The Climate, Week 13

Spotted Ratings, Holiday Roundup 12/24-12/27/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC won light-viewed Christmas Eve with It's a Wonderful Life, even year-to-year. ABC's Grinch evening won Christmas primetime with an assist from some overrun from ABC's afternoon NBA doubleheader. CBS took Wednesday with nice year-to-year growth from the always low-rated Kennedy Center Honors, then crushed on repeat-filled Thursday.

The Top 10 TV Ratings Moments of 2012, 5 to 1

It's time for my third annual spin on the year-end TV top ten list as I look back at the top ten moments of another year in TV ratings! This is always one of the most fun posts of the year, but it's also pretty nerve-racking, because I'm totally paranoid that I'll miss something. So feel free to note my most glaring omissions. Here's this year's 10 to 6, which went live yesterday.

Here are the two previous years:
2010: 10 to 6 | 5 to 1
2011: 10 to 6 | 5 to 1

The True Top 25, Week Ending 12/23/12 (2012-13 Week Thirteen)

Though Sunday Night Football tied a season low in raw A18-49 numbers, it posted its fourth-highest True2 number of the season because of how low overall viewing was on the Sunday before Christmas. That gave it a very comfortable win over The Voice's finale in the week 13 True Top 25.

The networks aired quite a few holiday specials this week, but they were generally lower-priority offerings or specials that had already aired this year. So the top twenty spots still went to regular series, including six encores. Miss Universe led the specials pack at #21.

Spotted Ratings, Weekend Roundup 12/21-12/23/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• 1.0 ratings were a rarity on repeat- and special-laden Friday and Saturday. CBS resumed the Made in Jersey burn-off with the same 0.3's it pulled over the Thanksgiving weekend.

• The Christmas viewing downturn really picked up on Sunday the 23rd, a night nearly 20% less-viewed than the previous Sunday. NBC had a low-end Sunday Night Football thanks to lower viewing, a blowout and a West Coast matchup. Fox had the NFL overrun, which helped originals of Family Guy and American Dad! hang in there quite well despite the holiday-type viewing levels. (They'd been bumped from last week's schedule because of content deemed insensitive in light of the Newtown attacks.)

The Top 10 TV Ratings Moments of 2012, 10 to 6

It's time for my third annual spin on the year-end TV top ten list as I look back at the top ten moments of another year in TV ratings! This is always one of the most fun posts of the year, but it's also pretty nerve-racking, because I'm totally paranoid that I'll miss something. So once the second half of the list goes up in 24 hours, feel free to note my most glaring omissions.

Here are the two previous years:
2010: 10 to 6 | 5 to 1
2011: 10 to 6 | 5 to 1

As always, the criteria are pretty subjective, but I go for a blend of 1) relatively isolated incidents that carry cultural significance and 2) moments that exemplify much larger trends in TV this year. The headlines link back to my writings on these moments at the time they happened. Enjoy!

The Question Results Through 12/20/12

Here are the results and individual standings through December 20 for the ratings prediction game The Question:

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 12/20/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• Like with The Voice earlier in the week, finale night on The X Factor fell about in line with the recent episodes on a year-to-year basis. The 3.1 demo was X's best number since early October and up nearly 30% from last Thursday, but it was still down 18% year-to-year.

• Specials on ABC and NBC fell in the mid-1's. ABC's Peanuts special was even year-to-year, but CMA Country Christmas took a significant hit.

The Climate, Week 12

2012 Upfront Revisited, The CW

The winter break is not quite at the calendar midpoint of the TV season, but it's as close to a "stopping point" as we're gonna get. So this week, as promised, I'm doing one rather lengthy post for each network looking back at how the moves made on the upfront schedules have worked out. Because I love sabotaging my own credibility, I will also revisit some of my thoughts on those moves at the time they happened. Then I'll have a larger-scale look at the ups/downs of the network's fall. Finally, I'll look ahead to the upcoming midseason schedule changes.

More Upfronts Revisited: ABC | CBS | NBC | Fox | CW