> NEW SHOWS in CAPS. New Time Periods in Italics WHAT WE LIKE: With five new shows, CBS provides lead-ins to four of them, asking only A Gifted Man (Patrick Wilson as a surgeon whose dead ex-wife returns) to open a night (Friday).  The two new comedies at 8:30 Monday and Thursday have very compatible […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  MACGYVER lost 0.1 in final numbers.  In addition, FOX’s COLLEGE FOOTBALL game adjusted up to 1.0.         Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart     CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  Discovery’s GOLD RUSH led Friday cable, up 0.09 to 0.64, with MASTER OF ARMS up 0.02 to 0.22.  A&E’s […]

NOTE: The ABC numbers below will decline slightly in the official nationals this afternoon because of local pre-emptions in Kansas City and Milwaukee for NFL MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (aired nationally on ESPN). The CBS numbers below for the NFL special game (rescheduled from Sunday afternoon) will rise in the official nationals when live viewing on […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #27 of 2013 still looks like a terrific $223 million for the top 12 films, up sharply from the comparable weekend in recent years. Not even The Lone Ranger could derail a hot summer box office, which is up 30% or more in three of the last four […]

You know it’s a weird night when the clearest-cut winner is Community. FOX:  As of this morning’s preliminary numbers, FOX won the night, but it’s loaded with asterisks.  AMERICAN IDOL‘s 3.5 may change because it ran until 9:32PM–for now, it’s down 0.3 from last week, and down a giant 1.4 from this time last year. […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. The worldwide studio rankings for 2013 to date remain the same as last week’s. Reminder: the chart below has been reformatted and expanded to include a look at all releases from each studio, divided into three buckets: worldwide grosses of over $300 million, grosses between $100 million and $299 million, and films under […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #23 of 2015 looks like $132 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down significantly from the norm for this weekend as the lame summer continues.   Opening at 3,711 theaters Friday, Spy from Fox is on track for a $32.0 million opening three-day weekend (somewhat below our $39.5 million ShowBuzzDaily forecast earlier this week). […]

  OPENINGS:  MINIONS (Illumination/Universal) had a surprisingly bumpy 16% drop on Saturday, but it will handily become the #2 animated opening of all time, topping Toy Story 3‘s $110.3M, even if the studio’s $115.2M forecast turns out to rely on a stronger Sunday rebound than final numbers confirm.  (Still #1: 2007’s  Shrek The Third at […]