THE SKED SUNDAY SCRIPTED CABLE SCORECARD – 8/5/12

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Any negative ratings effect due to the Olympics seems to have subsided, as the numbers were generally up for cable on Sunday night.

HBO:  TRUE BLOOD, of course, was in the lead, with a 2.7 rating that was up slightly from last week, and another crazytime episode that at least let us bid adieu to the Smoke Monster (as well as a previously well-liked recurring character).  THE NEWSROOM was just a bit of self-righteousness and an idiotic Will-is-stoned-on-the-air subplot away from its most outstanding hour thus far, and the ratings were up a touch to 0.8.  Both shows also skewed a touch younger than last week, with total viewer numbers that were even despite the higher demo ratings.

AMC:  Anna Gunn’s showcase episode of BREAKING BAD, an hour that was like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? if George had been a homicidal meth dealer, was up slightly in both the 18-49 demo (to 1.2) and total viewers.  Also worth nothing:  the episode was superbly directed by Rian Johnson, whose new film Looper will in just a few weeks be the Opening Night presentation at the Toronto Film Festival.  (It was a good night for indie directors on cable:  The Newsroom was directed by Joshua Marston, the man behind the excellent Maria Full of Grace.)

TNT:  After taking a week off against the first Sunday of the Olympics, FALLING SKIES was back with a strong 1.3, more than 50% of its total audience in the 18-49 demo.  The rest of the schedule fared less well, however, with lead-in LEVERAGE at 0.7 and the unscripted GREAT ESCAPE slumping to 0.5 at 10PM.

LIFETIME:  ARMY WIVES was also back after a week’s hiatus to continue its weirdly violent season, this time sparking the hour with some domestic terrorism, with a standard 0.9 (about 40% of the total under 50).  DROP DEAD DIVA was slightly lower at 0.7.

A&E:  Another network back from a break, as LONGMIRE held steady with 0.8 (as usual, the bulk of the viewers–almost 3/4–were over 50), and THE GLADES just below at 0.7.

USA:  POLITICAL ANIMALS managed to stay even at 0.4, for all the good it’s going to do the show, which is entering its homestretch without becoming any more interesting.

SHOWTIME:  EPISODES barely has a pulse (although apparently it’s getting a renewal).  It held at little more than 0.1 with an episode that cleverly played with the idea of a Friends co-star stunt-casting on the show-within-the-show (which, in a meta moment, Showtime tried to promote as though it would have a bigger punchline than it actually did).  However, glass-half-full fans may prefer to note that it ws up 30% from last week.  The valedictory season of WEEDS was also up a bit (less impressively in terms of percentages, because it wasn’t starting from nearly as low a number) to over 0.3.  We’ve noted this before, but it bears repeating that when talking about numbers this minute, it takes only a handful of Nielsen viewers to seemingly move the needle, so these kinds of changes may or may not really reflect increases in viewers at large.