Scheduling Five-Spot, WE 1/30/11 - Jersey Shore, Mad Love, The Talk, Missing, Smallville/Supernatural

Here's your Scheduling Five-Spot for the week ending January 30, 2011:

Jersey Shore - Shocker! MTV has renewed the program that is now doing better in adults 18-49 (not to mention MTV's target young female demos) than all but a handful of programs on all of broadcast. It's grown at an almost unfathomable rate, with its whooping 4.34 A18-49 rating in the first five episodes of its third season way up from its first two seasons (which averaged 1.39 and 2.94). The gang will be heading to Italy for the fourth season.

First Two Weeks, Perfect Couples

PERFECT COUPLES (NBC)

Ten Years of Super Bowls and Lead-Outs

There are other places to find viewership and household info on Super Bowls and lead-out programs going back even farther (here are lists of all the Super Bowls and all the lead-outs on TVBTN) but I wanted to look at both viewers and the adults 18-49 demo, and I could only reliably find that stuff going back ten years. First, the Super Bowls:

First Two Weeks, Harry's Law

Also included: the return of everyone's favorite "debate": do total viewers matter?!?!?!

HARRY'S LAW (NBC)

Ratings Five-Spot, WE 1/23/11 - American Idol, Parks & Recreation, Fairly Legal, Fringe, Hawaii Five-0

Here's your Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending January 23, 2011:

American Idol - The Idol fans and PR of course provide the perspective that the Death Star is still way ahead of any other non-sports programming on TV. It's true, but it was still a relatively modest start for Idol. The 9.7 on Wednesday was down 18% from last year's premiere, and the big night two dip to a 7.8 was down 23% from last year's Thursday debut. If the ~20% drops continue, that could put it in the 5.0 vicinity late in the season. Could this be the year some regular competition (Modern Family?) finally beats it?

War of 18-49 Update, Medium (2010-11)

Let's take a look at the 2010-11 season (the seventh and final overall) of Medium on CBS.

2010-11 adults 18-49 low/average/high: 1.1/1.36/1.6

Rating the Ratings: If you're a TV show fan, you might dream (well, maybe secondarily to never getting cancelled) that your favorite show stick it to the network right after it's axed by making a miraculous ratings recovery. And Medium... sorta did that. I mean, I can't blame CBS for shortening its season seven order to 13 eps based on the first four weeks' trajectory: 1.4 -> 1.2 -> 1.2 -> 1.1. But then it shot back up to a 1.4 and stayed at that level or higher for eight of the last nine eps. I digress, though; that rally still left it down 25% from season 6. The drop isn't totally unexpected considering it lost its pairing with Ghost Whisperer, but a whooping 1.4 was probably not enough to make CBS truly regret (or consider changing) their decision once it was made. As with this fall's Biggest Loser, which was down about this amount year-to-year but finished stronger than it started, I'll go Grade: D+.

Here's the now updated War of 18-49 post for Medium.

Opinion Five-Spot, WE 1/23/11 - Life Unexpected, Lights Out, Skins, Retired at 35, Being Human

Unlike in many recent weeks, I actually looked at a ton of shows this week, so I think I'm going to just spread the new shows out over the next few weeks. I'm gonna start by knocking out mostly the stuff that's either ending or that I won't be watching in the future. So on that note, here's my more-negative-than-usual Opinion Five-Spot for the week ending January 23, 2011:

Life Unexpected - I liked how this show ended, jumping straight to the endgame and giving many characters amazingly happy endings in somewhat jarring fashion. But I think a lot of the reason I liked that was because it was better than the alternative: more years of ridiculous, over-the-top angst. I was gonna quit this show if it hadn't been cancelled, but I'm glad it was. The fact that the warm and fuzzy ending actually made me feel warm and fuzzy despite how bad this show got is a testament to the great performances.

Scheduling Five-Spot, WE 1/23/11 - NBC Shakeups, USA Pickups, Shark Tank, Flashpoint, Countdown

Here's your Scheduling Five-Spot for the week ending January 23, 2011:

NBC Shakeups - Probably deserves its own Five-Spot, but too much else this week. Rapid fire: Parenthood stays on Tuesdays after some recent increases. Harry's Law will air more of its 13-ep order on Mondays than originally planned. America's Next Great Restaurant is thrown out of the Wednesday fray and to Sundays at 8/7c. The Marriage Ref and cast-overhauled Law & Order: Los Angeles are now officially in limbo alongside several other NBC midseason shows: Love Bites, Friends with Benefits, The Paul Reiser Show.

Still a Death Star?

You've probably heard by now that the return of American Idol has been fairly steeply down year-to-year: the Wednesday premiere was down 18% in adults 18-49 from last year's Tuesday premiere, and the Thursday debut was down 23% from last year's first Wednesday airing. But the story of Idol ratings is not about just what it's doing, but also about whether the shows it's up against are gaining ground.

First Two Weeks, Off the Map

OFF THE MAP (ABC)