THE SKED’S Friday-Monday Cable Scorecard – 5/3-6/13

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FRIDAY

STARZ:  DA VINCI’S DEMONS stayed at an 0.2 rating in the 18-49 demo, and had a very slight increase among older viewers to give it 420K.  With such a serialized storyline, it seems unlikely to move much higher for the remainder of the season.

SATURDAY

BBCAMERICA:  It’s a shame that ORPHAN BLACK is the best-kept secret on television.  This week was its most enjoyable episode yet, a gleeful near-farce full of clones and their mysterious minders bumping into each other in the middle of suburbia and alternately trying to kill and rescue one another, but the rating stayed at a minimal 0.1 in 18-49s and 340K total viewers–losing 60% of its DOCTOR WHO lead-in’s audience.  Luckily, BBCAmerica is small enough that it doesn’t live and die by ratings points, and Orphan has been renewed for a second season. (The Orphan numbers actually aren’t terribly worse than BBCA’s also-renewed Copper, which airs on better-watched Sundays and has to be rounded up to a 0.2 in the 18-49 demo, although Copper gets about double the total viewers.)

SUNDAY

HBO:  Whoever ultimately sits on the Iron Throne, the winner of the GAME OF THRONES is unquestionably HBO, which is garnering new record ratings practically every week of Season 3.  This week Game climbed to a 2.9 in the demo (plus 0.5 for the 11PM rebroadcast) and 5.5M total viewers (plus another 1.3M).  Considering that these numbers only cover one-third of US households, they’re at blockbuster proportions.  VEEP slipped slightly to an 0.6 in the demo.

AMC:  MAD MEN had its first giant plot twist of the season, which made for its most enjoyable episode of 2013–but because this is Mad Men, AMC couldn’t promote that fact in advance.  Nevertheless, the show edged back up to 0.9, staying steady in total viewers at 2.5M.

LIFETIME:  A less lugubrious episode of THE CLIENT LIST dipped back to 0.8, putting it slightly behind ARMY WIVES and its 0.9, and the same was true in total viewers, with respective 2.1M and 2.7M.

SHOWTIME:  NURSE JACKIE was very even at 0.3 and 725K total viewers, while THE BORGIAS stayed at 0.2 in the demo, but notched another 100K total viewers to 670K.

MONDAY

A&E:  It was steady sailing for BATES MOTEL, still at a 1.3 in the demo (dipping slightly in total viewers to 2.7M), plus 0.5 and 1.1M more for the 11PM rebroadcast–both those latter numbers were a bit higher than last week’s re-airing.

SYFY:  DEFIANCE should get a renewal order any time now, with another even performance of 0.8 in the demo and 2.2M total viewers (plus 0.3/920K at 11PM).  WAREHOUSE 13 also held steady, but at less impressive levels, with a 0.5 and 1.3M total viewers.