March Madness, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, kicks off this week on CBS and a trio of cable networks (TNT, TBS and TruTV) with University of Kentucky, Michigan State, Syracuse and University of North Carolina the #1 seeds in the four regions. The ratings impact in prime time is minimal the first week but builds steadily in the second and third weeks as CBS becomes the exclusive broadcaster.
CBS coverage Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights should average less than a 2 rating with Adults 18-49 this week, similar to last year's format when CBS and the three cable partners split the games with each contest running nationally against the others. Until 2010, CBS covered the entire tournament and regionalized the games, and if a game was unusually lopsided that section of the country got switched to a more exciting contest. CBS had higher ratings in the first week in the old format broadcasting solo, but the additional cable partners allow them to afford the entire tournament and keep the crown jewel, the championship game, on over-the-air television.
Next week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights CBS should bounce around a 3 rating, while the real value of March Madness is cashed in when the calendar turns to April with a 7 rating or more on Monday, April 2. Now go fill out your bracket.
NCAA Basketball Tournament
Primetime Adult 18-49 Rating (CBS)
2012 2011 2010 2009
Rounds 1 & 2
Thu 3.15 1.7 3.5 3.6
Fri 3.16 1.5 3.4 3.0
Sat 3.17 1.5 3.6 3.7
Sweet 16 &
Elite 8
Thu 3.22 2.5 3.9 3.6
Fri 3.23 2.7 3.4 3.6
Sat 3.24 3.5 4.0 3.8
Final Four
Sat 3.31 5.1 4.8 5.0
Mon 4.02 7.1 8.2 6.3
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Showing posts with label cbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cbs. Show all posts
The Sked: MARCH MADNESS -- Ratings Outlook
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The Sked: Declining Network Ratings -- How Bad Are They?
For the past several weeks, "season low" and "down sharply from last year" have been repeated phrases in our daily ratings posts, mostly for broadcast network programs but also for cable programs, as well. What's going on here? After all, this season started in a very promising fashion with the combined audience for the four major broadcast networks even with the prior season, an almost impossible feat given the the ever increasing media fragmentation in today's world.
To take a broad view, we looked at the season in three distinct parts, summarized in the table below. In the first part of the television season (the first 11 weeks from September 19-December 4), ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX combined for a 10.4 Adult 18-49 rating in prime time, exactly the same rating as the comparable period in 2010. Then from December through most of January, the broadcast networks were pacing 4% behind the 2010-11 season, a decline more in line with past decade or so. Nothing to worry about, most thought. But then in late January up until now, the decline in network TV viewing has really picked up steam, pushing a double-digit rate.
4-Network (ABC CBS NBC FOX)
Prime Time Adult 18-49 Combined Rating
2011-12 2010-11 % chg
Sep 19-Dec 4 10.4 10.4 0%
Dec 5-Jan 22 9.0 9.4 -4%
Jan 23-Mar 4 10.2 11.1 -9%
To get an idea of the pace of change, the chart below shows the yearly decline in network television viewing for each week of the season to date. In the first part of the season, there were a few up weeks and a few down weeks but the magnitude of the differences generally were quite small (mostly under 5%). More recently, however, the weekly swings have become much more pronounced: more in the 10% or even 15%+ range and predominantly on the negative side.
Singing Competition: The Changing of the Guard. Clearly, much of the accelerating decline in the past few months is related to the collapse of FOX's American Idol and the ascendance of NBC's The Voice. The biggest nightly declines for network TV since late January have come on Idol's nights (Tuesday and Wednesday) and the only significant up night is Monday, home of The Voice. Many viewers who used to watch three to four hours per week of American Idol now can get their singing fix with two hours of The Voice, and the rest of the time spent formerly watching Idol apparently as not been shifted to other network programs. For from it. As we have seen recently, many marquee programs like Modern Family, Glee and The Office have suffered serious audience erosion over the course of the season and are stuck at season lows, far behind last season's pace.
