The War of 18-49, Desperate Housewives

 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (ABC)

Why post this on Sunday? Desperate Housewives aired its entire 180-episode run on Sunday night and, except for the second half of a handful of two-hour episodes, in the 9:00 hour.

See (who saw) how it all began: Less than two weeks removed from a pretty darn strong 6.8 premiere for Lost, the good news got even better for previously embattled ABC, as Desperate Housewives premiered with 21.64 million viewers and an 8.9/21 in A18-49 on 10/3/04.  The week two news was quite promising as it dropped 3% to an 8.6 in the demo, but then it took off to even greater heights. First a 9.5 in week three, then into double digits in week six.

The best of times: This show was pretty much a complete monster in its entire first two seasons, but it was at its strongest at the end of season 1 and beginning of season 2, which saw an amazing twenty straight episodes with double digit demos. (And that's not counting a clip show on 4/24/05 which got a 10.1!) Overall, 27 episodes of the show broke the 10.0 threshold in those first two seasons (and zero since). The peak was the season 1 finale on 5/22/05, which got 30.62 million viewers (the only airing above the 30 million mark) and a 13.4/31 in the demo.

The worst of times: Desperate Housewives has had a similar path to Grey's Anatomy, which had a huge peak and has uniformly dropped around 20% of its demo every year since. The only big difference is that Desperate's peak years were a little earlier. In the second half of Desperate Housewives' run, the show dropped almost exactly 20% every single year. As the show aged, it became less resilient against the big event TV of Sunday night, and this was most obvious when the show found series lows with 6.40 million viewers and a 1.8 demo against the huge Grammy awards on 2/12/12.

Then vs. now: I can't say enough what a phenomenon this show was out of the gate. And unlike most other huge dramas of late, Housewives was notable for its ability to launch other new shows; lead-outs Boston Legal, Grey's Anatomy and Brothers & Sisters all ran at least five seasons. But average-wise, this show dropped more than two thirds from its first season through its last. The people that made this show such a beast steadily abandoned ship year after year. That's just how it goes for once-huge serialized shows. The Housewives stayed put on Sunday at 9:00 for their whole run, but by season eight they weren't even ABC's all-star of Sunday night, as the show was significantly outshone by newbie Once Upon a Time in 2011-12.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2004-05	Sunday 9:00	10.66		8.6	13.4	detail
2	2005-06		10.09	-5%	7.9	12.3	detail
3	2006-07		7.57	-25%	6.1	9.6	detail
4	2007-08		6.71	-11%	5.5	7.8	detail
5	2008-09		5.29	-21%	4.1	7.1	detail
6	2009-10		4.25	-20%	3.3	5.3	detail
7	2010-11		3.46	-19%	2.7	4.4	detail	C-
8	2011-12		2.74	-21%	1.8	3.2	detail	D+

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2004-05	261	megahit	4.39		211	329	218	329
2	2005-06	249	megahit	4.18	-5%	195	303	303	244
3	2006-07	201	megahit	3.38	-19%	162	255	255	191
4	2007-08	203	megahit	3.41	+1%	166	236	227	187
5	2008-09	176	big hit	2.96	-13%	136	236	236	156
6	2009-10	151	big hit	2.54	-14%	117	188	167	142
7	2010-11	136	hit	2.29	-10%	106	173	169	122
8	2011-12	116	solid	1.95	-15%	76	135	135	135
AVERAGE:		187	big hit
CAREER:		1493	star

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.

The War of 18-49, Week 3 Battlegrounds

As I said last week, I decided to list every season average of every show just to give some context as to just how strong this stuff was in the primetime landscape dating back.  Each week on Saturday, I'll fill in the previous six posts' worth of averages.


