SpotVault - Nikita (CW) - 2013-14 Ratings

Nikita

Fridays, 9/8c, CW

The True Top 25, Week Ending 11/24/13 (2013-14 Week Nine)

Yet another Peyton Manning game on Sunday Night Football meant yet another incredible number for the second half of the season. In fact, while this game was the fifth-biggest of the season in raw numbers, it was the Truly biggest of the season-to-date, mostly because ABC's very strong American Music Awards made Sunday night much more crowded than usual.

Between those two events was top entertainment series The Big Bang Theory, dominating the entertainment pack yet again in the closest thing we'll have to a "full-strength" TV week between now and the end of 2013. Scandal was the top drama, as True maintains the Thursday 10/9c slot is a few ticks tougher than top raw numbers drama NCIS' Tuesday 8/7c. Four new shows made the cut as The Millers scraped its way back onto the list for the first time in a few weeks, replacing a pre-empted The Blacklist. Shark Tank represented Friday night once again, but just barely in a week that saw a bunch of strong sports/specials make the cutline a bit higher than normal.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 11/26/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The last full-strength night of TV before the Thanksgiving break had a lot going on. ABC brought in the two-hour finale of Dancing with the Stars, down 20% year-to-year. But perhaps the network's more interesting development was how Agents of SHIELD responded to its first airing without NCIS competing head-to-head. The show was up two ticks in the demo and a whooping 2.8 million total viewers, meaning a show that's consistently seen well over 40% of its audience in the 18-49 demo went all the way to 34%. Some DWTS pre-tune may also have something to do with that as well, but I have thought for awhile that this "broader" skew might be more sustainable for SHIELD long-term; the show has turned out to be much more procedural than buzzy serial. So maybe NCIS is cutting into it more than expected.

• Meanwhile, NCIS sat out in favor of the holiday special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which scored an identical demo with something like eight million fewer total viewers. In its first-ever airing without an NCIS lead-in, NCIS: Los Angeles held up rather well demographically but was, like SHIELD, thrown off skew-wise by the different situation, down by about 2.8 million total viewers. And Person of Interest picked up by two ticks in the conclusion of its big three-part event.

• On NBC, The Voice suffered against DWTS but Chicago Fire had a bounce-back. And Fox perked back up with New Girl and The Mindy Project.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 11/24/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Sunday's headline event was ABC's American Music Awards, another ABC awards show to completely rebound after a major hiccup last year. The show had a 3.4 last year but a 4.3 in each of the previous two years (and was above 5 for the two years before that). And it did over three times the usual ABC rating in the slot, making things tougher for normal originals on CBS/Fox.

• NBC posted another huge Sunday Night Football number courtesy of an overtime Broncos/Patriots game. It was down a single tick from last week's gigantic Broncos/Chiefs game, but it's still a fantastic number for this time of year (up 32% from the corresponding game a year ago).

• Among the two networks airing entertainment programs, the only real surprise on an extremely crowded evening was a very low number from The Amazing Race, which adjusted up but still hit a series low by two tenths and was down year-to-year much more drastically than the other CBS/Fox shows.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 11/23/13

Spotted Ratings, Friday 11/22/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Fox Friday nightmare is over, as Bones had a big jump to a much more reasonable number in week two of its Friday run, and it actually eked out a Friday 8/7c win over a below-average Undercover Boss. (According to CBS PR it was a clip show.) We can still debate whether Bones is being best utilized here, but at least now it's a debate; as I said last week, if it had held at 1.2, it would have been a clear misstep. Raising Hope was also up in the 9:30 half-hour (the 9:00 one adjusted down to tie).

• The CW commenced the six-episode final season of Nikita with terrible (though not exactly unprecedented) numbers.

• Elsewhere, NBC pre-empted its usual Grimm/Dracula lineup and saw a major decline in the slot with a John F. Kennedy special, while ABC's news department was the big winner with a spiking 20/20.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 11/25/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• CBS had a fairly encouraging week from its 9:00 comedies Mike and Molly and Mom, each up multiple ticks. The network had a Monday Night Football pre-emption, but Mom actually ended up adjusting up after finals, making for a pretty surprising 21% week-to-week bounce.

• On the other hand, the holiday began early on Fox, down double digits with Almost Human (now tying the low-end Bones performance) and Sleepy Hollow (a disheartening three tenths below its previous low).

• ABC was a little stronger than usual with the performance finale of Dancing with the Stars, though this was 19% below last fall's Monday finale. That may have contributed to the further softening of competing The Voice, down another tick and itself running around -20% year-to-year at this point.

Midseason 2014: ABC and Fox

Lots of interesting stuff in the ABC/Fox midseason schedule announcements this week. Here are a few thoughts on some of the big moves:

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 11/21/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• It was another night of general steadiness on broadcast, with the CBS lineup scoring minor gains for most shows.

• After finals, everything on Fox/the CW ended up even week-to-week except for The X Factor, up another couple ticks.

• For the second straight night, the year-ago evening was holiday-impacted, though in this case that's actually a bad thing on the whole (since NBC had Thanksgiving football and Fox had a late afternoon NFL lead-in last year).

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 11/20/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• The ABC comedies had a bad day, particularly Modern Family, which went well below any previous results this season. The CBS dramas had a good day, with Criminal Minds and CSI both tying season highs. Arrow swung back down after a couple weeks of growth. Everything else was roughly even.

• Note for year-to-year comparisons ("y2y" and "Ty2y") in the table: Thanksgiving was a week earlier on the calendar last year, so these results are somewhat "inflated" because they compare vs. Thanksgiving Eve 2012.