>Back to a first place tie on Thursday between CBS (with mostly original episodes this week) and FOX (with Idol down to a one-hour edition) followed by The Finder. You will notice we do not have year-to-year comparisons for this night. Two very helpful readers identified a problem with recent year-ago comparisons, and it is clear the past several days were comparing incorrect data. (Although the rest of the data for the 2010-11 season appears correct, we are making sure the error is isolated and then will resume the comparisons when the entire year is cleaned up.)
Nightly Adult 18-49 Rating
Thursday FOX NBC CBS ABC
03.08.2012 3.6 1.8 3.6 1.3 THIS WEEK
03.01.2012 5.4 1.9 2.1 1.1 LAST WEEK
03.10.2011 N/A N/A N/A N/A LAST YEAR
NBC aired the second episode of Awake at 10 pm, which declined from a 2.0 Adult 18-49 last week in the official nationals to a 1.6 last night in the preliminaries. This second-week decline is in line with the ShowBuzzDaily forecast of a three-tenths of a rating point drop. Awake declined slightly at 10:30 pm last night (1.6 from 10:00-10:30 and 1.5 from 10:30-11:00), although a one-tenth drop for a 10 pm drama is fairly typical. The audience seems to be locking into the very weak 1.5/1.6 range. The comedies from 8:30-10:00 were up a tenth or two from last week (with ABC in repeats) but none of that extra audience flowed to Awake.
Season Past Six Weeks
NBC Thu High Low 2.02 2.09 2.16 2.23 3.01 3.08
Community 1.8 1.4
30 Rock 1.8 1.3 1.3 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.4*
Parks & Rec 2.1 1.7 1.7 — 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.9*
The Office 3.9 2.3 2.8 2.5 2.3 2.6 2.5 2.6*
Whitney 3.3 1.9
Up All Night 2.0 1.5 1.8 1.7 1.5 1.7 1.6 1.7*
Awake 1.9 1.9 2.0 1.6*
Prime Suspect 1.8 0.8
The Firm 1.0 0.8 0.8 — — —
American Idol dropped back down to below a 5 rating last night (erasing the short-term momentum we saw Wednesday night) and contracted to one hour from two hours last week. The return of The Finder (its “winter finale”) brought FOX’s prime time average to a 3.6 rating this week, putting it in a tie for first with CBS.
Season Past Six Weeks
FOX Thu High Low 2.02 2.09 2.16 2.23 3.01 3.08
X Factor 4.3 2.8
American Idol 5.7 4.5 5.5 5.8 5.1 4.5 5.4 4.8*
Bones 3.3 2.4
The Finder 2.8 1.7 2.4 2.2 — 2.0 — 2.3*
CBS returned with original episodes Thursday in all time periods except 8:30, where a repeat Big Bang Theory (4.0) vastly improved upon recent Rob original episodes. Person of Interest is on track for a season high (the “two men and baby” theme in the fairly heavy promotion for the episode certainly helped), and Mentalist was up from recent weeks.
Season Past Six Weeks
CBS Thu High Low 2.02 2.09 2.16 2.23 3.01 3.08
Big Bang Theory 5.5 4.5 5.5 5.6 5.1 5.3 3.2R 5.1*
Rules Engagment 3.7 2.7
Rob 4.1 2.9 3.3 3.3 3.2 2.9 2.6 —
Person Interest 3.3 2.6 3.3 3.3 2.8 3.1 1.8R 3.4*
Mentalist 3.0 2.5 2.9 3.0 2.7 2.6 1.7R 2.8*
ABC took a distant fourth place, again with a repeat line-up this week. Instead of a Private Practice repeat at 10 pm, a repeat of the GCB pilot averaged a 1.3 rating, not too far behind the Awake original on NBC.
Season Past Six Weeks
ABC Thu High Low 2.02 2.09 2.16 2.23 3.01 3.08
Charlie’s Ang 2.1 1.1
Wipeout 2.7 1.5 1.8 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.1R 1.3R
Grey’s Anatomy 4.5 3.1 3.6 4.0 3.2 3.1 1.1R 1.1R
Private Prac 2.8 2.1 2.3 2.2 2.6 2.1 —
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