2004-05:
Grey's Anatomy 7.2/8.09/9.8
House 2.5/5.28/7.7
Dancing with the Stars (summer) 4.3/5.1/6.7
The Biggest Loser 3.7/4.4/5.9
American Dad! 3.0/3.7/4.7

2005-06:
Grey's Anatomy 7.2/9.13/11.2
House 4.8/7.16/10.2
Dancing with the Stars (winter performance) 4.6/5.1/5.5
The Biggest Loser 3.0/4.12/6.7
Criminal Minds 3.3/4.08/6.5
Old Christine 2.4/3.9/5.1
Bones 2.8/3.8/5.2
American Dad! 3.1/3.7/4.1
How I Met Your Mother 3.0/3.7/4.4
Dancing with the Stars (winter results) 3.0/3.6/4.0
Supernatural 1.6/2.2/2.6

2006-07:
Grey's Anatomy 7.6/9.38/11.6
House 5.8/7.94/11.2
Heroes 5.1/6.13/6.9
Dancing with the Stars (fall performance) 5.2/5.7/7.5
Dancing with the Stars (spring performance) 4.8/5.2/6.4
Dancing with the Stars (fall results) 3.7/4.9/7.1
Brothers & Sisters 3.4/4.67/6.0
Rules of Engagement 3.6/4.57/5.2
Dancing with the Stars (spring results) 3.9/4.5/6.7
Criminal Minds 3.3/4.27/5.2
Ugly Betty 2.8/3.97/5.0
American Dad! 2.8/3.6/4.5
Old Christine 2.4/3.45/4.4
The Biggest Loser 2.6/3.34/4.8
How I Met Your Mother 2.8/3.33/3.9
Bones 2.5/3.3/4.4
'Til Death 1.7/2.90/6.3
30 Rock 1.7/2.57/3.2
Friday Night Lights 1.7/2.30/3.5
Supernatural 1.2/1.38/1.7

2007-08:
Grey's Anatomy 5.1/7.16/8.8
House 5.1/7.05/9.0
Dancing with the Stars (fall performance) 4.7/5.3/6.0
Heroes 4.9/5.24/6.5
Dancing with the Stars (spring performance) 4.1/4.7/5.6
Dancing with the Stars (fall results) 3.9/4.6/6.4
Brothers & Sisters 3.0/4.22/5.0
Rules of Engagement 3.7/4.05/4.5
Dancing with the Stars (spring results): 3.6/4.0/4.4
Criminal Minds 3.1/3.64/4.5
How I Met Your Mother 3.1/3.50/4.5
Old Christine 2.7/3.46/4.5
The Biggest Loser (spring) 2.9/3.44/4.4
The Biggest Loser (fall) 2.7/3.27/4.6
American Dad! 2.4/3.18/4.2
Bones 2.7/3.17/3.6
Ugly Betty 2.2/3.03/3.9
30 Rock 2.5/2.82/3.4
'Til Death 1.9/2.47/4.3
Friday Night Lights 1.7/1.85/2.1
Supernatural 1.0/1.19/1.3

2008-09:
Grey's Anatomy 5.0/5.73/7.4
House 4.5/5.21/6.0
Dancing with the Stars (spring performance) 4.2/4.9/6.1
Dancing with the Stars (fall performance) 3.9/4.3/5.3
How I Met Your Mother 2.9/4.01/4.8
Dancing with the Stars (fall results) 3.3/3.9/5.1
The Biggest Loser (spring) 3.2/3.78/4.7
Heroes 2.6/3.65/5.0
Rules of Engagement 1.9/3.65/4.4
Criminal Minds 3.0/3.61/4.7
Dancing with the Stars (spring results) 2.8/3.5/5.2
Brothers & Sisters 2.8/3.47/4.6
30 Rock 2.4/3.30/4.1
The Biggest Loser (fall) 2.6/3.23/4.6
Bones 2.3/2.93/3.5
American Dad! 2.3/2.91/3.6
Ugly Betty 1.7/2.34/3.3
Old Christine 1.6/2.05/2.4
'Til Death 1.4/1.75/2.3
Friday Night Lights 1.1/1.32/1.6
Supernatural 1.1/1.33/1.7

2009-10:
House 3.6/4.85/6.7
Dancing with the Stars (spring performance) 6.4/4.84/4.0
Grey's Anatomy 3.5/4.64/6.7
The Biggest Loser (fall) 3.1/3.74/5.0
Dancing with the Stars (fall performance) 3.4/3.67/4.1
Criminal Minds 3.1/3.60/4.4
How I Met Your Mother 2.8/3.53/4.0
The Biggest Loser (spring) 2.8/3.36/4.6
Dancing with the Stars (fall results) 2.6/3.33/4.3
Rules of Engagement 2.5/3.00/3.6
American Dad! 2.0/2.89/3.6
Bones 2.4/2.88/3.6
Brothers & Sisters 2.2/2.85/3.7
Dancing with the Stars (spring results) 2.4/2.83/3.9
30 Rock 1.9/2.69/3.3
Heroes 1.8/2.30/2.8
Old Christine 1.5/1.94/2.3
Ugly Betty 0.9/1.36/1.7
Supernatural 1.0/1.22/1.4
'Til Death 0.5/0.82/1.3

