This past sports weekend was dominated by four Divisional playoff games.  The first game in the Saturday doubleheader, traditionally the weakest matchup, turned out to be one of the best games (an exciting contest finally settled in double overtime). The Ravens and Broncos game Saturday at 4:30 (21.6 HH rating in the 56 large markets with […]

Without The Voice to support it, Smash started its second season with a ratings trainwreck to match the creative disaster that is the show.  Read Mitch Salem’s review here. Half-hour ratings for network television last night are shown below.  Most notably, Smash started at 1.3 rating with adults 18-49 (already down from its very modest lead-in, Betty White’s 2nd Annual 90th Birthday — […]

CBS is going to win this season, but not on the strength of its new series. CBS:  The one area where CBS has been weak this season (although no weaker than anyone else) has been in launching new series, with only Elementary having any particular success.  That didn’t change last night with the “preview” of […]

The PaleyFest panel for FOX’s NEW GIRL was as goofy and likable as the show itself, as Jake Johnson (Nick) was talked into not just performing the show’s theme song–after Zoey Deschanel (Jess) demurred–but Nick’s woeful moonwalk as well (Johnson took credit for the flipper-like hand gestures that went with it), Max Greenfield (Schmidt) reveled […]

The NBA playoffs continued on three networks this weekend, and the eight games collectively were very close to the comparable games last year (+1% overall).  The two ABC games were the highest-rated by far: a 5.0 household rating for Miami-Milwaukee and 4.1 rating for New York-Boston (in Nielsen’s 56 metered markets that comprise 70% of […]

DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary 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). ###

  It was almost like football season last night, with a sports overrun claiming Sunday’s biggest rating by far. CBS:  Per Mitch Metcalf:  “The Masters over-run into CBS prime time last night (including two sudden-death playoff holes) averaged a 4.1 fast national rating with adults 18-49, which we are adjusting up to 4.7 to reflect […]

CBS Sports continues its springtime roll, with The Masters coverage over the weekend up about 25% from last year.  Sunday’s final round hit an impressive 10.2 household rating in the 56 local markets measured by Nielsen (covering 70% of the country). NASCAR on Saturday night on FOX averaged a 3.5 household rating, down a tenth […]