The Sked: AWAKE Ratings Forecast

Well, AWAKE certainly has an open field competitively tonight.  The heavily-promoted premiere of the new NBC drama (averaging over 40 seconds of on-air promotion time per hour on NBC for weeks) faces a repeat The Mentalist on CBS (which follows a repeat Person of Interest) and a very soft entry on ABC, a repeat of the Jimmy Kimmel Live that originally aired after the Oscars (which follows a repeat of Grey's Anatomy).  The only other show of any significance on the night is a two-hour American Idol on FOX from 8-10 pm.  If FOX wanted to play games, it could have let the live episode of Idol run long and placed a 5+ rating directly against Awake for at least the first few minutes.  But it appears FOX ended Idol on time at 10:00 pm ET tonight.

So there is no competition on the broadcast networks against Awake.  So far so good.  The bad news is that Up All Night is its lead-in.  Although the Up All Night episode is an original that will be facing repeats on ABC and CBS, it's hard to imagine viewers suddenly flocking to the show.  With a weak lead-in, Awake will have to generate its own heat and draw viewers to NBC at 10 pm.  And while tons of promos have aired for Awake, relatively few people have seen them outside of NBC's Monday night.  Further, outside media spending (radio, digital, cable, and those giant vanity billboards) does not seem anywhere near Smash levels.  Totally subjective assessment, there does not seem to be a lot of heat for Awake out there.

So what's the forecast?  We'll say a 2.4 rating for the premiere, building off a 1.9 or 2.0 for Up All Night.  Week two will face an original Mentalist, which should knock the show down a peg and then settle in around a 2 rating fairly rapidly.  
  

            ShowBuzzDaily Forecast
            AWAKE -- NBC Thursday
             Adults 18-49 Rating

          Week 1   Week 2   Week 3   Week 4
            2.4      2.1      2.1      2.0


The real verdict from the Nielsen sample will be available around 11 am ET Friday.  Keep checking for updates tomorrow. 


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