Nightly Trend (This Year vs Last Year)
4-Network (ABC CBS NBC FOX)
% Change Adult 18-49 Prime Time Rating
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN Week
Sep 19-Dec 4 -2% 0% +9% +2% +19% +8% -5% 0%
Dec 5-Jan 22 +3% -16% +1% +2% -5% -11% -1% -4%
Jan 23-Mar 4 +12% -8% -19% -19% 0% -17% -1% -9%
Are viewers abandoning television? We know that time spent watching live television remains remarkably consistent over the years, based on Nielsen analysis. In fact, as DVR usage has risen, the total amount of time spent in front of a television has actually increased in the past five years. Young adults (18-34) now spend almost 33 hours per week in front of the TV, up slightly from five years ago. Although these young adults watch an hour less of live TV per week since 2007, DVR playback has increased well over an hour. (Viewing video online was not a part of this particular study, but separate Nielsen studies have shown time spent streaming is similar to the DVR playback levels and tends to be additive rather cannibalistic for TV viewing.) Middle-aged adults (35-54) watch over 37 hours per week, with about half an hour less live TV but almost two hours more DVR playback per week. And older adults (55+) now watch over 46 hours per week, with an hour more live TV and over an hour and half more DVR playback.
The DVR (and videogames for young adults) have only increased America's love affair with television. And the vast majority of time spent with television is still devoted to watching TV live -- even with younger viewers. We have not seen an update of this study into 2012, but given the long-term trends it is hard to imagine a sudden abandonment of the medium anywhere near the recent declines in broadcast prime time viewing.
Time Spent with Television per Week
Total Day (hours:minutes)
Adults 18-34 Adults 35-54 Adults 55+
2007 2011 2007 2011 2007 2011
Total TV 32:39 32:52 36:19 37:19 43:57 46:19
Live TV 27:02 26:00 32:32 32:08 41:50 42:53
DVR 1:34 2:46 1:36 3:22 0:50 2:30
Videogame 1:22 2:30 0:17 0:38 ---- ----
note: DVD and VHS playback not shown.
So the remarkable long-term durability of the television medium really puts the recent declines in broadcast network viewing in perspective. If the 9% broadcast decline since late January turns into the more recent 10-15% declines, an already stressed business model starts to become extremely frayed. And, oh yeah. Daylight Saving Time hits Sunday, as the longer days add yet another strong headwind for network ratings, particularly in the 8:00 pm hour of prime time. The season could get even bumpier for the broadcasters quite soon.
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THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: "A Gifted Man"
When A GIFTED MAN came onto the scene, it had all the high-class auspices a new series could want. The pilot was directed by Academy Award-winner Jonathan Demme, was written by Susannah Grant (Eric Brockovich) and had a cast that included such strong actors as Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Ehle, Margo Martindale (who, by the time the series premiered, had won a spectacularly-deserved Emmy for the previous season's Justified) and Pablo Schreiber; its main changes post-pilot were to add ER/SVU veteran Neal Baer as showrunner, and bring another bright talent, Rachelle Lefevre, to the cast. The basic concept--high-powered Manhattan surgeon is haunted by the chatty ghost of his do-gooder ex-wife, and gradually becomes a better and more charitable man--combined the medical genre with "A Christmas Carol" in a way that seemed promising.And yet... Gifted Man never really worked, and now it's a longshot for renewal by CBS. Returning to the show for its last episodes of the season, one could see that despite the tepid reception and low ratings, very little about the show had changed since its debut. Every week, Michael Holt (Wilson) would face twin medical crises, one at his posh uptown offices and the other at the free clinic his ex-wife Anna (Ehle) had founded, where he was now reluctantly providing his services (reluctant, that is, until the case of the week passionately engaged him). At some point, Anna would show up and chatter commentary on Michael's continued emotional blockage, invariably provoking "Huh? Who you talking to, Doc?' reactions from those standing nearby when Anna appeared. And although they bickered, Michael would share love-that-cannot-be looks with the unhappily married Dr. Kate Sykora (Lefevre), who had replaced Anna at the clinic.
