FRIDAY STARZ:  DA VINCI’S DEMONS held steady in Week 3 with 18-49s at 0.2, but it tumbled quite a bit in the older-skewing total viewers metric, falling from 503K viewers to 382K.  (And this, remember, is after Starz swore last week that the only reason the show fell sharply from its premiere–when it had 1M […]

  Wasting no time, NBC has already issued the promo for its fall Monday 10PM drama THE BLACKLIST: At first glance, it appears to be a mash-up of 24 and Silence of the Lambs, with James Spader as the show’s ersatz Hannibal Lecter, with his own Clarice Starling-ish inexperienced FBI agent as his confidante (there’s […]

  Kyle Killen’s Lone Star and Awake were two of the most ambitious network series of recent years–and two of the most resounding flops.  He has to be hoping that his third time (and third network) is the charm, with ABC’s TBD midseason series MIND GAMES.  It features Steve Zahn and Christian Slater as brothers […]

  Viewers continued to check out early on the season last night. ABC:  The season finale of DANCING WITH THE STARS was up a big 0.8 from last week to 2.6–but that was also down a big 0.7 from last season’s finale, for the lowest rated finish in the show’s history.  The night started with […]

  Last night’s premiere telecast of KING & MAXWELL gave TNT a decent 0.6-0.7 rating in the 18-49 demo and 3.5M total viewers, an old-skewing result (only around one-quarter of total viewers were under 50) that’s consistent with its lead-in MAJOR CRIMES, albeit losing about 30% of that show’s numbers.  If King can hold there, […]

Projected weekly network ratings in prime time (based on four days of official nationals and three days of fast nationals).  ABC tumbles to last place with the NBA Finals all wrapped up.  The network is now pacing 12% behind last year’s comparable week.  CBS is back in the game with the early premiere of Big Brother and […]

  Cable Highlights:  In the morning’s overnight ratings, last night’s ESPY AWARDS on ESPN rose a healthy 0.3 from last year to a 1.9 household rating, giving host Jon Hamm a nice lead-in to this morning’s Emmy nomination for Best Drama Actor. But while last year the awards finished with a 1.2 adult 18-49 rating, this […]

  There’s everything else on television… and then there’s NFL football. NBC:  The preseason exhibition HALL OF FAME GAME is about as meaningless as any “NFL” game can be, but nonetheless it was the first sign of pro football since winter, and last night’s rating (currently at 3.5, which we estimate will rise to 3.8 […]