[phrelin]

For those of you that missed it or don't watch any of Producer Chuck Lorre's comedies, last night's requires you to read it to the last line which is a twist that I found hilarious and sad at the same time, though it may just be my peculiar sense of humor:

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #371​

Sometimes when I drive past a small retail establishment that is going out of business, I'm struck by an overpowering wave of sadness. I can't help but imagine what the people involved must have felt like when they opened the doors for the first time. The sense of excitement and hope that came after that first sale. The feeling that their fledgling, street-front enterprise was the beginning of a grand, money-making empire. I still have memories of the excitement and optimism that rippled through my family when my dad opened his little luncheonette some fifty years ago. All things were possible and there was no inkling that small eateries like his were soon to be extinct. (If you were born after 1970 feel free to take a moment and google “luncheonette.”) Anyway, I guess that's the reason I've always preferred to pay a few more bucks and buy something from a struggling mom and pop shop, rather than a big chain store. Speaking of big chain stores, I also feel a wave of sadness when I click my TV remote past NBC.

Anyway here's the ratings for the first Monday of the Winter schedule:

CBS again ran its same old winning schedule.

"2 Broke Girls" again did very well.

ABC premiered a new season of "The Bachelor" which compared to last year's premier was down a bit (last year: 2.7/7 - 8.89 million at 8:00 and 3.1/8 - 9.12 million at 9:00). Whether that is a result of last night being part of a three day weekend or folks aren't watching the show remains to be seen.

For whatever less-than-clever reason, ran the premier of "Celebrity Wife Swap" at 10:00. Last year they ran the regular show at that time - let's see what was it ... oh yeah, "Castle" - which pulled in a meager 3.34 million more viewers and which this fall occasionally has been beating "Hawaii Five-0."

Fox apparently thinks it can fix its fall "House" weak-ratings-due-to-9:00 scheduling by running two hours of reruns until it runs the two hour premier of "Alcatraz" on January 16 and then airs a new "House" at its old regular time of 8:00 the following Monday.

NBC's lineup of game shows, including the "Deathly Ratings for Brian Williams" show, did as poorly as usual. NBC has decided to premier its Winter lineup premiers the first week of Nielsen's February Sweeps which run February 2 - February 29, 2012.

Whether at the beginning of sweeps the season premier of "The Voice" from 8:00 - 10:00 will do well enough to provide a decent lead into the series premier of "Smash" is questionable. If "Smash" is done well ... it still may not be able to pull enough viewers against "Hawaii Five-0" and "Castle". But we'll see.

Just like Chuck Lorre, I also feel a wave of sadness when I click my TV remote past NBC.

The CW is rerunning two episodes of "The Secret Circle" Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before it returns at 9:00 Thursday. The reruns didn't pull a million viewers at either hour tonight.

 

[Cholly]

It saddens me to see poor ratings for Brian Williams' show. It's well produced and generally quite interesting. I can't bring myself to watch the reinvented "Hawaii 5-0", having seen parts of a few shows. NBC unfortunately has few opportunities in placing shows against the CBS juggernaut. Even the good ones go unnoticed.

 

[phrelin]

It saddens me to see poor ratings for Brian Williams' show. It's well produced and generally quite interesting. I can't bring myself to watch the reinvented "Hawaii 5-0", having seen parts of a few shows. NBC unfortunately has few opportunities in placing shows against the CBS juggernaut. Even the good ones go unnoticed.

I haven't recorded Brian Williams, but it doesn't surprise me that it is done well.

NBC has cleverly decided to put Williams at 9:00 Wednesday beginning February 8 against CBS' "Criminal Minds" and ABC's "Modern Family". The following week Fox's "American Idol" goes to 2 hours consistently. Obviously they consider William's show a cheap programming option for a time slot they have no chance to score any ratings.

The new "Hawaii 5-0" is just an ok show. The only reminder of the original is the theme which still grabs something in me. My wife really liked its star Alex O'Loughlin in "Moonlight" but not so much in "5-0." In "5-0" he does "over act" at times making it feel dangerously like "CSI: Miami." We really were disappointed when CBS didn't pick up "Moonlight" for additional seasons since it didn't really get a fair shake because of the writers strike.

 

[The Merg]

I think that it's funny that Fox lists Alcatraz as the 9pm show and then has the footnote that they ran 2 hours of House repeats. Since it was fist advertised, Alcatraz has been set for its premier on 1/16.

- Merg

 

[klang]

I think that it's funny that Fox lists Alcatraz as the 9pm show and then has the footnote that they ran 2 hours of House repeats. Since it was fist advertised, Alcatraz has been set for its premier on 1/16.