The season finale didn't go out of its way to be terribly extra-dramatic. When Michael encountered the woman who had inherited Anna's transplanted heart, and the woman died in a car accident, there may have been the suggestion that the final loss of her heart might send Anna away for good, but it was kept vague. And the possibility of Michael and Kate becoming an actual couple (they had kissed in the previous episode) was put off for another indefinite time, as Kate and her husband decided to work on their marriage some more.
Gifted Man wasn't--isn't--a terrible show, and in fact not worse than some of the procedurals safely ensconced on CBS' air. It's limited, though, by its supernatural conceit, because it turned out that there wasn't much for Anna to do except kibbitz for a few minutes in each episode. The show might be better off jettisoning Anna if it somehow survives to a second season, and becoming a straightforward medical show. But one can't argue all that strongly for it--despite its pedigree, there's nothing about A Gifted Man that's become distinctive or memorable. It's probable that shinier pilots will come to light during pilot season, and Gifted Man's talent will survive to work another day somewhere else.
The Sked: Upscale Ratings -- CBS Profile
In the last post on upscale ratings, we looked at ABC, which has a high number of series that skew substantially toward upper-income viewers but not enough programs with a sizable total audience. Today, we turn our attention to CBS, which has taken a very different pathway to success: many shows with a large audience although very few series attract upper-income viewers. While the CBS prime time schedule averages a 2.9 rating with Adults 18-49 this season to date (far superior to ABC's 2.4), CBS falls to a 2.6 rating with Adults 18-49 in $100K+ homes (trailing ABC's 2.7). The CBS $100K+ index of 91 (100=average and anything under 100 indicates a downscale skew) is the lowest of the four major broadcast networks, and only quasi-network The CW has a lower index (83).
In the chart below, we have added each CBS regular series (in red) to one of nine categories (based on the combination of high, middle or low rating and upscale, midscale or downscale skew). Notice how few CBS shows are in the extreme right column (the upscale categories) or the bottom row (the low rating categories). The CBS line-up is very heavily concentrated in the upper-left area of the chart (high- and middle-rated shows in the downscale and midscale areas).
Monday Comedies. The most upscale shows on CBS are the Monday 8-10 pm and Thursday 8:00 pm comedies: How I Met Your Mother (111), Big Bang Theory (105), 2 Broke Girls (100), Two and a Half Men (97) and Mike & Molly (93). We are categorizing How I Met Your Mother as an upscale show, but keep in mind its index is just over the dividing line and actually is fairly close to the other flagship CBS multi-camera sitcoms. Although none of these shows has an exceptionally high index (denying the CBS sales department an upscale pricing premium), the ratings are high enough that no one at CBS is going to go hungry anytime soon. Additionally, the granddaddy of reality shows, Survivor, has an index similar to the CBS comedy hits (99), unspectacular but relatively high for CBS and decent for the reality genre as a whole.
Crime Dramas. In contrast, crime and detective dramas (the other staple of the CBS schedule) are not exactly magnets for upper-income viewers. The best index values for this CBS specialty are found with freshman series Person of Interest (89), the veteran NCIS (85) and its spinoff NCIS: Los Angeles (77). Hawaii Five-0 (83) also fits perfectly in this group and gives up any upscale traction (albeit limited) on CBS Monday earlier in the evening with the comedies. But others such as Criminal Minds (67), Unforgettable (65), the original CSI (62) and brand extensions CSI: Miami (68) and CSI: New York (65) are positively downscale. Again, the overall ratings are high enough that the revenue is there -- it's just that the network is leaving money on the advertising negotiating table by repelling viewers with more disposable income.
