NIELSENWAR Network Midterm Grades: ABC

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The broadcast networks aren’t what they used to be, and likely will never be again.  They’re collectively on a train that’s moving in the wrong direction, because the lion’s share of their revenues are based on the number of people who watch the commercials contained in their shows within a short time after initial airing, and viewers more and more prefer to watch on a delayed basis and fast-forward through the ads.  Unless the networks can convince advertisers to change the decades-old rules of the game (hence the relentless clamor that “same-day ratings don’t mean anything anymore!”), or unless VOD, which usually doesn’t permit fast-forwarding, overtakes DVR viewing, this trend will likely only get worse.

That doesn’t mean the networks are going anywhere.  They’re still multi-billion dollar entities, and there are political as well as economic reasons why they’ll continue to exist for a long time to come.  But it won’t be a surprise if they start shaving down the number of hours they can afford to program with original content, as they compete with cable and streaming networks that typically only program a few new hours per week.  In addition, there will probably be more international co-productions, and deals like the ones CBS has on Under the Dome and Extant, allowing streaming services (Amazon in those cases) to have quick access to their shows in exchange for shouldering a big chunk of production costs.

For now, the system mostly goes on in its traditional way, and we’ve reached the end-point of the fall part of the 2014-15 broadcast television season.  (Midseason officially kicks off on Sunday, when ABC launches its medieval musical-comedy Galavant.)  It’s a good time to assess where the networks have been for the last few months, and where they’re likely to be going, and over the next few days, we’ll take a close look at each of them.   (Note:  CW is really in a different business than the other 4 broadcast networks, with lower ratings–The Flash excepted–and an economic model that’s based in large part on its licensing deal with Netflix.  It isn’t really part of the broadcast competition, so we’ll be excluding it from the rankings.)

ABC

Fall Primetime 18-49 Average (through Dec 28):  1.71, down 2.3% from Fall 2013

Grade:  B+

The Season So Far:  ABC is in 3rd place for the fall, but that’s a misleading statistic because it’s the only one of the networks that doesn’t have the jolt of primetime NFL football in its numbers (aside from NBC’s Sunday Night Football and CBS’s new Thursday night game for the fall’s first half, both CBS and FOX customarily get up to an hour of huge NFL afternoon overruns on Sundays).  It’s actually had more good news than bad this fall, and that 2.3% year-to-year drop is the best of the 4 major networks.  After years of trying and failing, the network finally found in Black-ish a comedy that works behind Modern Family on Wednesday.  (Some might say that the idea of pairing Family with another family-aimed sitcom, rather than one about madcap singles, was a big “Duh,” but better late than never.)  The move of The Goldbergs in the preceding hour has solidified that show as well.  Even Nashville is starting to look downright perky these days, although more because of weak competition than any real growth.  The all-Shonda Rhimes Thursday is a tremendous success, with How To Get Away With Murder the biggest new hit of the fall.  The Frozen storyline propelled Once Upon A Time to significant year-to-year gains, a real accomplishment for a show in its 4th season.  Mondays are holding their own, and Shark Tank is dominant on Fridays.  On the downside,Resurrection has completely collapsed after less than a full year on the air, and Revenge is gasping for breath.  The hour of new sitcoms that led off Tuesdays are already dead, with 10PM show Forever not far behind, and Agents of SHIELD, while stable from last Spring and greatly improved creatively, doesn’t look like it will ever be a monster hit.  Cristela started with promising reviews, but it’s shown little strength.

Forecast:  Mixed.  American Crime has the best pilot of any network show this midseason, and it faces limited competition from Elementary and NBC’s new Allegiance (which, in a phrase you’ll likely be hearing often over the next few months, is The Americans for dummies), so despite the disadvantage of a shortened season for How To Get Away With Murder, due to the terms of Viola Davis’s contract, Thursdays may remain strong.–assuming, of course, that Scandal doesn’t weaken against NBC’s nuclear warhead of The Blacklist, which arrives for head-to-head competition after the Super Bowl.  Tuesdays look more problematic, as ABC throws the promising new sitcom Fresh Off the Boat to the wolves, airing it with reruns in the 8PM hour, and Agents of SHIELD will hope for some cross-promotion with the sure-to-be-gigantic new Avengers movie as that epic prepares to open in late Spring.  Secrets and Lies may improve on Resurrection in the Sunday 9PM slot, but probably not by enough to make it a hit.  Galavant and Agent Carter are both limited runs designed to plug in the hiatus holes for their timeslots’ usual inhabitants, and although ABC would love to see one make an impact (especially Carter), it’s more likely that they’ll come and go.