WHAT MATTERS:
- It was a pretty scary Halloween ratings-wise in general, but nowhere more than at NBC. Grimm (1.1) took a significant drop from last week's premiere and newbie Constantine (0.9) crashed by a half-point. Next Friday will be the first truly normal Friday situation for these shows, but Constantine has put itself in a deep hole.
- There were actually a few week-to-week risers on Halloween, but most were shows that severely underachieved vs. the World Series last week, like The Amazing Race (1.1) and Last Man Standing (1.2). The one true bright spot, even moreso than usual, was Shark Tank (2.0), tying its season high on the lowest-viewed Friday of the season to date.
- Meanwhile, Hawaii Five-0 (1.1) and Cristela (1.0) did not bounce back from drops last week, but we'll see if they can do so when viewing increases next week. Blue Bloods (1.1) hit a season low, and Utopia (0.5) fell in its return after a week off.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: Shark Tank (1.9) picked up a tenth, putting it ahead of last year's one-hour premiere. (It averaged a 2.1 in the 9:00 hour, which was three tenths ahead of last year's 9:00 hour.) Hawaii Five-0 (1.2) lost a tenth, tying it with Blue Bloods and further darkening CBS' night.
- A year after Hawaii Five-0 made a promising transition to Friday, things got off to a much rougher start for the CBS lineup this time. The first Friday episode of The Amazing Race (1.1) barely managed half of its premiere last fall (2.0) and was well below even the spring premiere against the Olympics (1.5). Hawaii Five-0 (1.3) and Blue Bloods (1.2) also took significant dips from last year's premieres. The Amazing Race could bounce back a bit once Shark Tank is out of the 8/7c mix, but it looks very likely to be a weaker player than Undercover Boss last year. CBS was a disheartening 26% behind last year's premiere Friday.
- As for ABC, it had another strong premiere from Shark Tank (1.8 for the two hours) and 20/20 (1.6). This was 20% above last year's premiere Friday when they had family comedies in the 8:00 hour.
- NBC slightly improved on last year's premiere Friday with two hours of Dateline (1.4), while Fox took another massive drop as Utopia (0.7) was at less than half of year-ago occupant MasterChef Junior. The big five combined to go about 12% behind last year's opening Friday.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: ABC had another really favorable set of adjustments, as Agents of SHIELD (2.1) went from the low end of its spring results to the high end, while Forever (1.8) actually went above the Monday preview. (That 1.5 Monday prelim really feels like a long time ago!) That shockingly put Forever ahead of a downward-adjusting Person of Interest (1.7). And Chicago Fire (2.6) dropped a tenth behind last year's series high.
- A new spin-off didn't particularly charge up CBS' lineup. NCIS (2.9) improved somewhat on its spring ratings but was still nearly 20% behind last year's big premiere, and NCIS: New Orleans (2.5) had nearly full viewership retention but was down almost 15% from its lead-in among the demo. Throw in the return of Person of Interest (1.8), down a significant 22% year-to-year and the network was off by 19% from last year's premiere Tuesday.
- That left NBC's The Voice (4.0) and Chicago Fire (2.7) free to win Premiere Tuesday in runaway fashion. After dropping much more on Monday, The Voice was down just 15% vs. last year's first Tuesday episode against far more manageable competition. And the NBC drama department keeps looking better; Chicago Fire preliminarily tied the series high 2.7 set on this night last year. NBC was down 11% year-to-year as a whole.
- ABC was a mixed bag with little interest in a second Dancing with the Stars results show (1.6), and Agents of SHIELD (1.9) was only able to get back to its normal delivery from the spring (even if it gets its usual finals uptick). However, the network was very much on the 10/9c map with the timeslot premiere of Forever (1.7). It took a viewership hit from the change in lead-ins but impressively held 100% of its Monday demo rating, and it looks like a potentially massive improvement on all the bombs ABC aired in the hour last season. Despite Forever's 31% gain at 10/9c, the network was still down 40% vs. last year's Premiere Tuesday (which featured SHIELD's 4.7 premiere).
- Fox's New Girl (1.3) and The Mindy Project (1.0) took almost the same week two drops as last year when all the competition arrived, and Utopia (0.8) was off by a similar percent. Fox was down 43% vs. last year's premiere Tuesday (with Utopia down over 50% and the comedies about -35%).
- So the big four as a whole were down by 25% in preliminaries. If Big Bang inflated the Monday number (-3%), SHIELD obviously deflated the Tuesday one.
WHAT MATTERS:
- On Friday, CBS got exceptional numbers by Friday standards with a special edition of Big Brother (1.6), bumped to the night by CBS' Sunday premieres. (I've seen conflicting reports about whether this was a clip show, so I'm not sure whether to mark it as a repeat; anyone know for sure?) Fox tried to keep Utopia (0.5) away by airing it at 9/8c, but it was still two tenths below last week's Friday premiere.