- Merg

Pretty sure that is phrelin's footnote.

 

[phrelin]

I think that it's funny that Fox lists Alcatraz as the 9pm show and then has the footnote that they ran 2 hours of House repeats. Since it was fist advertised, Alcatraz has been set for its premier on 1/16.

- Merg

Sorry if it is confusing.

It's an image from my own spreadsheet which will allow a comparison from week-to-week, in this case Winter Mondays for a period of a five weeks until February Sweeps, with an emphasis on the "regularly scheduled show." Particularly when there are staggered premier periods it gets confusing the way I do it.

In more recent years it has become very difficult to track shows.

Many moons ago we used to have a 36 week season with a premier period of a couple of weeks in the Fall and time slots occasionally preempted for specials, news, etc., plus some reruns.

Now we have a Fall buildup to Nielsen November sweeps and a Winter buildup to February Sweeps and then a panic period for the nets other than CBS leading to the May Sweeps.

The only meaningful way to track broadcast network ratings any more is to look at blocks of 4 to 8 weeks:

• Fall Buildup
• November Sweeps
• Holiday Doldrums
• Winter Buildup
• February Sweeps
• The Long Spring Panic
• May Sweeps

Soon even this may not have much meaning as cable and premium channels get more and more competitive picking off big chunks of audience. And then there's the problem of DVR's and streaming.

Right now for series TV the ceilings for the money generally made available to showrunners and production companies is still determined by the broadcast networks. I don't know how long that will continue.

 

[The Merg]

Oh okay. I thought that table was something that you got from someplace else. I didn't realize that you created it.

- Merg

 

[phrelin]

Here's is the first Tuesday of the Winter Schedule:

CBS. It was nice to see the "NCIS" gang last night. Other must agree as CBS garnered half the live viewers in that time slot and essentially for all three hours of prime time.

ABC. ABC needs to worry about "Work It" if it doesn't get at least a significant boost in Live+7 DVR ratings. On the other hand in the first hour ratings were higher than last year's "No Ordinary Family." In the 10:00 slot "Body of Proof" matched it's series low demo rating even under NBC's "Parenthood." This does not bode well for ABC.

I guess the Disney folks should be happy with the 9:00 slot because cheap programming did just about as well as "V" last year. But maybe they need to look at NBC as an object lesson.

NBC.

Comcast (and it's partner GE) has to hope that next year NBC has nowhere to go but up when they look at this:

• "The Biggest Loser" has half the ratings it had two years ago.
• "Parenthood" pulled 23% fewer viewers than "Leno" did two years ago.

And one has to wonder what the managers at all the affiliates who were screaming about "Leno" at 10:00 killing their 11:00 news are saying now. Funny I haven't seen a word in my usual sources of media biz news.

Fox ran reruns of its regular lineup.

The CW. :shrug:

 

[TBoneit]

I caught that at the end where Chuck said "Speaking of big chain stores, I also feel a wave of sadness when I click my TV remote past NBC."

I thought to myself, I remember "In living Color" and the NBC Peacock and look where they're at now. Pointed to as a source of humor.

Looks like Charlie was way wrong when he predicted that his departure would kill 2.5 men off. Ratings look good from what I see here.

 

[phrelin]

OK. I get it that Tuesday night ESPN had nearly 10 million viewers including a demo of 3.4 watching Michigan v Virginia Tech play to a 23-20 Michigan victory in overtime in the Sugar Bowl. But surely last night's West Virginia 70-33 drubbing of Clemson in the Orange Bowl didn't hold many viewers. Right?

Apparently I'm wrong as broadcast TV viewers were in short supply and it appears the nets figured they would hold back their regularly scheduled programming at 8:00, except ABC. Here's the first Wednesday of Winter:

ABC pulled increased demos for all of its shows compared to the last new episode of each. Of course, it was the only network that had new episodes for every show for the night.

CBS will bring "Survivor" back mid-February, so 8:00 will be a "who cares" until then. In the other two hours, the "Criminal Minds" rerun did well and the "CSI" rerun had the most total viewers at 10:00.

Fox for whatever reason ran a rerun of "Glee" as the lead in for the premier of "Mobbed" at 9:00. If "Mobbed" had any chance at all, that lead in killed it. Next Wednesday, Fox is going to rerun last night's "Mobbed" at 8:00 followed by a new episode. Unfortunately, that will be up against new episodes of the regular schedule on ABC and NBC, plus on CBS a rerun of "Criminal Minds" followed by "The People's Choice Awards." "Mobbed" is cheap programming, but whether Fox will have nerve enough to stick with Howie Mandel is questionable. I don't think the two episodes of "Mobbed" next week will do as well as NBC's programming as it pulled fewer total viewers than a rerun of "Harry's Law" this week.

