Jon Stewart is becoming positively Lorne Michaels-ian in his influence over comedy culture far beyond his own show.  It was announced today, to no one’s great surprise, that his colleague and protege Stephen Colbert will take over the helm of CBS’s late-night talk show when David Letterman retires next year.  (Once it was revealed […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  SVU’s 0.1 upward adjustment meant that it, too, beat AMERICAN IDOL on Wednesday.  MIXOLOGY also came up 0.1, as did each of the reruns that preceded it on ABC. WEDNESDAY CABLE:  A very slow night on cable, as the NBA game on ESPN led with 1.0, and AMERICAN PICKERS (0.9) was behind […]

Wednesday preliminary broadcast ratings:

  The Network Scorecard was in transit this morning, so we’ll jump to final Tuesday numbers. ABC:  In final numbers, AGENTS OF SHIELD gained back 0.2 of the 0.3 it lost this morning, avoiding a series low.  However, considering that this was supposed to be the show’s big game-changing crossover with the storyline of CAPTAIN […]

  UPDATE:  ONCE UPON A TIME gained 0.2 in final numbers, increasing its lead over RESURRECTION even though the latter inched up 0.1 (still down 0.2 from the previous week).  Also up 0.1:  AMERICAN HOME BUILDERS and AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS. SUNDAY CABLE:  HBO gave GAME OF THRONES a 2-year renewal today (bringing it through […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  The NCAA FINALS adjusted up to 7.2 in final numbers, but that was still significantly down from last year’s 8.4.  What time zone adjustment giveth it also taketh away, and that BIG BANG THEORY rerun at 8PM looked a lot less impressive when reduced to 2.0, while the game’s PRE-GAME SHOW fell […]

  It was a dull week for the broadcast networks, with little variation from the week before.  CBS had the advantage, thanks to the series finale of How I Met Your Mother, giving it a 2.16 average in 18-49s for the week (5 nights same day finals, 2 nights overnights), up 0.08.  ABC followed with […]

  MONDAY UPDATE:  The most significant change from the overnights was the 0.1 decline for HART OF DIXIE, which doesn’t sound like much, but reduced the show to a tiny 0.2 rating, which one would think even on CW would mean certain cancellation.  The KITCHEN NIGHTMARES rerun was up 0.1 on FOX, but the RAISING […]