The War of 18-49, 'Til Death

'TIL DEATH (FOX) 

Why post this on Friday? As with some other Friday shows, 'Til Death mostly gets a Friday post because it was tough filling the Friday roster of shows and it was tough squeezing it into one of the other days. Still, you could argue that Fox's last real good faith effort to make this show work was on Fridays, paired with new sitcom Brothers.  It didn't work very well, and the show ended up airing a ton of episodes on Sundays in the 7pm hour during the 2009-10 season.

See (who saw) how it all began: Fox had a rough go of it on Thursdays before Bones showed up on the night, so the 8.82 million viewers and 3.1/10 demo that saw the series premiere on 9/7/06 was fairly promising. It dropped 19% to a 2.5 the next week, then another three ticks to a 2.2 the next week, and it came back from the October baseball hiatus below a 2.0 demo. Still, it crept back up to a 2.0 or higher it times, which prompted...

The best of times: ...Fox to put it after American Idol, which is pretty reliably "the best of times" for the Fox scripted shows I'm covering here. It ran four episodes at 9:30 after American Idol results in spring 2007, peaking at a 6.3/16 in the demo on 3/28/07.

The worst of times: Still, the show was never able to develop into much of anything without the Idol lead-in. It was reliably able to break a 2.0 in season 2, but that's about the best there is to say. In season 3, given a Wednesday 9:00 slot, it was below 2.0 by the second week and off the sked entirely after six episodes. But the worst was still yet to come, as it did absolutely nothing in its Friday try early in the 2009-10 season and then burned off a ridiculous 28 episodes (over a third of its total produced!) in the 7:00 hour on Sunday across the first half of 2010. The worst it got was a 0.5 demo on 2/7/10 and 4/4/10.  Ouch.

Then vs. now: After the show was pulled in early fall 2008, it seemed this show was toast, but somehow it would live to air another 35 episodes in the next season, which Sony TV almost entirely subsidized to get a suitable run for syndication. (I haven't heard anything about the show going into syndication, though...) As stated in the previous section, over a third of the 81 episodes produced were basically doing burnoff duty, and when compared to the season 1 episodes that aired after American Idol, there are some pretty staggering percentage drops.  Comparing the 6.3 series high to the 0.5 series low, it's a 92% drop! Even the average of the 2009-10 airings was down about 85% from that series high. Suffice to say this show was not kept alive for the "conventional" reasons and, if it were, it would not have lasted nearly as long.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2006-07	Thursday 8:00	2.90		1.7	6.3
2	2007-08	Wednesday 8:30	2.49	-14%	1.9	4.3
3	2008-09	Wednesday 9:00	1.75	-30%	1.4	2.3
4	2009-10	Fri 8:30, Sun 7:00/7:30	0.82	-53%	0.5	1.3

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2006-07	77	marginal	1.29		45	167	82	90
2	2007-08	75	marginal	1.26	-2%	57	130	82	67
3	2008-09	58	flop	0.98	-23%	47	76	76	57
4	2009-10	29	flop	0.49	-50%	18	46	28	21
AVERAGE:		60	flop
CAREER:		239	blip

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.

The War of 18-49, Grey's Anatomy

GREY'S ANATOMY (ABC)

Scheduling history: Grey's Anatomy has been one of TV's strongest shows on two different evenings, starting with two seasons on Sunday after Desperate Housewives. It really became established as a standalone hit when ABC moved it to Thursday night in the fall of 2006.