NBC used reruns to waste the night away.

The CW.:shrug:

 

[phrelin]

Here's the first Thursday of Winter:

ABC. Against a lineup of reruns, ABC shows did ok. Between now and the end of May against new episode competition, I expect "Grey's Anatomy" and particularly "Private Practice" to continue to the long, slow decline we've seen in the past two years.

CBS. Those were rerun numbers. For the night they averaged more total viewers than the others including ABC and the demos at #2 were well ahead of Fox. Thursday night will continue to be a challenge for CBS to win either the demo or the total viewers in each time slot.

Fox has to be disappointed when looking at the audience "Bones" reruns fails to attract.

NBC. To use a sports metaphor, NBC is building next year's team.

The real question is whether it was wise to schedule a two hour "The Firm" this Sunday and try to hold the audience next Thursday.

The CW offered its first full night of new programming in almost two months. Every night this week they ran two hours of reruns of "The Secret Circle" I guess as a catch up for all those potential fans out there.

Last night "The Secret Circle" matched its last new episode showing, a season low. "The Vampire Diaries" matched its last new episode showing. The moral of the story is that The CW as a television channel has a committed but probably shrinking fan base. Any growth will come from device streaming as that's where the generation making up most of the fan base live.

 

[phrelin]

Here's the first Friday of Winter:

Fox ran the Cotton Bowl last night giving it a win of sorts. If you think like early 21st Century financial analysts who ask "How much money did you make yesterday", it was a win for Fox. If you think like me who asks "Are you going to have an audience the rest of the Winter season", this was not a win for Fox as (1) the ratings were not even in prime time on the West Coast and (2) it made certain that whatever live viewers were watching TV (other than sports fans) got further hooked on other network regular shows.

CBS ran its regular lineup and won the night in total viewers. In fact "A Gifted Man" and "CSI: NY" pulled higher demo and total viewer ratings than they did during November Sweeps.

ABC. It continues to seem to me that ABC effectively has abandoned Fridays as "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" will be replaced by two other cheap reality shows in two weeks. Like CBS, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" pulled a higher demo and total viewer ratings tahn it did during November Sweeps. The final two hours next week will in Joplin, Missouri, doing homes for a number of folks who had major losses in the tornado.

After that, the Disney folks will be "helping" people in need through "Shark Tank" and "What Would You Do." And yes, that's sarcasm, because the context is

Disney also made the list of companies doing right by shareholders. "Disney announced the largest dividend increase in its history, 50% in November, as the company experienced a boon in growth across all sectors,"....

NBC. "Chuck" is finished at the end of the month, closing with really bad ratings. It will be replaced with the cheapy "Who Do You Think You Are?"

That leaves "Grimm" in some sort of purgatory. Sandwiched between "Who Do You Think You Are?" and "Dateline" on Friday is a kiss of death for a decently clever scripted show that indicated ratings promise. According to reports from the NBC Winter Press Tour, thought is being given to moving the show. Nobody should have to think much. They should alter the planned February Sweeps Wednesday at 9:00 placement of "Rock Center with Brian Williams." I'd put "Grimm" there and "Williams" on Friday. "Grimm" likely would do as well as "Harry's Law" has. The problem is, of course, it's hard to get new viewers to a show that is halfway through the first season.

The CW shows did not do better than they did during November Sweeps, but they did do as well.

 

[phrelin]

Here's the first Sunday of Winter:

CBS. The Broncos v Steelers playoff game which ran into overtime and then had the "Tebow effect" afterwards (as noted on the chart the game had a rating of 13.7/33 -39.05 million). That created a 30 minute overrun in the East, but because CBS schedulers had already rescheduled "60 Minutes" to 8:00, by the time you get to my San Francisco station they ran the regular shows at their regular time filling in with a "Criminal Minds" rerun at 8:00.

The "Tebow effect" gave the regular shows high ratings for the night, giving CBS the win.

NBC has led Sunday nights since the beginning of the Fall Season with NFL games. Apparently unaware of the obvious meaning of this, they decided to risk running the premier of "The Firm" after a "Dateline" on a night when another network was running an important NFL playoff game.

