Here is the final Summer Olympic ratings track for Rio 2016, with the official ratings for all 17 nights.  In terms of millions of viewers 2+, Rio finished above Sydney 2000, just above Athens 2004, but below Beijing 2008 and London 2012.  In terms of adult 18-49 rating (what an advertiser cares about), Rio was well below […]

  In about a year, the reboot of the network late-night talk shows will be complete, now that David Letterman, cranky genius of the format, has announced that sometime in 2015 he’ll be retiring.  With Jimmy Kimmel’s move to 11:35PM and the recent ascensions of Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, it will be the first […]

  OPENINGS:  After last week’s Barbenheimer fireworks, the box office for new movies returned to earth–with a thud in the case of HAUNTED MANSION (Disney), which was at the bottom of projections at $24.2M.  With the exception of Guardians 3, it’s been a tepid summer for Disney, and Haunted Mansion carries production/marketing costs in the […]

> So what just happened, and what’s likely to happen next?  Here’s a quick look at what’s new in Panem: FINAL NUMBERS:  It turns out THE HUNGER GAMES wasn’t such a hit after all, earning a measly $152.5M in its first 3 days of release, instead of the estimated $155M.  Actually the discrepancy was pretty […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  2  BROKE GIRLS and THE VOICE both climbed 0.1, and that was it for the adjustments on original programming.  At 10PM, all the reruns were up 0.1. MONDAY CABLE:  WWE (USA) was as usual in the lead, although at 1.7 it was down 0.2 from last week.  On VH1, BASKETBALL WIVES was […]

  OPENINGS:  IF (Paramount) was at the low end of projections with $35M, although that was an improvement over where it seemed to be headed after Friday’s $10.4M.  The key was strong family turnout on Saturday, but while IF benefited from being the first major release for that demographic in the 11 weeks since Kung […]

> Frontloading strikes again. THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit), with $18.9M on its 2nd Friday, is behaving like a sequel, even though it isn’t one.  It’s down 72% from opening day, which is consistent with the second Fridays of mega-sequels like The Dark Knight (down 65%), Twilight:  New Moon (-76%), Breaking Dawn Part 1 (-77%), Harry […]

  OPENINGS:  THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sony) is still several days from its US opening, but the superhero spectacle already has $132M in the bank after a $67.2M 2d weekend in 42 international territories–which don’t yet include such lucrative areas as China, Brazil and France.  It should be over $150M before any US ticketbuyer has […]