NETWORK UPDATE:  Both DANCING WITH THE STARS and the CASTLE season finale were up 0.1 in final numbers.  The same was true for FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES and BONES.  But 24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY and THE BLACKLIST stayed put (so BLACKLIST was actually down for its season finale), and both the STAR-CROSSED series finale […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover) give plenty of notes, helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to […]

Note: Local broadcast coverage of the ESPN NFL Monday Night Football doubleheader impacted the fast-affiliate nationals below. ABC numbers are inflated slightly by local pre-emptions in Houston for the early game and San Francisco-Oakland for the late game. NBC numbers inflated slightly by a pre-emption in New Orleans for the early game. In Denver, the […]

  GODZILLA (Warners/Legendary) is proving to be a somewhat frontloaded hit, with preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere showing a Saturday drop of 15-20%, down from $38.5M on Friday to $32-32.5M.  If that holds, it will be a much heavier fall than the ones for Captain America: The Winter Soldier (down 6% to $34.7M) or […]

> Hollywood, like teen girls before a Twilight opening, counts the hours until THE AVENGERS arrives. OPENINGS:  Universal badly miscalculated when it scheduled THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT for a weekend when Think Like A Man and The Lucky One were both available for the romance market.  The movie was moderately budgeted (although it had a substantial […]

  The studios continued to be bullish on their holiday estimates, with preliminary Monday numbers expecting strong business that may or may not be confirmed in final box office figures tomorrow.  For now, the most optimistic film is HEAVEN IS FOR REAL (TriStar/Sony), expecting a mere 7% drop on Monday, with the older skewing NEIGHBORS […]

>With eight nights of ratings in for the May Sweep (official ratings for April 26-May 2 and fast national ratings for May 3), here’s an early look at the final major ratings sweep period of the broadcast season, when ratings are measured locally in each of the 214 television markets across the country.  The numbers […]

The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday June 7 and Sunday June 8, 2014. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) cover about 70% of the US television population.   Horse Racing: Triple Crown Belmont Stakes (Saturday) 4.0 rating NBC 4:30-5:00 pm (+190% from 2.1 […]