The bombs burst in midair for NBC on July 4th. NBC:  There are fireworks, and then there is the MACY’S 4TH OF JULY SPECTACULAR, by far the highest rated show of the night with a 1.7 (although that was down from 2.1 last year).  The 2d highest?  A rerun of the same show the […]

Team Salem’s top pick (Pixar’s Brave) opened this weekend, helping increase the slate to $290 million, up almost $97 million from last week.  Meanwhile, continued strong business from Madagascar 3 and a few others pushed Team Metcalf’s almost-fully-release slate up a similar amount over the last week (up $95 million) to $1.17 billion.   Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter pushed […]

  The KENNEDY CENTER HONORS weren’t as bright this year. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2). Ratings analysis […]

  THE HUNGER GAMES:  Worth A Ticket – The Odds Are Mostly In Its Favor   Now that virtually every blockbuster movie opens in IMAX, going to an IMAX theatre at this time of year provides a de facto trailer festival for an entire summer of (seemingly) more or less mindless spectacle.  As The Avengers […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #7 of 2015 looks like a terrific $196 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, well above the norms for this weekend and even better than it looked yesterday ($188 million estimate based on Friday’s grosses).   Opening at 3,646 theaters Friday, Fifty Shades of Grey from Focus/ Universal is on […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  SINGLE PARENTS lost 0.1 in final numbers.         Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart     CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  MTV’s THE CHALLENGE led Wednesday cable, down 0.12 to 0.51, with lead-in RIDICULOUSNESS. at 0.22 compared to last week’s 0.30/0.28  On VH1, BLACK INK CREW edged up 0.02 […]

  The other notable story of the day was contained in Netflix’s 1st Quarter 2013 financial report, which showed that the company grew by 3 million subscribers during that period (2M in the US and 1M more internationally).  That gives the company 29.2M US streaming subscribers, plus 7.1M overseas.  (DVD subscribers are shrinking, but that’s […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  As expected, NBC’s preliminary ratings were quite different after adjustment for the NASCAR overrun.  That scored 1.1, and then SUNDAY NIGHT WITH MEGYN KELLY was at 0.5 (still up 0.1 from last week, probably because of the 9PM airtime), as was the SPARTAN finale.           […]