>   Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and […]

  BROADCAST FINALS ABC:  AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS dropped 0.06 to 0.41, CELEBRITY JEOPARDY jumped 0.11 to 0.49, CELEBRITY WHEEL OF FORTUNE was up 0.04 to 0.40, and a MICHELLE OBAMA INTERVIEW special was at 0.26. CBS:  Compared to their last time slot airings when the network didn’t have the late national NFL game, 60 […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  THE OSCARS ended up at 10.5, down a fairly small 0.3 from the 2015 telecast.  Interestingly, in the final national numbers, the rating was basically steady through the telecast, without the bump in the first half-hour that was evident in the overnights.  The LIVE FROM THE RED CARPET pre-show […]

  NBC understandably wants to shout its early-season good tidings as loudly as possible, and to that end it’s given very quick back orders (9 additional episodes on top of the 13-episode initial order) to REVOLUTION, GO ON and THE NEW NORMAL.  The first two of these are completely logical, as Revolution and, to a […]

Even exhibition football is football. NBC:  NFL PRESEASON FOOTBALL took the night with a 2.9, which is just a taste of what the numbers will be in a few weeks when the real thing returns.  Even a MADDEN NFL pre-show came in 2d place in the 7PM hour, trailing only… football. FOX:  A 2.0 afternoon […]

  AMC:  With one week to go until its fall finale, THE WALKING DEAD was of course at the top of the night, with a combined 7.0 (up 0.3 from last week) for its two primetime airings.  As has become traditional, this was only behind the week’s network football games (Sunday and Thanksgiving night) as […]

  THE MASKED SINGER took a hit from the CMA AWARDS. 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 […]

  Ratings in key demos for the Top 25 original cable telecasts (plus a few other lower-rated but noteworthy programs): NOTE:  Due to Nielsen’s sometimes arcane coding of special programming, the chart below will need to be revised, as several of TNT’s NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND shows, which were actually among the top-rated telecasts of the […]