BREAKING BAD kicked off its 5th season in fine style for AMC last night, recording the show’s most-watched episode (2.9M viewers, up 14% from the Season 4 premiere), and what should be a 1.4 in the 18-49 demo, a whopping 34% year-to-year increase (2/3 of its viewers were under 50).  That means the show […]

Here are the weekend sports ratings for Saturday and Sunday July 23-24, 2016.  Eligible programs include sporting events on broadcast and cable networks (minimum audience size 150K P2+).  Programs are grouped by sport and ranked within each sport by P2+ audience size.   For comparison, here is the same chart for the same weekend last year, July […]

  Some networks were untouched by the massive Olympics ratings being piled up by NBC, while others appeared to be hit hard. USA:  Last night’s BURN NOTICE showed the limitations of the USA house format, as what should have been a relatively serious hour following the death of a major recurring character was 90% the […]

  The NFL PLAYOFFS, naturally, were dominant. 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). Ratings analysis and […]

Here are the weekend sports ratings for Saturday and Sunday August 6-7, 2016.  Eligible programs include sporting events on broadcast and cable networks (minimum audience size 150K P2+).  Programs are grouped by sport and ranked within each sport by P2+ audience size.     For comparison, here is the same chart for the same weekend last year, […]

No one watches TV on Labor Day. NBC:  The post-Olympics scheduling experiment reached its nadir, as STARS EARN STRIPES hit a new low 0.9 in its finale, and GRIMM‘s 1.4 was down 0.2 from last week and just even with its numbers on low-rated Friday last season.  (The network also aired some notably confusing promos […]

  Friday isn’t yet Saturday for the broadcast networks–there’s still plenty of original programming on the night.  But declining ratings and revenues have made it something like the network Island of Misfit Toys, where shows that skew too old or fall in too narrow a niche share space with miscellaneous newsmagazines and reality shows.  It’s […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  ABC’s DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES DEBATE adjusted up to 1.3.           Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart     CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  A&E’s LIVE PD led Friday cable, up 0.04 to 0.53, with the lead-in hour up 0.02 to 0.32.  Discovery’s GOLD RUSH was at 0.48/0.36/0.22, compared to last […]