The Martin Luther King Day holiday tends to be a day off more for schoolchildren than for adult employees, meaning that at the boxoffice, it benefits family movies–of which there’s a distinct shortage right now.  For adult-oriented films, the Friday gross is often around 25-30% of the 4-day weekend total (with new openings at […]

Fringe moves on to another universe. FOX:  After years of lousy ratings, it would have been unrealistic to expect FRINGE to suddenly grow an audience at the last minute, and it didn’t:  the two-hour finale had a 1.0, which was up 0.2 from last week, but barely managed to beat one other network in one […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #3 of 2013 is on pace for $113 million, basically on pace with the same weekend the last few years.  It is a weekend of Jessica Chastain: starring in the top two films of the weekend, an over-performing horror film opening at #1 and carrying the #2 film on her […]

Lance Armstrong (as calculating, cautious and conniving as ever) appeared with Oprah Winfrey Thursday night on the struggling OWN network in a much-hyped and relatively little-watched interview. The 90-minute part one of Lance Armstrong on Oprah’s Next Chapter at 9:00 pm scored a 1.2 rating with adults 18-49 and averaged 3.2 million viewers of any age.  The […]

CBS does FOX a favor. FOX:  With CBS in reruns last night, AMERICAN IDOL didn’t have to face fresh episodes of Big Bang Theory or 2 1/2 Men.  That allowed Idol to tie last year’s 5.6 Thursday premiere (which had to contend with a new Big Bang), although it doesn’t bode well for next week, […]

After its Golden Globes win for Best Drama, the odds of winning Best Picture for Argo improved a bit (moving from a $7.50 payout on a $1 wager to $5.25 and moving past Les Miserables into second place).  But the favorite remains Lincoln, which also actually tightened to a $1.29 payout (from $1.40 last week), as Les Miz and especially Zero […]

American Idol isn’t scary anymore. FOX:  As Mitch Metcalf detailed this morning, AMERICAN IDOL‘s 6.0 season debut–while obviously still a huge number for any network series–was down 1.4 ratings points from last year’s premiere, and down a staggering 3.7 points from 2 years ago, a margin that in itself would be the rating for a […]

American Idol returned to the air last night, winning the night handily but continuing the show’s long slide from phenomenon to mere mortal status.  The two-hour premiere last night averaged a 6.0 adult 18-49 rating from 8-10 pm, down 19% from last year’s premiere (7.4 rating) and down 38% from the 2011 premiere (9.7 rating). Next […]