Thanks to the NCAA Tournament, CBS had a strong week, while the continuing decline of the new dramas on ABC and NBC dragged them down.  CBS had the weekly win (Live + Same Day, 5 days actual + 2 days overnights) with 2.09, up 0.30 from last week.  ABC followed at 1.50 (down 0.02), […]

  EMPIRE:  Midseason TBD on FOX THE FACTS:  Think Nashville, but with a hip-hop beat and an A-level pedigree.  Music tycoon Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) is dying–although not just yet–and has to decide who between his two sons will inherit his giant company, causing all manner of family scheming.  Complicating things further:  his ex-wife (Taraji […]

  According to Advertising Age, advertisers have begun to buy time on the broadcast networks for the 2014-15 TV season, which is the whole reason the hoopla of the “Upfronts” exists in the first place.  There are two basic components to each of these sales (although they can become quite intricate):  the rate that buyers […]

  If #6seasonsandamovie is going to happen for COMMUNITY, it won’t be at NBC, which finally fired the bullet that’s been aimed at Dan Harmon’s show seemingly every season since it went on the air.  That doesn’t necessarily mean Community is dead, since there have been murmurs of a possible move to cable or a […]

  THE WHISPERS:  Midseason TBD on ABC THE FACTS:  Something is taking possession of American children and making them do very bad things–like “kill your parents” bad things.  They may be on their way to launching an all-out attack, and Lily Rabe is the government agent tasked to stop them.  The series creator is Soo […]

  Other Nielsenwar Network Report Cards:  NBC One massive hit can make up for an awful lot of failure.  Have you met EMPIRE? Full Season To Date (thru May 3) 18-49 Rating Average:  1.53 (#4), down 26.2% from last season (Note:  FOX aired the Super Bowl in 2014-15; with that excluded, the year-to-year drop was […]

  NOTE:  Weekly and Season To Date Ratings Charts Are Below The war is over:  victory is television’s (make that “television”), which after decades of being considered the Fredo Corleone of dramatic narrative is now–to the evident recent discomfort of the film critics at the NY Times and LA Times–taken as seriously as the kind created […]

  A TO Z:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC THE FACTS:  The title refers to Andrew (Ben Feldman) and Zelda (Cristin Milioti), who both work at an online dating company, and who, since this is a rom-com, are of course fated for each other.  The series creator is Ben Queen, whose first series this is, and […]