The big question for NBC is did they waste their huge advertising investment in this new show by not understanding how to schedule. For the premier, where you find out what a show is supposed to be about, the average rating was a 1.4 demo. Are they going to see "Leno at 10" ratings for "The Firm" on Thursday night when the next episode runs? Most live viewers will have no idea what's going on even if the show were to actually draw some away from "The Mentalist" and "Private Practice"?

Fox's animated line did ok for the night. The animated Napoleon Dynamite premiers next Sunday a 8:30 p.m.

ABC. "Once Upon A Time" apparently picked up some speed from the windy draft (so many excited people watching TV) Tebow left behind. It even carried into "Desperate Housewives", which is good for ABC. It did not carry into "Pan Am".

 

[TBoneit]

Bottom line once again CSI Miami lost a viewer for the night. It wasn't there as scheduled.

When I checked the recording it was way delayed so I just erased it. Maybe if I was still watching the 11 O clock news on CBS I'd have watched it. I switched to ABC news so when I finished watching a DVRd show I wouldn't end up with Letterman who just came across as mean spirited humor the few times I tried to watch him.

 

[phrelin]

Bottom line once again CSI Miami lost a viewer for the night. It wasn't there as scheduled.

When I checked the recording it was way delayed so I just erased it. Maybe if I was still watching the 11 O clock news on CBS I'd have watched it. I switched to ABC news so when I finished watching a DVRd show I wouldn't end up with Letterman who just came across as mean spirited humor the few times I tried to watch him.

Out here in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday night the CBS affiliate runs other stuff, no Letterman rerun. But of course we don't have the overrun problem anyway.

Here's the second Monday of Winter:

This period preceding February Sweeps should be a period for the networks to establish their programming. So how are the schedulers doing?

ABC. "The Bachelor" lost the demo race to four CBS comedy reruns. "Castle" did ok at 10:00 substantially besting a rerun of "Hawaii Five-0" which this Fall it occasionally edged out in head-to-head new episodes.

CBS ran a night of reruns. Since they didn't win the night averaging a 2.1 in the demo compared to ABC's 2.2, my guess is that "Hawaii Five-0" may be getting a hard look by the CBS suits since it was the drag on ratings.

Fox continues to fail its scripted programming by wasting its available time slots running reruns of "House" in both hours. This would have been the week to premier "Alcatraz" against the CBS reruns.

NBC. It may look like NBC also missed the Monday scheduling opportunity. They intend to run "The Voice" and "Smash" the first week of February Sweeps, but will run an hour of "The Voice" after the Super Bowl. It's a scheduling choice I don't get, but given all the celebrities on "The Voice" maybe it's a good idea?

The CW. :shrug:

New episodes of the regular lineup return January 23. The question is will they lose some of their target viewers to "The Voice" the following week? I'm not a target viewer but I'll still be recording "Hart of Dixie" mostly for the music, but also as our one The CW mindless show for this year.

 

[phrelin]

Here's the second Tuesday of Winter:

CBS had half of all the live viewers last night.

ABC's ratings are starting look like NBC's when pundits started discussing the decline.

Fox's reruns aren't doing so well. Unlike CBS reruns that retain a meaningful share of the show's regular demo, apparently once you've seen a "The New Girl" episode there's nothing to make you want to see it again.

NBC was second for the first two hours of the night in both the demo and total viewers. It was also second in the demo at 10:00. This should worry ABC.

The CW should have sold its time last night to infomercial folks.

 

[phrelin]

Here's the second Wednesday of Winter:

ABC continues with its regular schedule but its 9:00 - 11:00 lineup took a slight hit from "The People's Choice Awards" as the demo thinks looking at their own opinions matters. Is this indicative of a problem for next week when "American Idol" returns on Fox?

NBC ran its full lineup for the first time last night. "Whitney" and "Are You There, Chelsea" did ok in the demo. IMHO both shows should be getting a better total viewer rating - closer the "Harry's Law" - as both should be as appealing or more appealing than "The Middle" and "Suburgatory" to the older demo.

Fox is eagerly anticipating next week when it premiers "American Idol" with a two hour show. "Mobbed" is a ratings disaster and for whatever reason its still scheduled for February 1 and 8. "AI" will bring missing demo viewers back to broadcast TV. It's just that each year the numbers decline.

CBS has held its lineup to make 9:00 and 10:00 ratings next week interesting.

Will the first "Criminal Minds" of the Winter reduce the "AI" premier second hour ratings full potential? I don't know that we'll have a clear answer. Last year it had a season low compared to the Fall, but it still was the envy of NBC.

