Sadly, if not surprisingly, the most notable development on TV last night was the quick dissipation of any promise from last week’s premiere that The Newsroom had learned from its Season 1 mistakes, as its insufferable self-righteousness (the 9/11 flashback) and unspeakable rom-com contortions (the laundromat excursion) were on full display.  Ah well.  Meanwhile, to the […]

  We don’t have data yet for the season premiere of Breaking Bad, which frankly is of more interest than any of the blah network numbers last night. CBS:  The 0.3 boost for 60 MINUTES (to 1.2) is probably mostly due to a 9-minute overrun for the end of the PGA CHAMPIONSHIP, and will be […]

DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary live+same day 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). Note: The fast affiliate-based ratings below measure what aired on […]

  Last night was the final Thursday of exhibition football, so the last time we have to note that the night’s preliminary TV ratings are significantly inflated by local preemptions for NFL games.  CBS: at least 10 major markets covering 19.8% of the country, including New York (Jets), Dallas, Boston, Atlanta and Miami.  NBC: at […]

DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary live+same day 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). Note: The fast affiliate-based ratings below measure what aired on […]

Better late than never — the weekly ranking of the top telecasts on television the last two weeks.

  CW’s experiment with historical romance didn’t get off to a great start. CW:  An 0.8 isn’t a terrible number for CW, so if REIGN can manage to hold there, it has a chance.  But its debut was 0.2 below the launch of The Originals, and a big 0.4 under last year’s premiere of Beauty & […]

  It’s entirely possible that SEAN SAVES THE WORLD will never again hit the 1.4 rating it had last night (at least not unless NBC gives it The Voice as a lead-in again), so the network seized the opportunity of a less-horrible rating to announce a reduced back-order of 5 additional episodes.  As with the […]