Super Bowl" Lead-outs

CBS announced yesterday that Hawaii Five-0 would become the latest show to get the "mini-Super Bowl" lead-in by airing after the AFC Championship game. The show to get some high-profile exposure after the Super Bowl is always the subject of a great deal of discussion in TV industry circles, and lots has been written about all those shows' performances historically. (I may do one of my own as we near Super Bowl time.) Less covered is the fact that other post-playoff game special airings have become a bit of a tradition in their own right. Which championship game ends during primetime alternates from year to year, and since it typically doesn't end till after 10:00 on the East Coast (already out of Fox's shortened primetime), Fox has been using the earlier-ending division round games on Sunday as the high-profile lead-in instead. I'm not exactly sure when the networks started doing this, but the first year I can see that they definitely did it was 2005, so I'll start there and look at a history of "Mini-Super Bowl" lead-outs.

Midseason Matchups 2011, Sunday

7/6c

Winter: America's Funniest Home Videos (ABC) vs. 60 Minutes (CBS) vs. Dateline (NBC, 1/9) vs. The Simpsons (R)/American Dad! (Fox, 1/16)

Spring: Same

Notes: Dad! now steps into the role often historically occupied by King of the Hill, frequently airing in the 7:30 half-hour so the net can try something else later in the evening. Look for a significant ratings drop; its only 7:30 airing in 2009-10 posted easily a season low 2.0 demo.