See (who saw) how it all began: Grey's Anatomy is yet another of those major hits of today that didn't start out as a huge network priority.  It was a midseason replacement for legal drama Boston Legal, which had spent most of the 2004-05 season to date in the 10:00 post-Desperate Housewives slot. Boston Legal's retention of the breakout hit had been far from great, so Grey's Anatomy got a whirl on 3/27/05, when it drew 16.25 million viewers and a 7.2/18 in the demo. Retention out of Desperate Housewives was a reasonable 67% on that evening, which looks better than the two thirds that Brothers & Sisters usually holds, since Housewives had such incredible raw numbers at the time.  But while the 7.2 demo looked pretty solid, here's something fairly amazing; it remained a series low until the middle of season four, for well over two and a half calendar years. The first season finale on 5/22/05 found a whooping 9.8 in the demo.

The best of times: Until the breakout performance by Undercover Boss in 2010, Grey's Anatomy was known as 'the last show to get a long-term boost from the Super Bowl.' The post-SB numbers were substantial: 37.88 million viewers and a 16.5/38 in the demo, easily the best in recent years until Boss got comparable ones in 2010 (38.65m, 16.2/38). And the long-term boost was tangible, both within season 2 and beyond.  It averaged an 8.45 in its pre-Super Bowl season 2 airings and a 10.06 in those after that airing, an increase of nearly 20%, and it went from a really good retainer of the Housewives audience to something that built on the show by noticeable amounts. Then came the somewhat risky move from the Housewives lead-in on Sundays to Thursdays, a historically troublesome night for ABC. But it was another really good season, in fact the strongest average season overall in a regular timeslot. The best run during season 3 was in February 2007, when it posted four straight results with double digit demos, including an 11.6 on 2/22/07 which was the series' highest-rated telecast outside of the post-Super Bowl airing. Overall, the show broke double digits nine times, eight of which came in February; four in February 2006, four in February 2007, and the season 3 premiere in September 2006.

The worst of times: Since its heights in seasons 2 and 3, the show's trend was consistently downward, with each season dropping more than the league average for nearly a decade. But season 11 was impressive, dropping just barely more than league average even in a move to 8/7c. It hit a new series low is a 1.9 on 4/2/15. And it never even fell back to that 1.9 in season 12, growing in A18-49+ for the first time since season three. It's hit raw series lows each of the last four seasons (including a 1.0 on 2/13/20).

Then vs. now: Though Grey's got weaker after its megahit heights, it's still noteworthy that the show significantly slowed its rate of decline, allowing it to run many years longer than its fellow mid-aughts megahits Desperate Housewives and House. Even a decade into its run, it was not that far from being the top-rated drama on broadcast. In fact, it actually got that honor in the official Live+7 rankings for 2013-14, in which Grey's benefits from airing no in-timeslot repeats. I would argue that's an artificial benefit, but it's still an achievement to be close enough for that to make the difference. It was Scandal's heat, rather than Grey's cooling, that got the show its first timeslot downgrade in 2014-15. It moved to ABC's long-troubled Thursday 8/7c hour so the network could launch a new Shonda Rhimes drama after Scandal, but it has held up exceptionally well in that transition.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Spring 2005	Sunday 10:00	8.09		7.2	9.8	detail
2	2005-06		Sunday 10:00	9.14	+13%	7.2	11.3		detail
3	2006-07	Thursday 9:00	9.32	+2%	7.6	11.6	detail
4	2007-08		Thursday 9:00	7.16	-23%	5.1	8.8		detail
5	2008-09		Thursday 9:00	5.73	-20%	5.0	7.4		detail
6	2009-10		Thursday 9:00	4.82	-16%	3.5	6.7		detail
7	2010-11		Thursday 9:00	4.10	-15%	3.2	5.4	detail	C+
8	2011-12		Thursday 9:00	3.56	-13%	2.8	4.5	detail	B
9	2012-13		Thursday 9:00	3.10	-13%	2.6	4.4	detail	B-
10	2013-14		Thursday 9:00	2.69	-13%	2.3	3.4	detail	B-
11	2014-15	Thursday 8:00	2.38	-12%	1.9	3.1	detail	B+
12	2015-16		Thursday 8:00	2.22	-7%	2.0	2.8	detail	A
13	2016-17		Thursday 8:00	2.06	-7%	1.7	2.6	detail	A
14	2017-18		Thursday 8:00	1.93	-6%	1.5	2.3	detail	A-
15	2018-19		Thursday 8:00	1.56	-19%	1.3	1.9	detail	B-
16	2019-20	Thu 8:00, Thu 9:00	1.28	-18%	1.0	1.5	detail	B
17	2020-21	Thursday 9:00	1.02	-20%	0.7	1.3	detail	B+
18	2021-22		Thursday 9:00	0.62	-38%	0.5	0.8	detail	C-
19	2022-23		Thursday 9:00	0.44	-29%	0.4	0.6	detail	C
20	Spring 2024		Thursday 9:00	0.43	-4%	0.3	0.6	detail	B-
21	2024-25	Thursday 10:00	0.22	-48%	0.2	0.3	detail	C-

