>Last night in the hit summer shows (NBC’s America’s Got Talent and FOX’s Hell’s Kitchen), we took a look at the priorities for new fall series promotion.  The big winners on NBC were the comedies Whitney and Up All Night.  Each comedy received one minute of on-air promotion across the two-hour telecast (one :30 spot […]

Here are the weekend sports ratings for Saturday and Sunday March 17-18, 2018.  Eligible programs include sporting events on broadcast and cable networks (minimum audience size 300K P2+).  Programs are grouped by sport and ranked within each sport by P2+ audience size. Also, early round March Madness game ratings (Tuesday-Friday March 13-16, 2018) are listed in a […]

The NCAA men’s basketball championship tournament rolled on Sunday with two games to select the last Final Four spots.  The two games averaged 19% higher household ratings than last year in the 56 local markets measured by Nielsen (covering 70% of the country).  The second game at 5:00 Sunday almost hit the magic 10.0 rating […]

> UPDATE:  Glen Mazzara, who’d been Frank Darabont’s #2 on the WALKING DEAD writing staff,  has indeed been appointed to take over showrunning duties.  (Darabont’s continued presence, if any, is still being discussed.)  Mazzara has a lot of experience as a writer/producer on shows like Hawthorne, Crash and The Shield, but not as a show […]

The box office this weekend should be slightly off the pace for this weekend the last few years, cooling off a bit after a few solid weekends.  Two new films open, and it appears 42 will lead the way with just under $20 million. Opening at around 2,900 theaters Friday (a very average number), 42 from […]

> Rise of the Planet of the Apes should open easily at #1 with over $43 million.  With broadly positive reviews behind it, this prequel should have decent holds in the following few weeks.  The Smurfs should slide into #2 with a decent second week decline ($21 million, down 41%).  Fighting for #3 should be […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is still +8% above last year and now +4% above the average for this point the past four years ($5.828 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $15.7 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office […]

Not quite as exciting as a live freeway police pursuit but still very compelling and much more relevant, the coverage of the reaction to the capture of the remaining Boston Marathon Bombing suspect brought viewers to the normally tough to program Friday evening.  Collectively, the broadcast networks earned a 7.1 rating with adults 18-49 in […]