We speculated yesterday that HBO might have carefully timed its renewal of THE NEWSROOM not to coincide with the show’s Episode 2 ratings, and we may have been right. HBO:  The Newsroom took a substantial hit from its premiere, down about 350,000 viewers (over 20%) and significantly older than it had been, with a […]

  Even at HBO, someone has to watch your show.  The network announced today that ENLIGHTENED won’t be returning for a third season.  The Mike White/Laura Dern dramedy earned its share of praise, but its Season 2 finale was watched by 200,000 people–and that’s not 18-49s, that’s the total number of people in America who […]

  BROADCAST FINALS ABC:  THE BACHELOR dropped 0.08 to 0.51, followed by a rerun of THE COMPANY YOU KEEP at 0.16. NBC:  Reruns at 0.39/0.28/0.24/0.21. NBC:  AMERICA’S GOT TALENT gained 0.06 to 0.54, followed by a MAGNUM PI rerun at 0.23. FOX:  FANTASY ISLAND was steady at 0.24, and ALERT ticked down to 0.26. CW:  […]

  OPENINGS:  A variety of studios threw product at the Labor Day weekend wall.  None of them broke through, but REAGAN (ShowbizDirect) zeroed in on its target audience–reportedly nearly 2/3 of the audience was over 55 years old, and 3/4 were white–for $7.4M over the 3-day weekend ($9.2M with Monday).  Although films appealing to older […]

ABC easily won last night with a 3.8 adult 18-49 rating by ditching its regular lineup in favor of the 46th annual CMA Awards.  However, the CMAs were well below last year’s telecast, which aired on a Wednesday.  Any schedule or time time period change runs the risk of further accelerating the natural decline in network […]

  BROADCAST FINALS ABC:  AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS dropped 0.07 to 0.44, CELEBRITY WHEEL OF FORTUNE lost 0.06 to 0.37, SUPERMARKET SWEEP slipped 0.02 to 0.34, and THE ROOKIE ticked up to 0.33. CBS:  The network of course peaked with its afternoon coverage of the AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME at 12.41.  Primetime was a set of […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. 20th Century Fox vaulted ahead of Paramount into fourth place in worldwide box office for 2013 to date, mostly because of The Wolverine.  Universal and Warner Brothers remain a very close #2 and #3, respectively, with both studios grossing well over $100 million this past week (primarily from overseas grosses for Universal’s Despicable Me […]

  BROADCAST FINALS ABC:  The season premiere of THE GREAT CHRISTMAS LIGHT FIGHT was at 0.47, up 0.07 from last year’s premiere (on a Sunday).  THE GOOD DOCTOR ticked up to 0.33. CBS:  Reruns at 0.38/0.31/0.28/0.24. NBC:  THE VOICE, up 0.07 to 0.68, was followed by a promo run of Peacock’s PITCH PERFECT: BUMPER IN […]