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now25	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Spring 2005	199	big hit	0.63		177	241	177	241
2	2005-06	225	megahit	0.71	+13%	177	278	204	244
3	2006-07	247	megahit	0.79	+10%	202	308	292	242
4	2007-08	216	megahit	0.69	-13%	154	266	266	212
5	2008-09	190	big hit	0.60	-12%	166	246	246	196
6	2009-10	171	big hit	0.54	-10%	124	238	238	192
7	2010-11	161	big hit	0.51	-6%	126	212	212	142
8	2011-12	151	big hit	0.48	-6%	119	190	174	174
9	2012-13	147	hit	0.47	-2%	123	209	209	147
10	2013-14	143	hit	0.45	-3%	122	180	180	138
11	2014-15	142	hit	0.45	-1%	113	184	184	131
12	2015-16	153	big hit	0.48	+8%	137	192	192	158
13	2016-17	168	big hit	0.53	+10%	139	212	204	163
14	2017-18	176	big hit	0.56	+5%	134	214	214	173
15	2018-19	164	big hit	0.52	-7%	135	200	197	138
16	2019-20	156	big hit	0.49	-5%	128	185	185	175
17	2020-21	158	big hit	0.50	+1%	110	209	209	130
18	2021-22	123	solid	0.39	-22%	96	153	151	127
19	2022-23	104	solid	0.33	-15%	89	129	129	101
20	Spring 2024	112	solid	0.36	+8%	92	148	148	105
21	2024-25	70	marginal	0.22	-37%	60	98	95	66
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	161	big hit
CAREER:		CAREER:	3376	icon

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

The War of 18-49, Bones

BONES (FOX)

Scheduling history: Bones has aired on five different nights (Monday thru Friday) and in multiple seasons on each night but Friday. In fall 2014, it went back to Thursday for the first time since early 2012.

See (who saw) how it all began: Something I've noticed about a lot of these shows is that they've taken average or above-average drops in week 2 but then pretty much stopped dropping.  Bones is another such case; it premiered with 10.79 million viewers and a 3.9/11 demo on 9/13/05, then dropped to a 3.0 (preliminary) in week two, a 23% drop. But from there, it stabilized in the low 3's, posting a 3.1 and then a 3.2 the next two weeks and staying in that general vicinity until it got a post-American Idol boost in early January 2006.

The best of times: Much like with House, Bones was at its best when it aired after American Idol, although it didn't get that honor nearly as much as House did. It merely aired there for less than half of its first season. It peaked with 12.64 million viewers and a 5.2/12 demo on 2/1/06. It's actually come very close to that total viewer high on multiple other occasions in multiple other timeslots, but the ~5.0 demos have never been approached elsewhere. That said, its retention there wasn't that great, and it's probably been more impressive as a respectable anchor show. Its best times leading off the night were in early 2007, when it broke the 4.0 plateau a few times.

The worst of times: Probably the worst run this show had was in the immediate aftermath of the move to Thursday. Thursday night had been a major problem for Fox, and in early 2009 they looked to finally find a long-term anchor for the night with Bones.  It wasn't easy going for that first half season, especially down the stretch. It really didn't approach those numbers again until the end of its 8:00 run in late 2010. The show then had another tough run in its return to Monday in spring 2012, dropping beneath the 2.0 threshold for the last couple episodes of that season. Then there was the tumultuous 2013-14 season; it started quite well on Monday, hit a series low 1.2 in its first-ever Friday episode on 11/15/13 before rallying to very impressive-for-Friday levels, then only managed mid-1's in its return to Monday. But 2014-15 was the first time it went way below its consistent league average-ish level, as low as a 1.0 on four occasions during the spring of 2015. It went fractional for the first time at the end of the following fall, and as low as a 0.7 on 6/16/16. It hit 0.7 four more times in the final season.

