Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #23 of 2013 looks like an okay $153 million for the top 12 films, down 14% from last year but 5% above the average for this weekend the past few years.  The Purge is doing much better than forecast and is propping the weekend up. Opening at 2,536 theaters Friday, […]

  Like the San Antonio Spurs, USA Network provided an example last night of aging veterans showing up some ultra-hyped newcomers.  BURN NOTICE, beginning its 7th and final season, held almost all of last season’s premiere audience in 18-49s and managed to increase its older-skewing total audience.  (Note:  last season’s premiere also aired against an […]

  Not even the NBA Finals could hold its own this low-watched summer. ABC:  Thanks to the NBA FINALS GAME 1, ABC was up 267% for the night versus the same Thursday last year, but that’s apples and oranges.  A more meaningful comparison is Thursday, June 14, 2012, which also featured an NBA Finals game.  Last […]

  It was cooking night on broadcast TV . FOX:  MASTERCHEF dominated everything around it with 2.0/2.5 over its two hours. ABC:  What have become the burn-offs of canceled FAMILY TOOLS and HOW TO LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS (FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE) continued with series lows for both (each down 0.1 from last […]

The 23rd weekend of the year is looking like a wobbly $127 million for the top 12 films, well under the same weekend the last few years.  Three out of four weekends in May were anchored by solid commercial films (Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness and Fast & Furious 6).  But the first […]

  Talent competition shows continued to dominate network television. NBC:  After THE VOICE‘s new Tuesday low 3.0 (down 0.2 from last week), AMERICA’S GOT TALENT premiered with a 3.1 rating from 9-11 pm (3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.0 by half hour).  This was its lowest-ever premiere; last year the show debuted with a 3.7 rating, […]

  SATURDAY BBCAMERICA:  The ORPHAN BLACK season finale didn’t push it anywhere near the ratings big leagues, but at least it rounded up to a 0.2 in 18-49s, and it skewed fairly young, with that demo making up more than half its 375K total viewers.  The finale was up 50% from the week before, however […]

The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday June 1 and Sunday June 2, 2013.  (The 56 markets out of 210 total cover about 70% of the US television population.) NBA — Playoff Weekend #7 TNT Sat 8:30 pm Miami-Indianapolis 6.2 rating (no relevant comparison)   NASCAR, as […]