- Both football networks were up on Saturday, with ABC's Clemson/Florida State nailbiter (2.6) a particular highlight. It doubled last week's rating.
- I've caught up on the full tables for pre-premiere week. I'm not bumping all those posts, but you can find them by scrolling down a bit on the sr label. The True numbers on these posts still use the 2013-14 formula, so for early 2014-15 series they will vary drastically from what's posted in the Vault.
Utopia
Tuesdays and Fridays on Fox
WHAT MATTERS:
- The Friday premiere of Utopia (0.7) was two tenths behind the Tuesday premiere. Fox then burned off a leftover episode of Kitchen Nightmares (0.6), and did the same with a couple American Dad! episodes (1.3/1.3) on Sunday.
- A major rain delay to CBS' first Saturday afternoon SEC game plus another special primetime Notre Dame game on NBC produced an interesting quirk: all four broadcasters were airing football simultaneously for much of the 8:00 hour. CBS' game was the clear winner, drawing about a 2.5 in primetime, and it may have hurt the other three nets (all of whom were way down from their last airings, but all had much worse matchups as well). But it didn't much boost the two-hour Reckless finale (0.6/0.5).
- On Sunday, the second Sunday edition of Sunday Night Football (8.5) was up a tick from the same game last year, while the Miss America Pageant (1.7) was down three ticks year-to-year. As a preview of the kind of lead-in Madam Secretary may get on Sunday, 60 Minutes got a 2.9 after an NFL that averaged a 9.3 in the 7:00 half-hour. (It may go even higher next week since CBS has a rematch of last year's Super Bowl in the late afternoon.)
WHAT MATTERS:
- The first broadcast scripted episodes of the 2014-15 season didn't go well. There's really no sugarcoating a 41% year-to-year drop for the premiere of New Girl (1.7), and The Mindy Project's -32% (1.3) wasn't much better. But these year-to-year trends were commonplace late last season, and Utopia was the lead-in, so it actually could've been even worse. New Girl saw a big bounce from its episodes late last season, including a 1.2 finale. Now these shows will look to hold up better vs. full competition than they did last year; the nicest thing I can say is there are no other comedies in the slot till mid-October.
- As for Utopia (1.0), it's still very weak, but it was actually up a tenth in its second Tuesday episode, probably putting the immediate death-watch on hold. And it faced quite the unscripted glut, with Big Brother (2.3) back in the hour alongside a Dancing with the Stars results show (2.1). But the biggest unscripted winner of the night was America's Got Talent (2.5), whose performance finale zoomed past its recent deliveries.
WHAT MATTERS:
- Still two weeks from the official start of the season, the fall nightmare is already beginning for Fox. Utopia (0.9) was down more than 50% from its post-NFL preview on Sunday. I thought I was down on the show, but I expected it could manage low-to-mid-1's in these preseason weeks before collapsing sub-1 later. Even that was a wild overestimate. To cap it off, Hotel Hell (0.9) fared badly at 9/8c in a special Tuesday airing.
- If there's any silver lining, it's that it may not drop as much as expected once the regular season starts, because CBS is throwing a great deal of special Big Brother (2.3) at the show during these preseason weeks. But CBS did terrible numbers leading out of BB with a two-hour special called Fashion Rocks (0.6).
- Cable: FX brought back the ever-strengthening Sons of Anarchy (3.2) for its last season. This was the fourth straight SoA premiere to hit a new series high.
WHAT MATTERS:
- The first new series result of the fall is in the books, and Fox's big unscripted investment Utopia (1.9) had a rather sluggish start following an NFL game (albeit a lopsided one). The final breakdowns for its NFL overrun lead-in will be interesting to see, but the impact was clear in Utopia's major drop after the first half-hour. Final breakdowns were 2.6 -> 1.9 -> 1.7 -> 1.6. The show did have to face Big Brother (2.4), whose audience would probably overlap as much as anything, but this doesn't inspire much optimism.
- NBC had a blowout (that got close again late) for its first Sunday Night Football (8.0), which is about a point down from last year's prelim. And while CBS' Reckless (0.7) gave back some of its oddly massive spike from last week, its last Sunday episode stayed ahead of all the results prior to last week. Lead-in Unforgettable (1.1) was also on the high end.
Best Case/Worst Case moves to the Friday 8/7c hour. Only one network goes scripted, but CBS' import of longtime staple
The Amazing Race is also worth watching.
Best Case/Worst Case moves to the Tuesday 8/7c hour, when several newbies will try to make inroads against tough incumbents
NCIS and
The Voice.
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