Then vs. now: With a 12-season run in the books, it is undeniably impressive that Bones managed to last this long on a network with limited real estate despite never really being a hit. It's been pretty much the ultimate utility player, moving timeslots ten times in nine seasons, and you can't underestimate the value of that kind of thing to a network. In 2013-14, the network finally pulled the trigger on a long-threatened move to Friday, but it was the second in-season move (back to Monday) that appears to have most damaged Bones. Rumors swirled about the end being near through the tenth season, and the low ratings were seemingly obliging with that narrative. But Fox has plenty of other problems, and that got it back in the Thursday 8/7c saddle for season eleven. However, it couldn't turn things around, so season 12 was announced as the last one.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2005-06	Tu 8:00, We 8:00, We 9:00	3.72		2.7	5.2	detail
2	Summer 2006-07	Wednesday 8:00	3.22	-13%	2.5	4.4	detail
3	2007-08	Tue 8:00, Mon 8:00	3.17	-1%	2.7	3.6	detail
4	2008-09	Wed 8:00, Thu 8:00	2.91	-8%	2.3	3.5	detail
5	2009-10	Thursday 8:00	2.88	-1%	2.4	3.6	detail
6	2010-11	Thu 8:00, Thu 9:00	2.99	+4%	2.2	3.9	detail	B-
7	2011-12	Mon 8:00, Thu 9:00	2.39	-20%	1.9	3.3	detail	C-
8	2012-13	Monday 8:00	2.14	-11%	1.9	2.6	detail	B
9	2013-14	Mon 8:00, Fri 8:00	1.72	-19%	1.2	2.3	detail	B-
10	2014-15	Thursday 8:00	1.25	-27%	1.0	1.7	detail	D
11	2015-16		Thursday 8:00	0.99	-21%	0.7	1.4	detail	C
12	Winter 2017	Tuesday 9:00	0.81	-18%	0.7	1.0	detail	C

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now17	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2005-06	92	marginal	1.12		66	128	96	79
2	Summer 2006-07	85	solid(sum)	1.05	-7%	66	117	72	93
3	2007-08	96	marginal	1.18	+12%	82	109	100	103
4	2008-09	97	marginal	1.18	+1%	76	116	110	86
5	2009-10	102	solid	1.25	+6%	85	128	110	99
6	2010-11	118	solid	1.44	+15%	87	153	106	126
7	2011-12	101	solid	1.24	-14%	80	140	140	80
8	2012-13	101	solid	1.24	+0%	90	123	109	100
9	2013-14	91	marginal	1.12	-10%	64	122	122	85
10	2014-15	74	marginal	0.91	-19%	59	101	95	71
11	2015-16	68	flop	0.83	-9%	48	96	96	55
12	Winter 2017	66	flop	0.81	-3%	57	82	73	82
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	91	marginal
CAREER:		CAREER:	1092	star

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

The War of 18-49, The Biggest Loser

THE BIGGEST LOSER (NBC)

Scheduling history: 12 of the first 13 The Biggest Loser seasons aired on Tuesday, but since then it's been thrown all over the place. It filled the space between seasons of The Voice on Monday in 2013 and 2016, briefly returned to Tuesday in fall 2014, and had an ill-advised fall Thursday season in 2015.

See (who saw) how it all began: The first season premiered on 10/19/04 with a pretty solid 9.90 million viewers and a 4.1/10 in the demo.  It dropped to a 3.7 in week two, but then rose back to a 4.0+ demo for the rest of the originals that season and wrapped up with a 5.9/15 on 1/11/05, the second-highest result for the series to date.

The best of times: The highest-rated season in raw average was the first, which was the only one to consistently score above a 4.0 in the demo. Though the second season also averaged above a 4.0, just four of its 12 airings hit that mark, and the average was heavily inflated by the massive 6.7 demo for the finale on 11/29/05, easily the show's highest-rated airing ever. The show then was highly consistent for the next four cycles before having a bit of a resurgence to its highest relative level ever in calendar year 2009. The season 8 finale was just the third airing in show history that averaged at least a 5.0 in the demo.

