> THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT:  Watch It At Home – If Only The Engagement Were A Little Shorter… Judd Apatow, as both director (The 40=Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and producer (Bridesmaids, Superbad, Pineapple Express, TV’s new Girls) has brought a tremendous amount of first-class comedy to large and small screens in recent years.  But he […]

  NETWORK UPDATE:  Only HELL’S KITCHEN and the night’s rerun of MODERN FAMILY found an extra 0.1 in the couch cushions.  THURSDAY CABLE:  With no NBA Playoff games scheduled, it was a quiet night.  The NHL PLAYOFFS on NBC Sports Network were at 0.6.  PAWN STARS (History) was at 0.9/0.9, up 0.1 in the 2d […]

>With six nights of the May Sweep in (Thursday-Monday’s official ratings and Tuesday’s fast national ratings), here’s an early look at the final major ratings sweep period of the broadcast season, when ratings are measured locally in each of the 214 television markets across the country.  Tuesday night was a down night for every network […]

  NETWORK UPDATE:  In adjusted ratings, BEAUTY & THE BEAST declined by 0.1 from this morning’s numbers, while MASTERCHEF and THE BACHELORETTE gained 0.1.  (No change for MISTRESSES or 24.) MONDAY CABLE:  LONGMIRE returned to A&E at 0.7, down 0.2 from last season’s premiere and finale, and also down about 10% from its 2013 premiere […]

Now 21 full weeks into 2012, year-to-date domestic box office is running 15% ahead of last year’s pace.  Just two weeks ago, box office was running 21% ahead of 2011.  The past week was off a stunning 32% from the same week last year when The Hangover Part II grossed $118 million (Thursday-Sunday, May 26-29), Pirates of the Caribbean: On […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  As expected, ABC (but not FOX) was hit by post-football adjustments, as both DANCING WITH THE STARS and THE GOOD DOCTOR dropped 0.2.  There were no other adjustments.         Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart     CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  ESPN’s MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL was at 4.45, […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  20th Century Fox had a terrific week with the combination of the okay arrival of How to Train Your Dragon 2 and the continued overseas revenue from X-Men Days of Future Past.  Fox now stands at over $2.2 billion worldwide year to date, miles ahead of Warner Brothers ($1.7 billion), which is still seeing overseas […]

  The broadcast networks will officially announce their schedules next week at the Upfronts in New York, but before that happens, Mitch Metcalf and I, along with veteran network executive Ted Frank, have put together our own versions–reflecting the needs and possibilities of each network, as we’d previously detailed. We’ve posted our recommended schedules for […]