WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: With baseball pre-emptions removed, both The Originals and Jane the Virgin went down two tenths to 0.4, the first ever for The Originals. Dancing with the Stars (2.2) and The Voice (2.9) each went up a tenth and The Night Shift (1.3) went down a tenth.
- It was a rough return after a month off for Fox's Gotham (1.5), which shed 25% of its last pre-hiatus episode (also a pre-DST episode) and was three tenths below its low point from early February. This was always gonna be a tough spot, but this seems like a somewhat steeper decline than Fox would've wanted. And it only got lead-out The Following (1.1) to what it usually got after a Gotham repeat (but two tenths above last week's ep against the NCAA championship).
- There was mostly week-to-week steadiness for originals on the rest of the big four. The most promising results were Dancing with the Stars (2.1), up at least a tenth, and NCIS: Los Angeles (1.6) perhaps benefiting a bit from Castle being in repeats. Scorpion (1.9) was barely down to preliminarily tie its series low from late November.
- It seems certain that the CW's The Originals (0.6) and Jane the Virgin (0.6) will come down in finals due to pre-emptions (in New York and possibly elsewhere). Consider "wait for finals" a pretty good rule of thumb for any CW rating that looks high the rest of the way.
WEEK ONE
Rating: 0.70
Lead-in: New Girl (1.04)
Competition: Agents of SHIELD (1.4 overall, 1.4 at 9:30),
The Dovekeepers (1.0 overall, 1.0 at 9:30),
One Big Happy (1.2),
iZombie (0.7 overall, 0.7 at 9:30)
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: The Big Bang Theory (3.5) and, mercifully, Bones (1.1) each picked up a tenth in finals, putting Bones even week-to-week. NBC's SVU repeat (0.9) and Dateline (1.1) inched down.
- CBS appears to have gotten back at least a bit of its huge drop last week in the 8/7c hour, but only a bit. The Big Bang Theory (3.4) was even with last week's final but is a usual adjust-up candidate, while The Odd Couple (2.1) was up by 0.2. A tryout at 9/8c didn't really do anything for Mom (2.0), whose lead-in wasn't that different from the usual Big Bang repeats.
- To celebrate 10 years of Grey's Anatomy, ABC re-aired the 2005 pilot at 8/7c (1.1) and an original episode (2.1) in the show's historic 9/8c timeslot. Though that actually matched last week's Scandal rating, it didn't stop American Crime (0.9) from taking yet another hit.
- And Fox may have had the night's worst news as Bones (1.0) is starting to get very ugly; it inched down to its second consecutive new low and couldn't even beat NBC's repeat of Law and Order: SVU (1.0).
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: Survivor got a rare two-tenth upward adjustment to put it at a crazy-high 2.5, actually up year-to-year. Criminal Minds (2.1) and CSI: Cyber (1.5) also added a tenth for CBS, as did The Voice (2.2) and ABC's The Middle (1.9) and The Goldbergs (2.0).
- A special Wednesday edition of The Voice (2.1) was (as usual) well below the show's regularly-scheduled editions and could only match the Wednesday clip show run in early March. It boosted Law and Order: SVU (1.8) a good bit, but there was no tangible effect on Chicago PD (1.5).
- Perhaps The Voice's biggest impact was on competitor American Idol (1.4), which was obliterated to easily a new low 1.3 in the 8:00 hour and could only recover to 1.5 at 9:00.
- For the first time this season, ABC had a repeat Modern Family (1.7) amid originals for everything else. The 8:00 hour of The Middle (1.8) and The Goldbergs (1.9) was close to even despite this and the added Voice competition, while Black-ish (1.9) was not that far below average with easily its worst lead-in ever. The only real ugliness was Nashville (1.1), which took a major hit at 10/9c.
- CBS was back with its regular lineup as Survivor (2.3) was the winner in the 8/7c reality logjam. Criminal Minds (2.0) was slightly down and CSI: Cyber remained mired at its probably-not-enough 1.4.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: The only adjustment was to NCIS: New Orleans (1.7), up a tenth.
- NBC sat out its Tuesday comedies for another two-hour edition of The Voice (2.7), which as usual significantly boosted 10/9c occupant Chicago Fire (2.0). Preliminarily, this was very close to Fire's post-Voice ratings in early March when The Voice was much stronger.
- Like the last time The Voice was two hours, this had a major effect on CBS' NCIS: New Orleans (1.6). Its NCIS (2.1) lead-in inched down to a new low and Person of Interest (1.3) was also on the low end.
- ABC got some much-welcome relief for its sinking Tuesday lineup as Fresh Off the Boat (1.4) and Agents of SHIELD (1.5) both reclaimed the tenth lost last week. A repeat of Fresh at 8:30 (1.0) was also a one-tenth improvement on last week's Repeat After Me. Only Forever (0.9) was down as both of its drama competitors were back in action.
- For Fox, at least it didn't get any worse at 9:30 as Weird Loners (0.7) was even in week two. But since that show's already dead, the far more pressing issue is New Girl (0.9), which has plummeted into disaster territory since Loners came around. It did face The Voice this week, but it was down another tenth from an already horrible result last week.
- If it holds in finals, this was definitely the most encouraging result yet for iZombie, which held its 0.7 from the last two weeks despite following a repeat of The Flash (0.5). It'd be pretty good even if it doesn't hold in finals!
WHAT MATTERS:
- With no 1.0 ratings on broadcast for the last couple Saturdays, the excitement has come with basketball on TBS. Kentucky/Notre Dame topped 3/28 with a whooping 4.89 rating, while the Final Four games on TBS on 4/4 got 3.25 and 5.48. As with most of the late part of the tournament, those were a huge improvement year-to-year; the Final Four games last year got 2.07 and 3.40.
A.D. The Bible Continues
Sundays, 9/8c, NBC
American Odyssey
Sundays, 10/9c, NBC
Weird Loners
Tuesdays, 9:30/8:30c, Fox
The Royals
Sundays, 10/9c, USA
© SpottedRatings.com 2009-2022. All Rights Reserved.
