Preliminary box office numbers at Deadline have THE HEAT (20th) overperforming with a $15M Friday, which could give it a $40M opening weekend, almost as much as the movie cost to produce.  That means the first 3 days for the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy pairing may nearly match the first 4 days of The Hangover […]

  Neither THE HEAT (20th) nor WHITE HOUSE DOWN (Sony) is expected to turn many heads at the box office this weekend (Mitch Metcalf’s predictions are here), and that was reflected in their early Thursday night and midnight Friday results.  White House, which started its screenings at 7PM, earned $1.35M, while The Heat, which waited until […]

  Last night’s NBA Draft on ESPN will probably have a 1.5-1.6 rating, which will make it the third-highest show of the night, behind only Hell’s Kitchen on FOX and a repeat Big Bang Theory on CBS.  (Last night’s Draft tied ESPN’s highest rating since the network started covering the event in 2003.)  The networks collectively sunk 10% below […]

  Big Brother wasn’t so big last night. CBS:  BIG BROTHER premiered with a 2.1 preliminary adult 18-49 rating last night, down half a point from the 2.6 rating last year when it premiered in its more traditional post-Independence Day position on July 12, and tied its lowest premiere ever 5 years ago.  THE AMERICAN […]

  FRIDAY STARZ:  Things got even worse for MAGIC CITY, with under 350K total viewers and an 18-49 number that had to be rounded up to reach 0.1.  It’s hard to imagine Starz ordering a third season, unless there are non-financial reasons. SYFY:  CONTINUUM was down 30% in total viewers to 1M, and down 0.1 […]

The 26th weekend of the year (halfway through already!) is looking like an on-target $189 million for the top 12 films, within a few percentage points of the comparable weekend the last few years.     Opening at around 3,000 3,222 theaters Friday (somewhat above the average 2,886 theater count for opening weekend wide releases), White […]

  Unlike CBS and NBC, which are mostly launching their fall schedules in the official premiere week beginning Monday September 23, FOX is scattering its shows in the weeks before and after the other networks.  (CW, as has been its practice in recent years, restarts its engines at the beginning of October.)  Here’s a rundown: […]

  RIZZOLI & ISLES has been one of TNT’s most reliable hits, and it launched Season 4 last night in very healthy fashion.  The show was up from its Season 3 premiere in all measurements, with 6.6M total viewers (an increase of more than 1M) and a 1.4 in 18-49s (up 0.2).  That’s quite old-skewing, […]