And the winner isn’t. CBS:  THE TONY AWARDS, with little-known contenders for Best Musical and Best Play, and no movie stars up for any awards, hit an all-time low 1.0, the lowest rating of the night except for FOX animation reruns during the 7PM hour, and lower even than its own 60 MINUTES lead-in.  (To […]

  OPENINGS:  We spent all summer hearing that it was impossible to sell audiences on big-budget non-franchise titles, as spectacles like White House Down, Pacific Rim, After Earth and The Lone Ranger went splat.  In one fantastic swoop, GRAVITY proved the lie to that with an October-record $55.6M weekend–and with two middle-aged stars.  (What a […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is now +3% above last year and +5% above the average for this point the past four years ($1.990 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed almost $5.8 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office […]

  BROADCAST FINALS ABC:  THE BACHELORETTE dipped 0.04 to 0.67, and QUEENS was down 0.03 to 0.28. CBS:  Back from 2 weeks of reruns, FBI dropped 0.12 to 0.58, FBI: INTERNATIONAL fell 0.12 to 0.46, and FBI: MOST WANTED was down 0.19 to 0.44. NBC:  A recap episode of THE VOICE was at 0.54, down […]

        NETWORK FINALS;  After adjustment for football preemption, ABC’s CMA COUNTRY CHRISTMAS and THE GOOD DOCTOR, and NBC’s A VERY PENTATRONIX CHRISTMAS, all lost 0.1.         Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart       CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  ESPN’s MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL dominated Monday cable, but had a steep 0.84 […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite a bounty of new titles, nothing touched the holdover at the top of the weekend box office.  The newcomer with the closest claim to “success” in the US was THE POPE’S EXORCIST (Screen Gems/Sony), with $9.2M.  The horror movie also reported $27.4M in overseas release, which would put it on a road […]

Ratings in key demos for the Top 25 original cable telecasts (plus a few other lower-rated but noteworthy programs): There’s not much doubt about what tops the ratings on Sunday cable, and AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD did so again, although it was down 0.26 to a mere 7.27.  TALKING DEAD followed as usual, down 0.06 […]

It’s awfully early in the season for such a lousy night. NBC:  The network was in a big hurry yesterday to announce full-season orders for GO ON and THE NEW NORMAL, and both shows responded by hitting new lows (the spin will be that they followed an unusually low clip show version of The Voice, […]