We’re continuing our survey of the fall primetime schedule (our merry band includes former head of NBC Scheduling Mitch Metcalf, former head of NBC Current Programming Ted Frank and myself) with Thursdays, when CBS will finally do what people have been expecting for the past several seasons and expand to a 4-sitcom night.  (Here […]

  Talent competition shows continued to dominate network television. NBC:  After THE VOICE‘s new Tuesday low 3.0 (down 0.2 from last week), AMERICA’S GOT TALENT premiered with a 3.1 rating from 9-11 pm (3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.0 by half hour).  This was its lowest-ever premiere; last year the show debuted with a 3.7 rating, […]

  Cable ratings will be fragmentary until tomorrow, but here are some numbers worth noting: MAD MEN‘s Season 6 finale was, despite some viewers’ misgivings about this season, the show’s highest-rated finale ever, with 2.7M total viewers.  (AMC didn’t release 18-49 numbers, but Mad Men has always skewed old.)  That was 200,000 more viewers than […]

Projected weekly network ratings in prime time (based on four days of official nationals and three days of fast nationals).  NBC is on track to hang on for another victory in primetime with adults 18-49 this past week, although CBS and FOX are extremely close behind in a virtual three-way tie for first place.  All […]

  NBC returned with new episodes and was dominant once again. 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 […]

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here. TROPHY WIFE:  Tuesday 9:30PM on ABC – If Nothing Else is On… If you like your comedy innocuous, TROPHY WIFE may fit the bill.  The title is ironic:  although Kate (Malin Akerman) is the young, beautiful third wife of Peter (Bradley Whitford), she’s not after his money–he’s […]

  Don’t get too comfortable with this morning’s numbers.  Per Mitch Metcalf:  “Because of local pre-emptions for NFL preseason games, each network except for FOX should decline in the official nationals.  CBS, NBC and CW should drop about one tenth of a rating point (maybe two tenths).  But ABC will drop the most (down four […]

Through Thursday, coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on CBS and the Turner networks (TNT, TBS and TruTV) is averaging almost 9.2 million viewers 2+ live+same day across the four networks in an average minute. That is up +9% from last year’s recent low of 8.4 million for the same games and up +2% […]