The Following is losing its own. FOX:  After two strong weeks to start, THE FOLLOWING had its second consecutive ratings drop, this time falling a serious 0.5 to an only moderately positive 2.4, just good enough for 3rd place in its hour.  BONES was also down for the week, but less steeply, falling 0.2 to […]

  Last night’s midseason premiere of THE WALKING DEAD was disappointingly sluggish, uncompelling, and in its ending, downright silly.  None of that mattered at all to its hordes of fans, though.  The show returned with a gigantic 5.7 rating in 18-49s for its 9PM airing alone (against The Grammys, no less), outrating everything on network […]

  It’s always an advantage for shows to know they’re being renewed as quickly as possible.  With that security in hand, they can shore up their writing staffs before newly-ordered series begin making their picks, start preparation for next season’s production, and in the case of increasingly plot-heavy serialized dramas, begin planning out the story […]

The Grammys were big–but not as big as last year’s. CBS:  The 2013 GRAMMY AWARDS had a 10.1 rating, completely dominating the night.  However, that was steeply down from last year’s 14.1 (which may have been partly the result of Whitney Houston’s sudden death before the ceremony). ABC:  It’s not clear why ABC chose to […]

SUNDAY SPORTS.  The second game of an NBA doubleheader on ABC drew decent ratings Sunday (Lakers at Heat), hitting a 5.0 household rating and 10 share in the 54 markets which were able to be measured over the weekend.  (The blizzard in New England and the resulting many power outages forced Nielsen to take the […]

THE WEEK.  For the recently completed week ending Sunday (February 4-10, 2013), CBS won again with a preliminary 3.35 adult 18-49 rating for the week.  This week’s win is driven by last night’s Grammy Awards (preliminary 10.3 demo rating, a stunning drop from last year’s 14.1 Grammy Awards).  In fact, last year CBS won Grammy week with […]

Django Unchained continues to gain on Les Miserables (also released Christmas Day).  Quentin Tarantino’s Django collected $29 million overseas since last week, compared to $17 million for Les Miserables.  With a projected $350 million worldwide, Django is within striking distance of Les Miserables ($366 million). Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters also had a strong week, up $22 million overseas last week to $84 million overseas to […]

  OPENINGS:  Melissa McCarthy is now a genuine Hollywood player with the enormous debut of IDENTITY THIEF (Universal), beating all pre-release estimates with $36.6M.  (Take that, Rex Reed!)  Apart from Universal, the happiest studio in town is Fox, which has the McCarthy/Sandra Bullock vehicle The Heat coming up in the thick of summer movie season […]