SUNDAY UPDATE:  In final FINAL numbers, THE ACADEMY AWARDS gained an extra 0.2 to 13.1, which although tiny as a percentage of total rating, was gratifying to the Academy and ABC, because it pushed the telecast 0.1 above last year’s Seth MacFarlane-hosted show in 18-49s (it was already comfortably up in older-skewing total viewers).  […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  Little change, as THE FOLLOWING lost 0.1 to tie last week’s series low, and THE BACHELOR found 0.1 (getting it slightly above a tied season low). MONDAY CABLE:  Rarely do audiences signal their instant rejection of a new series as clearly as they did for THOSE WHO KILL’s debut last night on […]

  AMERICAN IDOL used to be the school bully; now it cringes in the network equivalent of the assistant principal’s office.  FOX announced today that as of March 13, Idol is fleeing its Big Bang Theory competition and shifting to 9PM on Thursdays, where on March 27 (as previously announced) it will shrink to half […]

  Thanks mostly to last night’s ACADEMY AWARDS, ABC enjoyed one of its very few weekly wins of the season.  The network was at 3.34 last week, up a huge 2.23 from the week before, while NBC was at 1.79 (down a massive 2.44 with the end of the Olympics), CBS averaged 1.69 (up 0.55 […]

The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday March 1 and Sunday March 2, 2014. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) cover about 70% of the US television population.   NASCAR 4.8 rating FOX 3:15 pm Sunday Phoenix 500 (-9% from 5.3 last year) 1.5 […]

  The only thing more boring than a typical Oscars is one without surprises, and the closest thing to a major upset this year turned out to be Disney’s loss in the Best Animated Short category.  (The studio almost instantly rebounded with the much more important Animated Feature prize for Frozen.)  All the conventional wisdom […]

  After a campaign that’s felt so long it seems like there should be a presidential inauguration at the end of it, here we are.  The 86th Academy Awards are about to begin, and while tedium is inevitable (Ellen DeGeneres, although certain to be less obnoxious than last year’s Seth MacFarlane, isn’t exactly a fount […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Year to date, Sony and Universal (on the basis of sheer volume of films) is slightly ahead of Warner Brothers (the studio with the year’s only big hit so far), although three studios are very close to each other. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far […]