The worst of times: Prior to the fall 2010 season, it was tough coming up with a "worst of times" for this show, since most of the worst seasons had fallen right around a low 3 demo. But the fall 2010 season easily set a new low for the show, and it only made a rally into the upper 2's average-wise due to some higher-rated episodes after the show got moved to the 9:00-11:00 block. Before those last three weeks, the show was often lower than a 2.5, which it had never done before. The big drops continued in the 2011-12 season, with the show dropping below a 2.0 for the first time. But the move to Thursday in fall 2014 really took TBL to a new level of low-ratedness. It dropped all the way to a 0.9 rating for a couple airings around the holidays, on 12/18/14 and 1/1/15, then actually hit its first 0.8 against the Grammys on 2/15/16.

Then vs. now: Once consistent The Biggest Loser finally took a significant downturn starting in fall 2010, down more than 15% from any previous season, and the bleeding continued pretty heavily all the way through the 2011-12 season. That put the show into midseason replacement mode for the first time, but that role (plus the return of Jillian Michaels) helped the show rebound quite nicely in early 2013. It fell back off again in its 2013-14 season, despite a beneficial pairing with The Voice's results show in the fall, and the move to Thursday in 2014 didn't go well at all. The future seems more uncertain than ever for the show at this point, but these reality franchises have often been capable of major rejuvenation.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Fall 2004	Tuesday 8:00	4.40		3.7	5.9	detail
2	Fall 2005		Tuesday 8:00	4.08	-7%	3.0	6.7		detail
3	Fall 2006	Wednesday 9:00	3.34	-18%	2.6	4.8	detail
4	Fall 2007	Tuesday 8:00	3.27	-2%	2.7	4.6	detail
5	2007-08		Tuesday 8:00	3.44		2.9	4.4		detail
6	Fall 2008		Tuesday 8:00	3.25	-1%	2.6	4.6		detail
7	2008-09		Tuesday 8:00	3.78	+10%	3.2	4.7		detail
8	Fall 2009		Tuesday 8:00	3.74	+15%	3.1	5.0		detail
9	2009-10		Tuesday 8:00	3.36	-11%	2.8	4.6		detail
10	Fall 2010		Tuesday 8:00	2.73	-27%	2.3	4.0	detail	D+
11	2010-11		Tuesday 8:00	2.84	-15%	2.3	3.3	detail	D+
12	Fall 2011		Tuesday 8:00	2.21	-19%	1.9	2.7	detail	C-
13	2011-12		Tuesday 8:00	2.18	-23%	2.0	2.4	detail	D+
14	2012-13	Monday 8:00	2.32	+6%	2.0	3.0	detail	A-
15	2013-14	Tuesday 8:00	1.93	-17%	1.7	2.3	detail	C-
16	2014-15	Thursday 8:00	1.24	-36%	0.9	1.6	detail	D
17	2015-16	Monday 9:00	1.07	-13%	0.8	1.2	detail	C

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now16	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Fall 2004	108	solid	1.58		91	145	101	145
2	Fall 2005	100	solid	1.46	-7%	74	165	81	165
3	Fall 2006	89	marginal	1.29	-12%	69	127	82	127
4	Fall 2007	99	marginal	1.44	+12%	82	139	94	139
5	2007-08	104	solid	1.51		88	133	133	133
6	Fall 2008	108	solid	1.58	+9%	86	153	106	153
7	2008-09	126	hit	1.83	+21%	106	156	150	156
8	Fall 2009	133	hit	1.94	+23%	110	178	135	178
9	2009-10	119	solid	1.74	-5%	99	163	163	139
10	Fall 2010	107	solid	1.56	-19%	90	157	114	157
11	2010-11	112	solid	1.63	-6%	90	130	130	122
12	Fall 2011	93	marginal	1.36	-13%	80	114	97	114
13	2011-12	92	marginal	1.35	-17%	85	102	102	93
14	2012-13	110	solid	1.60	+19%	95	142	142	128
15	2013-14	102	solid	1.49	-7%	90	122	122	117
16	2014-15	74	marginal	1.07	-28%	54	95	95	83
17	2015-16	74	marginal	1.07	+0%	55	82	82	82

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.