> Possibly because the Golden Globes take place in much less proximity to the Emmys than they do to the Oscars, and thus aren’t the crucial part of network gamesplaying that they are for the movie studios, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s TV awards have always tended to be more adventurous and genuine than the […]

  Warner Bros and Peter Jackson are very, very lucky that THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is a significantly better movie than last year’s An Unexpected Journey, which will give it strong word of mouth, because early box office indications are that audiences, burned by Journey, are initially dubious about spending 3 more hours […]

  BROADCAST FINALS ABC:  THE CONNERS dropped 0.06 to 0.50, THE GOLDBERGS slipped 0.02 to 0.39, ABBOTT ELEMENTARY lost 0.05 to 0.50, and HOME ECONOMICS was up 0.02 to 0.41.  BIG SKY was down 0.04 to 0.27. CBS:  SURVIVOR fell 0.14 to 0.62, and THE AMAZING RACE (relocated to 9PM) was up 0.06 to 0.36.  […]

> There’s a principled discussion to be had about whether the Sundance Film Festival should be featuring movies that are essentially low-budget Hollywood entertainments made outside the studio system. But that discussion fades into irrelevance when the result is as hilarious and accomplished as FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL…, which premiered tonight. Directed by first-time […]

  PROVEN INNOCENT showed a faint sign of life. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary live+same day 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 […]

The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday December 21 and Sunday December 22, 2013. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) cover about 70% of the US television population.   College Football Early Bowls 2.3 rating ABC 3:30 Las Vegas Bowl Fresno State vs USC […]

  OPENINGS:  The $9M start for THE MENU (Searchlight/Disney) was below the $10.1M launch of Barbarian–and The Menu cost about $20M more to produce.  Combine that with the fact that The Menu is really more of a very dark satire than a horror movie, and its prospects look questionable.  The film also opened in 36 […]

> Beware the round-number weekend estimate. OPENINGS:  THE GREY (Open Road) is claiming an even $20M gross for the weekend, which would make tomorrow’s adjusted number starting with “19” no surprise at all.  In any case, it’s a bit lower than Liam Neeson’s other starts in his new career as an action star, but Grey […]