CBS Sunday. One upscale oasis on the CBS schedule is Sunday night, with the venerable 60 Minutes boasting a 132 index (much better than the Dateline or 20/20 indices, which are around 100). Amazing Race, perennial favorite of the TV Academy at Emmy time, with a 134 index also attracts high income viewers (who not surprisingly are also much more likely to have a passport and travel internationally, as lifestyle and psychographic studies consistently show). Finally, The Good Wife at 9 pm sports a 120 index, clearly the most upscale drama on CBS. However, the audience size on CBS Sunday is anything but dominant -- so any upscale premium is added to a middling price base.
Certainly, CBS chief Leslie Moonves would say something like, "CBS has a game plan that works very well for us. As the best broadcaster in the business, CBS attracts more viewers than any other network [i.e., change the subject from 18-49 ratings to 2+ because CBS has huge advantages in the 50+ and 65+ age groups], and we are paid very handsomely by Madison Avenue for our consistent audience delivery. Let the other networks crow about their ratings with tiny demographic groups like 35-49 year-old professors in New York City. At CBS, we look at the total score on the scoreboard, and that tally tells us the future is very bright at CBS." In fact, CBS is in very good overall shape, but imagine their strength if their comedies were more like 120 or 125 index values and if the crime dramas could move into the 100-110 range. They would be unstoppable.
The Sked: STRONG OVERNIGHTS FOR GRAMMYS
Metered market overnight ratings were very strong for The Grammys on CBS, which averaged a 22.0 household rating and 33 share from 8-11 pm. 60 Minutes began the night with a solid 10.4 rating and 16 share, followed by the show itself (which ran to 11:30) which averaged around a 26 rating and 38 share.
Last year, CBS averaged a 15.6 household rating and 25 share for the entire night.
The other networks were in the single-digit share range both years.
Fast national Adult 18-49 ratings will be available shortly.
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THE SKED: CBS Schedules NYC 22
CBS was so confident in its returning schedule this season that it barely ordered any back-up shows (and it wasn't far wrong). Its sole midseason drama, the high-profile cop drama now known as NYC 22 (after previous flirtations with Rookies and The 2-2) will hit the network's schedule starting April 15 on Sundays at 10PM.
NYC 22 won't actually dislodge any existing CBS show, as CSI Miami will have exhausted its 19-episode order for the season by the time tthe new series debuts. (It appears, at least for now, that CBS will keep The Good Wife on Sundays as NYC 22's lead-in.) Created by big-time novelist and screenwriter Richard Price (Sea of Love, The Color of Money, Clockers, etc) and with Robert DeNiro as one of the executive producers, NYC 22 had a promising but not completely successful pilot (see our pilot report Here)--however, in the months since it was produced, there's been plenty of time to improve the show, so let's hope for the best.
THE SKED PREMIERE REVIEW: "Rob"
ROB - Thursdays 8:30PM on CBS - Change the Channel
We live in a Dickensian era of situation comedies, the best and worst combined on every network. ABC is the home of both Modern Family and Work It; NBC contains Parks & Recreation and Whitney; FOX has New Girl and I Hate My Teenage Daughter. And at CBS, the same network creative team presents us with How I Met Your Mother and the new ROB, a dismal piece of work that debuted this evening. It's inconceivable that the networks aren't aware of the differences between their highs and lows; it's as though they periodically run out of energy and just stop caring what fills in the empty slots on their air. Rob, in this context, is less a comedy than it is grout.
Rob is, at least, less actively unpleasant than most of the terrible sit-coms on its fellow networks. It's not trying to simplemindedly shock viewers, or to be cutting-edge with hostility. It's just a slow, obvious, unfunny piece of work with little promise. The basic plot--and so far, that's all there is--goes back to the stone age of sitcoms. Written by Lew Morton and Rob Schneider, who stars and is a Co-Executive Producer, the story is inspired by Schneider's own life: he, like the "Rob" of the TV show, is married to a tall, young, gorgeous Hispanic woman from a large family. (Although the cynical might note that Schneider is a movie and TV star and not the landscape architect of the show's "Rob".) In the show, she's named Maggie (Claudia Bassols), and her family (father Cheech Marin, mother Diana Maria Riva, grandmother Lupe Ontiveros and uncle Eugenio Derbez) does not approve of Maggie's short, clumsy,, unimpressive, middle-aged husband, whose only notable attribute is a mild case of OCD. He tries to win them over; they warily decide to accept him for their daughter's sake; that's the show.
