WEEK ONE
The last truly regular season show to premiere in 2013-14 was CBS'
Bad Teacher, thrown to Thursday at 9:30 in late April. Because expectations were so low,
Bad Teacher actually looked perfectly fine on its premiere night. The
2.1 demo was just 16% below
Two and a Half Men (2.5) and a noticeable improvement on what had become the normal
The Crazy Ones delivery in the slot (1.7). As I said that Friday, "let's not get carried away"; it was still a normal drop away from
The Crazy Ones territory, but this at least gave it a shot to do better.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Fox's embattled live-action comedy department is officially closed for the season with the upticking finales of New Girl (1.2) and The Mindy Project (1.3). The latter ended up with its first-ever growth from an original of the former, and it was easily Mindy's biggest rating since its return from hiatus in April. New Girl reportedly has the larger order of the two for next season (22 vs. 15), but the momentum seems to be moving in the other direction in these last few weeks. (Just look at the finales' year-to-year trends; New Girl was -43%, Mindy even.)
- Perhaps owing in part to Fox's uptick, there was major comedy carnage on the other two networks; The Goldbergs (1.3), Trophy Wife (0.7), About a Boy (1.5) and Growing Up Fisher (1.2) all hit new lows. It was not a good final impression for the NBC shows heading into the upfront, to say the least, though they got no help from an also particularly weak The Voice (2.5) at 8/7c.
- In drama land, NCIS (2.3) gave back some of last week's rebound, and Agents of SHIELD (1.9) adjusted off the tie-series low but was still down week-to-week. Glee (0.8) was not so lucky, notching yet another new low. And at 10/9c, an unusually impressive Chicago Fire (1.9) thumped Person of Interest (1.7).
Part two of the upfront preview is the SCHEDULE-centric portion, examining
the big-picture scheduling questions each network faces on each night
in the final week before its upfront. I've always favored laying out the
possibilities rather than creating an actual mock schedule; this seems
to set up better to review the schedule next week without making it
all about how my own prediction/recommendation did. But you can probably get some sense of which way I'm leaning.
Last week's Power Rankings were the SHOW-centric portion, in which I drilled more into the merits of individual shows: ABC True Power Rankings
Other Upfront Questions:
NBC |
Fox |
ABC |
CBS |
CW
WHAT MATTERS:
- Does absence make the heart grow fonder? The answer in this case seems to be: maybe a little bit, at most. 24 returned from a four-year TV absence with 8.08 million viewers and a 2.6 demo rating, which (after adjusting for those four years of collective decline) is a bit better than the 2.8/2.9 that was its norm in 2010. But it's definitely no better than the 3.9 that kicked off the last season in January 2010. If the show can hold close to this, it could still end up looking like a pretty big star by modern Fox standards, and maybe even one of the top shows of the summer. But this was definitely not one of those Nielsen-rocking TV events.
- If 24 was good for anything, it was its apparent demolition of some of the competition, as it improved its timeslot by 117% week-to-week. Dancing with the Stars (1.9) took a particularly staggering drop, shedding over a quarter of that amazing season high from a week ago. And the CBS comedies 2 Broke Girls (1.9), Friends with Better Lives (1.6) and Mike and Molly (1.8) were also damaged by double digits in what may have been an important week for FWBL. By those standards, NBC's The Voice (3.0) and The Blacklist (2.7) emerging totally unscathed looks like a win.
- Cable: Louie (0.50/0.51) returned with numbers ahead of most episodes from its previous season in 2012, but down a couple ticks from the Anger Management-inflated premiere in 2012. Bates Motel (0.91) wrapped up a -21% season two with no finale bounce, going -22% year-to-year on finale night.
WHAT MATTERS:
- The slippage streak finally ended on Resurrection's finale night (2.1), as the show was up two ticks week-to-week as its lead-in Once Upon a Time (2.1) was slightly down. Even ekeing out the 2.1 after finals, this won't exactly inspire much confidence in a season two. But a pessimistic season two outlook would likely still be a better option than many of ABC's recent Sunday efforts.
- Fox had a pretty good night with a LEGO-themed The Simpsons (2.0), Family Guy (2.2) and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.6) all hitting their best numbers in at least four weeks. Dramas on the other networks remained low; Believe (1.0), Crisis (1.0), The Mentalist (1.2) and Revenge (1.3) were all flat at or very near their lows and The Good Wife (1.1) took a hit in finals to hit a new series low.
- Cable: Game of Thrones hit another new high, while WGN America's Salem (0.18) has now lost over 60% of its premiere demo audience in just two weeks.
WHAT MATTERS:
- It's late in spring, but the #1 network on Friday just had its best Friday of the season. ABC got great mileage out of a behind-the-scenes Shark Tank special at 8/7c (1.5), which was a major improvement on the usual comedy ratings and probably did about what an original would've done in the hour. (I say that because last year, a two-hour Shark Tank finale went 1.3/1.9.) That helped vault the original Shark Tank (2.3) at 9/8c to tie last year's 2.3 series high. This late in the season, it is pretty comfortably the show's Truly strongest performance ever. Maybe The Neighbors has been hurting this show after all! Tack on an above-average 20/20 (1.7) and this was one stellar Friday night.
- After those pesky Portland pre-emptions were taken out, Grimm (1.3) was still up another tick week-to-week, but Hannibal ended up even.
- Shark Tank's big night mowed down competing reality Kitchen Nightmares (0.9/0.8). On CBS, Hawaii Five-0 (1.2) did not adjust off of its tie for series low, but Unforgettable (1.0) and Blue Bloods (1.5) were each on the upswing. And the CW had a rotten night, with Hart of Dixie returning to point-two territory for just the second time.
Part two of the upfront preview is the SCHEDULE-centric portion, examining
the big-picture scheduling questions each network faces on each night
in the final week before its upfront. I've always favored laying out the
possibilities rather than creating an actual mock schedule; this seems
to set up better to review the schedule next week without making it
all about how my own prediction/recommendation did. But you can probably get some sense of which way I'm leaning.
Last week's Power Rankings were the SHOW-centric portion, in which I drilled more into the merits of individual shows: Fox True Power Rankings
Other Upfront Questions:
NBC |
Fox |
ABC |
CBS |
CW
|
| 24's eight-season run in the aughts changed television, but it was never the truly massive series in the Nielsens that you might think. And while it didn't collapse to flop levels by the end, the series finale in May 2010 managed just a 2.8 demo rating. That would translate to just under a 2.0 if adjusted to the landscape of today!
Can the show's much-anticipated return four years later be even bigger than what 24 once was? For the full season, that'll be tough. But tonight's two-hour premiere may be enough of a mega-promoted, nostalgia-driven event that its ratings will keep the door open to that possibility. I'm defaulting to the low-3's level that is typical of strong Fox Monday drama launches in recent years, but I wouldn't be shocked to miss by a lot in either direction.
Over/Under (8:00-10:00): 3.15. |
Part two of the upfront preview is the SCHEDULE-centric portion, examining
the big-picture scheduling questions each network faces on each night
in the final week before its upfront. I've always favored laying out the
possibilities rather than creating an actual mock schedule; this seems
to set up better to review the schedule next week without making it
all about how my own prediction/recommendation did. But you can probably get some sense of which way I'm leaning.
Last week's Power Rankings were the SHOW-centric portion, in which I drilled more into the merits of individual shows: NBC True Power Rankings
Other Upfront Questions:
NBC |
Fox |
ABC |
CBS |
CW
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