Opinion Five-Spot, WE 11/28/10 - Parenthood, Survivor, Modern Family, The Walking Dead, The Event

This week's edition (and there may be more like this through December) is closer to "the only five things I watched" than "the five notable things I watched." Here's hoping it'll be interesting. Now, my Opinion Five-Spot for the week ending November 28, 2010:

Parenthood - This show, which last week I called the only Tuesday show I genuinely enjoy most weeks, was on top of its game for the Thanksgiving episode. It's amazing how much stuff is woven into one episode and how many different dynamics and relationships are touched upon, yet it never feels rushed. There's a lot of heart without being too sappy, and a lot of good drama without going over the top. This is a good show, and probably the best of the Thanksgiving eps I saw, even beating out HIMYM (discussed last week).

Demos Year-to-Year, November Sweeps 2010 Week Four Recap

Top 5 year-to-year show losers
1. CSI: NY (F9pm vs. W10pm) -46%
t-2. One Tree Hill (R) (T8pm vs. M8pm) -40%
t-2. Gossip Girl (R) -40%
t-2. 90210 (R) (M8pm vs. T8pm) -40%
5. CSI: Miami (Su10pm vs. M10pm) -38%

The CW's repeats kind of clog up the list this week, but it begs the question; if all the repeats on this network full of viewers who don't watch repeats declined from 0.5 to 0.3 this year, does that mean they'll be at an 0.2 next year?  0.1 two years from now? The other two are CSI's, and I talked about the bad tidings in the CSI universe last week. Among those narrowly missing the list are Lie to Me  (-37%), The Biggest Loser's Where Are They Now? special (-37%), and the Survivor special (-35%).

Demos Year-to-Year, Wednesday 11/24/10

We wrap up another sweep of year-to-year comparisons with Thanksgiving Eve, not a particularly good evening for year-to-year comparisons since CBS was in repeats this year and originals last and the CDub ran a movie last year.  Recap of week four (and maybe the sweeps as a whole) will probably show up tomorrow.

Scheduling Five-Spot, Extra #1 - Last Year's Midseason Moves

I knew when I started these Five-Spots about a month ago that, with the holiday season looming, it might be tough to find five good scheduling stories per week. Here we are, kicking off just the fourth week of these things, and I've already run across a week where there's literally almost nothing worth reporting in terms of network scheduling tweaks. So I thought that since I've had midseason schedules on the brain lately, thanks to Fox and NBC making some big-time changes, I'd take a look back at some of the most notable midseason moves from this time last year and how they worked out.

Demos Year-to-Year, Tuesday 11/23/10

Ratings Five-Spot, WE 11/21/10: Conan, Glory Daze, Human Target, AMAs, The Walking Dead

Here's your Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending November 21, 2010:

Conan - Last week, we looked at Conan's week one ratings track, which started at pretty huge numbers and ended with a 1.0 demo on Thursday. The good news for week 2 of Conan is that it stayed right around that number, which (as I said last week) makes it quite competitive with the biggest broadcast late night shows. His week two adults 18-49 rating track was 1.0 -> 1.1 -> 1.0 -> 0.9. I still think it might ultimately settle at a lower number, but so far his performance has been pretty impressive for TBS.

Demos Year-to-Year, Monday 11/22/10

Demos Year-to-Year, Sunday 11/21/10

List of Cable Syndication Deals

I'm sick of reading articles about shows getting sold into cable syndication and not really knowing whether I should be impressed with the money being dished out. I'm all about the context here, and I've never been able to find a big list like this, so I did some searching and found quite a few per-episode dollar figures for your perusal. "Year" is the year the deal was made. (I thought about including the year the show premiered in first-run, also. I might add that in later, as it's interesting how some of these shows were sold at very different points in their first-run life cycles.) I'll save the inevitable disclaimer for the bottom.

Opinion Five-Spot, WE 11/21/10 - Tuesday TV, Glory Daze, Human Target, Fringe, HIMYM

Here's my TV opinions Five-Spot for the week ending November 21, 2010:

Tuesday doldrums - On Tuesdays, I'm recording more than any other night but one (Thursday), and yet I don't really even look forward to any of it, whereas on most other nights there are one or two shows I really do anticipate. Glee is inconsistent, No Ordinary Family is mediocre, Life Unexpected is repetitive. I do usually enjoy Parenthood, but even then I often don't watch the ep for several days. Maybe I ought to just quit TV on the night cold turkey? Been wanting to try The Good Wife and Detroit 1-8-7 again...