Sometimes a series gives the game away with a single joke, and when Rob, seconds after meeting Maggie's family, says that he feels like he's at a Julio Iglesias concert, it tells you everything you need to know about Rob. It's not mean-spirited, but it's carelessly humorless. The jokes take every obvious subject--illegal aliens, sangria, guacamole, shrines to dead grandfathers--and throw something witless in its direction, without any imagination, let alone insight. When it finally gathers itself for what's supposed to be the show's big sight-gag (Rob, through some idiotic contrivances, is caught grasping grandma from behind with his pants down, but hey, it's not what it looks like), the result is less offensive than pitiful. Combined with the old-fashioned mode of lengthy scenes played out on large, multi-camera sets, the 22 minutes crawl by.
The cast tries. Marin manages to draw a couple of chuckles, and Derbez practically contorts himself trying to get laughs from his loser-con man uncle. Bassols is certainly gorgeous, and probably benefits from the fact that since her character is the straight man, she doesn't bear the burden of bad punchlines. Ontiveros, for no apparent reason, has no dialogue. Schneider overdoes it, but he's been worse.
Rob is so rudimentary that it's like a 1950s training film on how to make a sit-com. Anyone who badly wants to see a show like it is better off switching to TV Land.
THE SKED: CS-Impressive
Just in case NBC's creative failure to effectively repopulate SVU this season weren't already glaringly obvious, CBS continues to show how it's supposed to be done with their recasting on CSI, where they're making lemons into lemony champagne. (Let's assume lemony champagne would actually be a good thing.) In the fall, they very effectively replaced Laurence Fishburne with Ted Danson, and today they announced that when Marg Helgenberger leaves the show early next year, her place will be taken by Elisabeth Shue, on paper a terrific piece of casting for the show.
Much like Madeleine Stowe on Revenge this season, Shue is a perfect candidate for a move to primetime TV: a movie star of the 1980s and 90s (most notably in 1995's Leaving Las Vegas, which won her an Oscar nomination) who, Hollywood being what it is for actresses no longer in their first flush of youth, has more recently been slumming in pictures like Piranha 3D. If anything, the combination of Danson and Shue represents a challenge to CSI's writers to move beyond the basic procedural genre of the show and give them some material worth their (and our) while. That may or may not happen, but in any case CSI, now in its 12th season, certainly has a classy new lease on life.
THE SKED: CBS Makes Some Decisions
Well, the good news for A GIFTED MAN is that it's not cancelled. It even has a "back order." However, it's about as begrudging as a back order can be: far from the usual 9 additional episodes, Gifted Man will only get 3 extra, for a season total of 16. This smacks of a network needing product for a few weeks rather than any enthusiasm for keeping a show on the air, but it allows the series a tiny bit of breathing room before departing on what may be a very long hiatus.
The Eye also cut the season order for RULES OF ENGAGEMENT from 18 episodes to 13 (in addition, there are 2 unaired episodes shot for last season, so the series will air 15 in all). In this case, the decision isn't by any means necessarily a death knell for the reliable comedy, which has been performing quite decently Thursdays in the 8:30PM slot. CBS needs the extra space to launch its new Rob Schneider comedy ROB! in that prime post-Big Bang Theory slot, starting in January.
CBS also announced that the new season of UNDERCOVER BOSS will take over THE AMAZING RACE's Sunday slot following the end of Race's current cycle, with the competition show to return at a later date. Boss will be competing with the new hit Once Upon A Time, FOX's cartoons, and a combination of Dateline and Harry's Law in the slot.
The Sked: Season to Date NIGHT by NIGHT
Midway through November is a good time to take a broad look at the television season. Looking at the entire prime time schedule, FOX is off to a very promising start in first place with a 3.1 Adult 18-49 rating, and even more impressively up 19% versus the same period last year. CBS is exactly even with last year, just under a 3.0 rating. Of course the weak are getting weaker, with both ABC and NBC down in the high single digits.
