Spotted Ratings, Friday 3/30/12: Ratings Jackpot

WHAT MATTERS:

• The big story of the evening was ABC's 20/20, whose story on the Mega Millions lottery hit the newsmagazine's biggest numbers on a Friday (and second-biggest overall this season behind a Monday airing in November) in over two years. The net was also about average with Primetime: What Would You Do? and saw Shark Tank finish in sole possession of second place at 8/7c even in repeats.

• CBS' original Friday lineup was back for the first time since before DST with Undercover Boss taking the expected hit and CSI: NY showing no bounce from what was easily its biggest lead-in of the season.

• Fox upticked from last week with Kitchen Nightmares, but the show still signed off for the season in pretty weak fashion. Fringe got a big rebound back to its February levels after a terribly ugly rating last week. Perhaps this supports the idea that the massive Hunger Games opening was a factor.

• NBC had the worst night as Who Do You Think You Are? was completely uncompetitive at 8/7c and Grimm followed it down the drain in its first ep in three weeks.

First Two Weeks, Touch

TOUCH (FOX)

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 3/29/12: Diplomatic Community

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Big Bang Theory was back (and down nearly 10% in its first post-DST airing), but Community was totally unfazed. The rest of the NBC evening continues to implode without The Office around, with Up All Night and Awake brutally dropping another couple tenths. The latter is surely done for. NBC will again go without an original The Office next week, saving most of the remaining ones to lead into Parks and Recreation's return on April 12.

• Week two of Touch dropped a typical 18%. The timeslot got a bit tougher with Person of Interest back in the mix, so this isn't necessarily that bad, but this is still not a terribly difficult timeslot with The Office and Grey's still out of the picture.

• Missing rose in finals and lost just a tick in its first airing against CBS comedy. Now, can it rally as it airs alongside other ABC originals next week?

• CBS' return of Rules of Engagement was really ugly as it dropped a season-high 43% of its Big Bang lead-in and, after finals, did no better than the last post-original episode of Rob (2.9 out of a 5.3). Technically, Rules was even with its last December original, but its lead-in was a repeat (and 1.8 points smaller) on that night.

• Today brought another new low for The Secret Circle (0.6).

Introducing A18-49+, a Historical Ratings Statistic

If you follow the TV industry at all, you know that the Nielsen ratings for regular series on the broadcast networks are like a fast-flowing river, and the individual shows are just fish trying desperately to swim upstream. Maybe that water hits an occasional bump in the road and splashes up for a couple seconds, but the decline on the whole feels inevitable. How much of it is the networks' "fault" and how much of it is the rise of alternative options? Debatable. Either way, it's real.

To some extent, this grim reality hurts the integrity of historical ratings. TVByTheNumbers has this thing they call the "Gunsmoke Rule" which essentially says that any ratings beyond the previous season are meaningless for comparison purposes. Sometimes I feel like they just wave that around to save themselves the trouble of looking something up, but the general principle is certainly correct; as ratings decline, so too do standards for renewal and cancellation and pull-me-from-the-schedule-right-now, and this is drastic enough that the raw number standards for network decision-making are completely different within a few short years. Just one example: CBS pulled fall 2006 newbie Smith from the schedule after it got a 2.8 demo in its third episode. Five years later, the occupant of the same timeslot, Unforgettable, premiered to a 2.9, has averaged about a 2.1 for most of 2012, and will air (at least) a full season.

All this collective declining is meaningful and needs to be reported. At this rate, eventually ratings are going to get low enough to seriously challenge the broadcast model. No denying that here. But we're not there yet, and sometimes I think all the talk about series lows and the collective decline misses the trees for the forest. For now, broadcast TV ratings are still a system that largely operates by the same set of rules. It's just that the standards for "hit" and "flop" shift to match the collective declines. There are other things happening in this system beyond "everything's down."

Since it's basically the same system, that means there should be a way to put those old, much higher ratings on a level playing field with those of today. Enter what I'm calling the A18-49+.

First Two Weeks, Bent

BENT (NBC)

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 3/28/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC's "Happy Hour" of Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea? signed off for the season in relatively normal fashion. In Chelsea's case, that's almost certainly for the series as well. Whitney? To be determined. Looks like a renewal to me, but my numbers may be a bit too kind to the 8:00 hour.

• Nothing else really made a move. One Tree Hill got bumped up in finals but still lost a tick in the penultimate episode of its run. Smallville was kinda the same way at the end of last season, hitting series lows in its last couple pre-finale episodes before spiking for the finale. We'll see if this one behaves similarly.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 3/27/12: Body Improof

WHAT MATTERS:

• ABC got back into the Tuesday mix with the return of the Dancing with the Stars results, down 30% from the year-ago Tuesday premiere but, thanks to no Voice on the evening, still down less year-to-year than the first two Monday editions. The real story was the huge boost this provided to Body of Proof, which tied its second-best number of the season. There are just two more episodes left this season, but if it can maintain this level, it probably becomes a more interesting case than it's appeared for the last several months. 

• Fox kept downticking with New Girl and Raising Hope, though the newly installed Hope repeat did make a tiny improvement on the week-ago I Hate My Teenage Daughter. And NBC took the biggest hit, with The Biggest Loser and and Fashion Star both down double-digits against relatively full-fledged competition.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 3/26/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• The two-hour finale of Alcatraz took one last drop and closed out its run 55% behind the promising 3.3 premiere ten weeks ago. When it was getting 1.8's and 1.9's, I felt it had a better chance than most people thought if it could hold there or get back a little bit. We'll never know if that was the case, as the show just kept moving in the wrong direction.

• Dancing with the Stars took a 9% post-premiere drop. Silver lining: Castle was unaffected.

The True Top 25, Week Ending 3/25/12 (2011-12 Week 27)

With the two biggest sitcoms off the air, it was all about unscripted, as American Idol rather comfortably captured the top two spots and The Voice (despite continued declines) still overshadowed everything else in the entertainment realm. Week two of March Madness had a nice presence, with Saturday's Ohio State/Syracuse game beating everything but Idol and the Friday game also near the top. Despite nearing a season low, How I Met Your Mother got a turn as the top scripted program as it aired in its second-toughest timeslot of the season (ahead of only Halloween night).

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/25/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• ABC's GCB dropped in finals but still got back a tick from last week's drop and was in a virtual three-way tie at 10:00. If this is where it's stabilized, it has a good chance to be back.

• Harry's Law took yet another brutal demo drop and is now actually taking a noticeable dip from its Dateline lead-in. Celebrity Apprentice remains down by enormous amounts year-to-year and, like everything at 9/8c, saw no bounce from the departure of The Walking Dead.

• Second-tier cartoons The Cleveland Show, Bob's Burgers and American Dad! all held up pretty well despite repeats from anchors The Simpsons and Family Guy, but keep in mind those animated anchors repeat as well as anything on TV as a percentage of the original numbers; they were each down only a little over 20% from the week-ago originals.