War of 18-49 Update, How I Met Your Mother (2013-14)

Let's take a look at the 2013-14 season (the ninth and final overall) of How I Met Your Mother on CBS.

SpotVault - Friends with Better Lives (CBS) - 2013-14 Ratings

Friends with Better Lives

Mondays, 9/8c, CBS

SpotVault - Surviving Jack (Fox) - 2013-14 Ratings

Surviving Jack

Thursdays, 9:30/8:30c, Fox

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 4/1/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• April got off to a foolish start for Fox, where Glee (0.9) reverted to a tie with its series low from three weeks ago and the one-hour return of The Mindy Project (1.0) was at a new series low. Something to note about these shows is that while both are big W18-34 draws, they have very different 18-49 skews; Glee had about 700,000 more total viewers. This probably means Glee leans much more toward the teen end of that 18-34 demo and Mindy much more toward the 35-49 end. Given this incompatibility, I don't think Fox could've expected a lot more out of Mindy. We already know that it gets bad 18-49 ratings, and they'll always be worse without New Girl leading in. But they'll have to put up with another full hour of Mindy next week before New Girl comes back.

• On ABC, Agents of SHIELD (2.0) was back with a two-tenths upward adjustment in finals that makes this feel like a much better result than the 1.8 in prelims. It was still a tenth behind its last original episode, but now two tenths ahead of the 1.8 when it last returned from hiatus (and when it last faced NCIS). And The Goldbergs (1.5) was back down even with the lead-in increase, continuing to appear more tied to the presence of comedy competition than to the lead-in.

• CBS' NCIS (2.4) adjusted up off of its new low, so it's now only tied for a season low (and NCIS: Los Angeles (2.4) only tied it rather than beat it).

• Like many of the other ugly results in the 8/7c, The Voice (3.1) adjusted up in finals, but it was still down another three tenths. but they can take some solace in lead-out comedies About a Boy (2.0) and Growing Up Fisher (1.6) continuing to hold.

First Two Weeks, The 100

WEEK ONE
The CW had three new shows in the fall, and none of them completely flopped. And yet, the spring premiere of The 100 got off to a more impressive start than any of those fall shows. It opened with a 0.90 demo rating, building by nearly a tenth on its lead-in from Arrow (0.84). For comparison's sake, fall occupant The Tomorrow People opened with a 0.85, slightly down from Arrow's 0.93. It faced usual competing dramas Criminal Minds (2.2) and Law and Order: SVU (1.5), but Modern Family was in repeats. Very positive start.

The True Top 25, Week Ending 3/30/14 (2013-14 Week 27)

Modern Family was back in business this week and continues to show a little more muscle than usual in the second half of the season. Though it held off The Voice (whose Monday edition was a tick higher in raw numbers) for the True entertainment crown this week, it was denied #1 among everything by CBS' NCAA basketball coverage. The late game on Friday scored a huge 3.6 demo. The penultimate How I Met Your Mother was back in the top 5, passing last week's scripted champ Scandal (which was also up), and it will be interesting to see if its finale can pass the return of The Big Bang Theory in week 28. (TBBT will be very hard-pressed to match the 5.4 raw rating, but it will probably get a more favorable Sitch since Thursday is usually lower-viewed than Monday.)

Shark Tank was off, but Friday still got plenty of representation on this list from the two basketball games and a season high Dateline. (Last Man Standing, hitting a True season high with an impressive 1.4 on a post-DST Friday, was just a few hundreths off of the list.) The Blacklist and Resurrection were the only new shows this week as usual suspects Agents of SHIELD and The Millers sat out again.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 3/31/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• The one-hour finale of How I Met Your Mother (5.4) posted a massive 54% week-to-week increase, setting a new series high in the demo, in total viewers (12.94 million) and in adults 18-34 (5.8). It's the biggest regularly-scheduled entertainment episode this season for a series not named The Big Bang Theory or The Walking Dead, and after the finals uptick it inched ahead of Breaking Bad's finale from late September. But it's likely to be CBS' last Monday moment of glory this season, as newbie Friends with Better Lives (2.6) adjusted down to lose over half of that lead-in demo rating in its 9/8c preview. This probably does not bode well for its 8:30 launch after 2 Broke Girls in two weeks. But Mom (2.2) at 9:30 and the last episode of Intelligence (1.2) did benefit a bit from this halo.

• CBS' big bounce had surprisingly little impact on the competition; The Voice (3.4) was the only show that seemed to suffer at all, and even it was down less than 10%. The CW's Star-Crossed (0.4) and The Tomorrow People (0.5!) were even on the upswing.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/30/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• Week four of ABC's Resurrection (2.4) saw yet another drop, though this one wasn't that severe compared to last week's 2.5, especially after it adjusted up. The good news for this show is that it's through the against-The Walking Dead half of its season at what would still be a winning level for ABC. But it's not a given that TWD was making much of an impact. Next week promises to be telling.

• The death blow was probably dealt to all of NBC's Sunday shows, as Crisis (1.1) became the latest big week three dropper (though it adjusted up) and American Dream Builders (0.8) and Believe (1.1) inched down again as well.

• CBS benefited from an even bigger basketball overrun lead-in than last week, posting a 6.1 in the first 20 minutes of primetime, and some major developments on The Good Wife, which vaulted it to tie a season high.

• And Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.5) also took another hit. As a show that has some heavy male 18-34 interest (like its cartoon lead-ins), this will be another show to watch next week with The Walking Dead gone.

• UPDATE: The much-aforementioned The Walking Dead finale (8.0 with 15.7 million viewers) was the series' first spring finale not to set a new series high, but it was easily a finale record and darn close to the 8.2's that opened the fall and the spring. This marks roughly 20% growth from last week's 6.7 and about 25% growth from the spring 2013 finale (6.4). And as usual, there's simply no comparison between it and anything else scripted on TV. Its lead-out Talking Dead grew even more strongly, shattering the previous series high in Andrew Lincoln's first live appearance.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 3/29/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• The latest wrinkle in the CBS/Turner March Madness agreement sees CBS give up rights to their usual games on the last two Saturdays of the tournament. So they were down to a huge degree from when they had the tail end of these games last year, while TBS beat the combined broadcast options with their Dayton/Florida (2.37) and Wisconsin/Arizona (3.16) games.

Spotted Ratings, Friday 3/28/14

WHAT MATTERS:

• The California earthquake coverage didn't make a massive impact on Friday finals.
• A pair of very good games for CBS' Sweet 16 basketball (2.3/3.6) grew to a massive degree from the prelim on the same night last year (1.7/2.3);
• NBC had a good night with a special two-hour Dateline tying a season high. Hannibal adjusted down in finals but was still up a tenth week-to-week.
• Week two of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) was down a tick, but the 8:30 repeat (0.5) matched it;
• Rake (0.4) and the final scheduled Enlisted (0.4) were each down another tick, though the penultimate Raising Hope (0.5) grew at 9:30. Apparently this took Rake beyond what Fox could accept even in this slot, as it was pulled from Friday and will burn off a couple eps this Saturday.