UPDATE:  As expected, the WINTER OLYMPICS CLOSING CEREMONY and GROWING UP FISHER adjusted to 3.2 and 2.0.  THE AMAZING RACE fell to an even lower all-time low premiere at 1.5, and 60 MINUTES was also down 0.1 to 1.3. SUNDAY CABLE:  As had been previously reported, THE WALKING DEAD (AMC) was its usual giant […]

  Two pieces of diametrically opposed counterprogramming did just fine against last night’s WINTER OLYMPICS Closing Ceremony. THE WALKING DEAD easily beat the Olympics in 18-49s for the 3rd week in a row with a 6.6 rating, down 0.2 from last week.  It also had 13.1M total viewers (down 200K from last week).  That doubled […]

  SQUIRREL!  NBC, and its media enablers, will do their best to focus discussion of the WINTER OLYMPICS ratings on total viewers, daytime and online numbers, and–SQUIRREL!–anything other than the evident fact that the Games didn’t justify a cost that probably exceeded $1 billion, between rights ($775M alone) and production costs over the 18 days of […]

Last night’s final night of coverage from Sochi on NBC was in three parts.  Sochi Gold from 7:00-8:30 pm (mostly an excellent documentary on the still fascinating Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding controversy in 1994) averaged a 2.6 adult 18-49 rating (peaking at a 3.1 rating in the 8:30 half hour).  The actual Closing Ceremony coverage from 8:30-10:30 averaged a […]

  GROWING UP FISHER:  Tuesday 9:30PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… We reviewed GROWING UP FISHER last summer based on the pilot that was originally shot, but after the series was ordered, one of the lead performers, Parker Posey, was replaced by Jenna Elfman, which required some reshooting.  But not, as it […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Despite having the only movie to cross the $300 million worldwide line (The Lego Movie), Warner Brothers lags behind Sony which has no mega-hit but three of its four films in 2014 are at $100 million or more worldwide.  But it’s early in the race with Disney yet to release a film in […]

  OPENINGS:  For both 3 DAYS TO KILL (Relativity) and POMPEII (TriStar/Sony/FilmDistrict), the only hope of salvation lies overseas.  3 Days, at least, has a relatively low production cost, but even if the reported $28M figure is accurate, its $12.3M US weekend won’t get it anywhere near recoupment of its worldwide marketing expenses.  Things are […]

  Everyone knows that the shine of a post-Olympics “preview” berth doesn’t last long–just ask 2012’s Go On and Animal Practice.  But it’s at least supposed to provide a new show with a strong sampling.  Ironically, last night’s WINTER OLYMPICS ratings were so disastrous (2.6 in preliminary numbers–see Mitch Metcalf’s Skedball post for details)  that ABOUT A […]