> An off-night if you didn’t have Thrones in your title. HBO:  GAME OF THRONES, airing an episode that started with a gasp-inducing surprise death (one less potential king for Westeros), was the highest-rated show on cable TV Sunday night, even beating the NBA Playoffs on TNT (although Thrones was over when the Clippers launched […]

  OPENINGS:  ABOMINABLE (Pearl/DreamWorks/Universal) seized a weekend on the calendar that had a dearth of new children’s movies (and with 2 weeks until The Addams Family opens), and pushed it to a fair $20.9M opening.  However, with roughly $150M in costs, it will need international help to reach profit, and since weekend results were at […]

Here are the weekend sports ratings for Saturday and Sunday November 12-13, 2016.  Eligible programs include sporting events on broadcast and cable networks (minimum audience size 150K P2+).  Programs are grouped by sport and ranked within each sport by P2+ audience size.   For comparison, here is the same chart for the same weekend last year, November […]

  OPENINGS:  MALEFICENT (Disney) is claiming a $70M weekend, and like all round-number estimates, that should be viewed with some skepticism.  But even if it dips slightly in final numbers tomorrow, it’s a fine start.  It’s not, however, the equal of Disney’s other revisionist fairy tales Alice In Wonderland ($116.1M) or Oz: The Great and […]

  It was perfectly appropriate to dread the news that an athlete was hosting SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE–the show’s history abounds with deadly sports hosts like Michael Phelps and Tom Brady.  And in case that wasn’t enough pressure for tonight’s host Eli Manning, one of the rare exceptions to the rule was his own brother Peyton, […]

  OPENINGS:  22 JUMP STREET (Sony/Columbia) went even higher on Friday than early estimates had it, reaching $25M.  Even if it’s front-loaded as a young-skewing sequel, a $60M weekend is all but guaranteed, which would be 65% higher than the $36.3M opening weekend for 21 Jump Street, and if strong word of mouth kicks in, […]

  Late today, NBC thrilled… well, not many viewers, but we’re very enthusiastic.  The network announced its renewal of COMMUNITY for a 4th season.  As had been rumored, the order is for 13 episodes (although unlike the similar order for 30 Rock, this isn’t designated as an official “final season”).  Considering the radical eccentricity of […]

Ratings for the simultaneous double-headers on ESPN and ESPN2 Monday have been added to the chart below.  Some real clunkers, including the Spain vs Australia match at 11:30 am on ESPN2, now the lowest-rated match of 2014. World Cup to Date:  the best comparisons currently are the June 12-23 ESPN Average to Date for 2014 (all […]