Season to Date Prime Time
Adult 18-49 Ratings
Sep 19-Nov 9, 2011
versus last year
2011 2010 % chg
FOX 3.20 2.69 +19%
CBS 2.96 2.95 + 0%
ABC 2.42 2.59 - 7%
NBC 2.28 2.52 - 9%
However, television is fought on a night by night basis, so let's take a look at each night of the week to see the challenges and opportunities facing each broadcast network.
FOX has the most balanced schedule of any network. It dominates Thursday, wins Tuesday and Friday and is contention on every other night of the week. Even more impressive, FOX is up on every single night of the week over last year except Saturday (the least important night of the week). Even if we exclude Game 6 of the World Series from Thursday's numbers, the nightly average is still a strong #1 (a 3.9 rating instead of a 4.4) and the growth rate is still a very strong 37% (instead of 54%). If we exclude Game 7 of the World Series from the Friday averages, the night averages a mediocre 1.4 rating, but the growth rate is still a very significant 72% (instead of 226% with Game 7 factored in). Kitchen Nightmares and Fringe remains a vast improvement over House repeats and Good Guys.
Season to Date Adult 18-49 Rating by Night
September 19-November 9, 2011
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
FOX 3.0 3.5 3.4 4.4 2.6 1.7 3.6
CBS 4.3 3.4 3.2 3.2 1.5 2.1 2.8
ABC 3.0 2.4 3.6 2.6 1.2 1.6 2.3
NBC 1.4 2.1 1.6 1.9 1.3 0.7 6.6
Percent Change versus Last Year by Night
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
FOX + 6 +10 +12 +54 +226 -20 + 5
CBS +22 + 5 + 1 - 5 - 8 +52 -28
ABC -20 - 9 +26 -12 - 5 -12 -13
NBC -29 -12 -23 -19 +10 -22 + 4
CBS is also well positioned throughout the week. Like FOX, it dominates one night (in its case Monday) and is in contention most everywhere -- although the one blemish is Sunday, where it has fallen below a 3 rating and more disturbingly is down a stunning 28% from last year. The one night that is a little misleading is Saturday, which is skewed by the LSU-Alabama football game on November 5. If we remove that mini-national championship, the CBS Saturday average falls to a 1.2 (from a 2.1) and more important the growth rate turns negative to -10% (from +52% with the game included). CBS is trending quite well on Monday (up 22%) and up moderately on Tuesday (up 5%), but the concern for the future arises mid-week and throughout the weekend. Wednesday is up only 1%, Thursday is down 5%, and Sunday will need a complete overhaul next season (again down 28%) to get CBS back in the game on a night it has traditionally done quite well with.
ABC really has good news on one night: Wednesday. It wins the night (though not quite in the convincing fashion CBS wins Monday or FOX wins Thursday) and it has amazing momentum (up 26% on Wednesday versus last year due to continued growth from The Middle, a complete makeover at 8:30 with Suburgatory, the enduring appeal and dominance of Modern Family, and a complete turnaround at 10 pm with Revenge nearly tripling the audience of The Whole Truth). But the midweek success story is marred by the declines on every other night. Too many dramas are aging too rapidly simultaneously. Once Upon a Time is off to a terrific start, but ABC needs to create two or three more within the next midseason and fall to replace the older dramas.
We know NBC is dependent on Sunday Night Football in the fall, but the extent of its reliance is shocking in the nightly ratings table. Only one other night cracks a 2 rating (Tuesday's 2.1 rating), with most other nights closer to a 1.5 than a 2.0 rating. Even worse, the tiny numbers are getting tinier, with five of seven nights down significantly (an average 21% decline). Friday is the lone up night with entertainment programming, thanks mostly to the successful launch of Grimm and solid performances by two-hour Dateline episodes early in the season.
