Weekend #22 of 2014 is looking like a solid $172 million for the top 12 films this weekend, 26% above the norm for this weekend and 7% above the same weekend last year.   Opening at over 3,800 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Maleficent from Disney should average […]

  NETWORK UPDATE:  THE BACHELORETTE climbed 0.2 in final numbers, while MASTERCHEF and AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR gained 0.1.  (The NINJA WARRIOR clip show, however, lost 0.1.)   MONDAY CABLE:  It was ESPN’s turn for the NBA PLAYOFFS, and the network was tops by far with 2.8, while NBC Sports Network’s NHL PLAYOFFS were at 0.7.  […]

  NETWORK UPDATE:  The only change from preliminary numbers was a 0.1 gain for the NASCAR race on FOX. SATURDAY CABLE:  On BBC America, ORPHAN BLACK was up very slightly to 0.25, with follow-up IN THE FLESH barely registering at 0.03.  ESPN dominated the night with a 2.7 for its NBA PLAYOFFS game. SUNDAY CABLE:  […]

  THE NIGHT SHIFT:  Tuesday 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel It’s as though NBC and series creators Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs (they were among the showrunners of the 90210 reboot, and wrote the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie) deliberately set out to make the least distinctive series possible with THE NIGHT […]

The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday May 24 and Sunday May 25, 2014. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) cover about 70% of the US television population.   NBA: Playoffs 4.9 rating ESPN 8:30 pm Saturday Indiana Pacers at Miami Heat Game 3 […]

  The studios continued to be bullish on their holiday estimates, with preliminary Monday numbers expecting strong business that may or may not be confirmed in final box office figures tomorrow.  For now, the most optimistic film is HEAVEN IS FOR REAL (TriStar/Sony), expecting a mere 7% drop on Monday, with the older skewing NEIGHBORS […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  The release of X-Men: Days of Future Past has pushed 20th Century Fox to the top of the heap with over $1.5 billion in worldwide box office in 2014 to date.  The race will ebb and flow through the rest of the summer and into the holiday season, but Fox, Warner Brothers and Sony […]

  (Note:  Most of the studios aggressively estimated their Sunday declines as being around 10%, even though last year’s Memorial Day Weekend Sunday drops were mostly steeper than that, so there could be a number of downward adjustments in store when final numbers are released.) OPENINGS:  X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (20th), oddly enough, was […]