The weekly network ratings in prime time (now based on seven days of official nationals) are final, with substantial downward revisions from our estimate yesterday. The Saturday fast national ratings were vastly overstated because of continued local coverage of NFL preseason games in a handful of markets, and that was enough to inflate the weekly […]

“Say the name of the highest rated program of the week.  Say it.” “Breaking Bad.” “You’re Goddamn right.” AMC’s extraordinary drama Breaking Bad tops the list of broadcast and cable programs for the week.  The first of the final eight episodes of the landmark series scored a 2.9 rating with Adults 18-49 Sunday, including viewers […]

  Last night the numbers continued to slide for Under the Dome, and viewers watched country singers rock out. ABC:  CMA MUSIC FESTIVAL: COUNTRY’S NIGHT TO ROCK was up an impressive half ratings point from last year’s installment to 2.0, although that one aired in mid-September, against some early regular season competition. CBS:  UNDER THE […]

  AMC executives may have felt like they’d been doing some meth themselves this morning–in a good way.  Five and a half seasons into its run, BREAKING BAD returned for its final 8 episodes with a vengeance, exploding to a total viewership of 5.9M.  That’s not just the highest rating by far in the show’s […]

Projected weekly network ratings in prime time (based on four days of official nationals and three days of fast nationals). CBS returned to the top spot this past week despite not airing in about 3 million Time Warner Cable homes as the stand-off over per-subscriber compensation drags on.  NBC tumbled to third place, as a […]

The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday August 10 and Sunday August 11, 2013. (The 56 markets out of 210 total cover about 70% of the US television population.)   Golf’s fourth and final major championship of the year, the PGA Championship, averaged a 3.7 […]

  We don’t have data yet for the season premiere of Breaking Bad, which frankly is of more interest than any of the blah network numbers last night. CBS:  The 0.3 boost for 60 MINUTES (to 1.2) is probably mostly due to a 9-minute overrun for the end of the PGA CHAMPIONSHIP, and will be […]

  Here’s an instructive piece of box office math, courtesy of Disney and The Lone Ranger.  Ranger cost (including worldwide marketing) about $350M all told, and it’s going to have global theatrical revenues of about $240M.  Disney is reporting that the movie will end up losing around $190M, which is $80M higher than the usual […]