AFTERNOON UPDATE:  There was no comfort for FOX in the final numbers, which left AMERICAN IDOL at 2.4, and even worse, left SURVIVOR at 2.5, giving the 14-year old reality show veteran its first win over IDOL.  SUBURGATORY, however, eased its own pain by rising 0.2 to 1.6, reversing most of the drop from […]

  BROADCAST FINALS: ABC:  The finale of JEOPARDY MASTERS rose 0.11 to 0.61, and THE PRANK PANEL premiered at 0.30.  THE GAME SHOW SHOW fell 0.09 to 0.19. CBS:  The season finale of SURVIVOR was at 0.69, down 0.02 from last week and down a tenth from last May. NBC:  On season finale night, CHICAGO […]

> Greendale Community College 4-Ever! NBC:  The network seized the opportunity opened by CBS’s sure-to-be-low-rated NCAA coverage, and COMMUNITY‘s 2.2 was by far its highest rating of the season.  In fact, it was only 0.1 below THE OFFICE, NBC’s signature scripted sitcom.  That will probably never happen again, so allow a Community fan to savor […]

  UPDATE:  The big change came early in the evening, as 60 MINUTES adjusted down 0.6 to 2.0, reflecting the deduction of the time zone viewers who were actually watching NCAA TOURNAMENT coverage.  That overrun rose 0.1 to 4.0, and all the rest of the night’s changes were also a matter of 0.1 up or […]

  OPENINGS:  TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (Hasbro/Paramount) launched at the higher end of tracking expectations with $60.5M.  Beasts is a much bigger-budgeted effort than its immediate predecessor, 2018’s Bumblebee (which opened with $21.7M but had a 6x multiple thanks to word of mouth and the dynamics of the Christmas box office).  More impressively, Beasts […]

>The 12th weekend of the year should be a whopper: about $176 million for the top 12 films.  How big is that for the fourth weekend in March?  Enormous, unprecedented: up 62% from last year’s comparable weekend and up 55% from the four-year average for this weekend.  Of course, this weekend is all about The […]

  OPENINGS:  The $37M Friday for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (Disney) was the highest ever in the month of April, ahead of Fast Five‘s $34.4M.  Fast Five fell 13% on Saturday to hit a $86.2M weekend, and Winter Soldier will hope to beat that.  Depending on word of mouth, it could get as high […]

  OPENINGS:  PAW PATROL:  THE MIGHTY MOVIE (Nickelodeon/Paramount) launched with $23M, above expectations and an impressive rise over the $13.1M start for the 2021 installment of the franchise.  It also has $23.1M overseas from 45 markets (the 2021 film earned 72% of its global total internationally).  This series is produced at relatively low cost by […]