And will "CSI" with Ted Danson now accepted and Elizabeth Shue replacing Marg Helgenberger who's exit was last month, be enough of a curiosity to pull the audience away from "SVU" and "Revenge"? Probably not in the demo. In fact, with "AI" back in theory "Revenge" should benefit as it has a young star.

The CW is running new episodes of "One Tree Hill" and gambling on showcasing "Remodeled" next week. Since its core audience tend to be "AI" interested, I'm not sure how that will work out.

 

[phrelin]

Here's the second Thursday of Winter:

ABC did ok for the night. As I said last week, the ABC lineup will probably see the long slow decline it experienced last year.

CBS ran new episodes of its lineup for the first time this Winter. As expected, it won the night in total viewers and in the demo. "The Big Bang Theory" of course carried an audience into the premier of "¡ROB!". Whether that will carry through when "American Idol" starts up next week is anybody's guess.

"The Mentalist" garnered 71.2% of the viewers at 10:00. But that only translates into 44.3% of the demo. But then again, the demo was only 25% of the audience watching live TV. CBS needs to sell a lot of Cialis ads.

Fox, the game show and sports broadcast network, tried a new scripted show last night, "The Finder", what they call a "Bones" spinoff and which defies the meaning of the word "spinoff".

They did support it with a new episode of "Bones" as a lead-in (you remembered this because of the confusing season announcement that basically seemed to misplace "Bones" altogether). The ratings would be considered average for NBC and make The CW proud.

Next week on the game show and sports broadcast network, the second episode of "The Finder" will follow the always amusing and popular game show "American Idol" with its new episode "Auditions #2 - Pittsburgh". Some think this will give the "The Finder" a boost against the other 9:00 shows which implies there's hope for the show.

"The Finder" might be a fine show. I will watch my recording after watching my recording of "Person of Interest" (and we've already watched "Grey's"). Now when will "Bones" return?

NBC's comedy lineup ratings looked like four consecutive days ratings in the early weeks of "10:00 Leno".

NBC's decision to run the premier of "The Firm" last Sunday was idiocy as I commented, particularly since they are premiering most new shows in the first week of February Sweeps. As I expected, "The Firm" got "10:00 Leno" ratings. What will they do with this show now? I know. Give it to USA where characters are welcome and it would probably pull higher ratings because they know how to schedule.

The CW. Thursday is the network's strong night, whatever that means.

 

[phrelin]

Here's the second Friday of Winter:

CBS. In terms of total viewers, CBS dominated the night. In terms of the demo, CBS tied with ABC for the night.

ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" series finale was last night.

Fox returned "Fringe" last night, attracting fewer demo and total viewers than NBC.

NBC is burning off the last few episodes of "Chuck" to a 0.9 demo. Talk about a fickle audience. "Grimm" which should have been moved to another night last Fall is still grimly holding on.

The CW. :shrug:

Friday has become a permanently tough night. Here's January 16, 2009 from TVbytheNumbers' archive to compare:

It's obvious that the best one could hope for would be a total of 28 million live+same day viewers regularly watching Friday regular programming at 9:00, 75% of whom would not be in the 18-49 demo.

Not that the viewers aren't out there somewhere. The World Series on Fox pulled a half hour high of 7.9 - 24.83 million on October 28, 2011. And yet, the remaining programming that night was the same as you see for last night except CBS ran reruns. And it didn't do all that much worse than last night.

I suppose that the majority of that dollar a month that Fox - and probably soon all the other networks - will be getting from us will cover the cost of programming for Friday night plus a little for other failures.

 

[phrelin]

Here's the second Sunday of Winter overnight ratings, for what it's worth:

Fox had an NFL playoff game overrun in the East which shows up as a nearly 300% increase in the demo for "The Simpsons." While I'm sure the final ratings will indicate that Fox shows did get a boost for that overrun, it won't be 300%.

NBC carrying "The Golden Globes" added to the ratings confusion. In the San Francisco Bay Area the affiliate carried the Globes twice with a 4:00 showing of the red carpet arrival show, followed by "The Globes" at 5:00 followed by a prime time repeat.

ABC shows took a 10±% hit because of the Fox and NBC schedule.

CBS ratings took a larger hit which hurt the season premier of "Undercover Boss" and a new episode of "The Good Wife." They ran a rerun of "CSI: Miami" at 10:00.

We won't get meaningful Sunday ratings until the second Sunday during the February Sweeps, a week after Super Bowl 46. Even then, the first Sunday in March ABC will be replacing "Pan Am" with "GCB" at 10:00.