It is interesting to note how many networks are up on various nights. When we look at the four-network total rating for Monday-Sunday, the major broadcast networks total a 10.9 rating, up 1% versus the same period last year. Some of this is due to some extraordinary sports ratings, but even if we exclude FOX's coverage of World Series Game 6 and 7 and CBS's coverage of LSU-Alabama, the total is still a 10.6, down only 2% versus last year. Given the past, seemingly inexorable decline of broadcast ratings, it is pretty amazing that the four networks are collectively either down a mere 2% or actually up 1%. When we look at the broadcast network totals by night, network viewing is up significantly on Wednesdays (mostly because of The X Factor and ABC's entire line-up) and Fridays (because FOX decided to get back in the game on the night and because of NBC's lone success there). Even Thursday is showing on overall uptick (again, mostly because of The X Factor). The only night in serious free-fall is Saturday, although Sunday should be watched carefully after football leaves the schedule in the winter. For an assumed dying industry, there are some encouraging signs of life, particularly because of FOX.
CBS is also well positioned throughout the week. Like FOX, it dominates one night (in its case Monday) and is in contention most everywhere -- although the one blemish is Sunday, where it has fallen below a 3 rating and more disturbingly is down a stunning 28% from last year. The one night that is a little misleading is Saturday, which is skewed by the LSU-Alabama football game on November 5. If we remove that mini-national championship, the CBS Saturday average falls to a 1.2 (from a 2.1) and more important the growth rate turns negative to -10% (from +52% with the game included). CBS is trending quite well on Monday (up 22%) and up moderately on Tuesday (up 5%), but the concern for the future arises mid-week and throughout the weekend. Wednesday is up only 1%, Thursday is down 5%, and Sunday will need a complete overhaul next season (again down 28%) to get CBS back in the game on a night it has traditionally done quite well with.
ABC really has good news on one night: Wednesday. It wins the night (though not quite in the convincing fashion CBS wins Monday or FOX wins Thursday) and it has amazing momentum (up 26% on Wednesday versus last year due to continued growth from The Middle, a complete makeover at 8:30 with Suburgatory, the enduring appeal and dominance of Modern Family, and a complete turnaround at 10 pm with Revenge nearly tripling the audience of The Whole Truth). But the midweek success story is marred by the declines on every other night. Too many dramas are aging too rapidly simultaneously. Once Upon a Time is off to a terrific start, but ABC needs to create two or three more within the next midseason and fall to replace the older dramas.
We know NBC is dependent on Sunday Night Football in the fall, but the extent of its reliance is shocking in the nightly ratings table. Only one other night cracks a 2 rating (Tuesday's 2.1 rating), with most other nights closer to a 1.5 than a 2.0 rating. Even worse, the tiny numbers are getting tinier, with five of seven nights down significantly (an average 21% decline). Friday is the lone up night with entertainment programming, thanks mostly to the successful launch of Grimm and solid performances by two-hour Dateline episodes early in the season.
It is interesting to note how many networks are up on various nights. When we look at the four-network total rating for Monday-Sunday, the major broadcast networks total a 10.9 rating, up 1% versus the same period last year. Some of this is due to some extraordinary sports ratings, but even if we exclude FOX's coverage of World Series Game 6 and 7 and CBS's coverage of LSU-Alabama, the total is still a 10.6, down only 2% versus last year. Given the past, seemingly inexorable decline of broadcast ratings, it is pretty amazing that the four networks are collectively either down a mere 2% or actually up 1%. When we look at the broadcast network totals by night, network viewing is up significantly on Wednesdays (mostly because of The X Factor and ABC's entire line-up) and Fridays (because FOX decided to get back in the game on the night and because of NBC's lone success there). Even Thursday is showing on overall uptick (again, mostly because of The X Factor). The only night in serious free-fall is Saturday, although Sunday should be watched carefully after football leaves the schedule in the winter. For an assumed dying industry, there are some encouraging signs of life, particularly because of FOX.
Season to Date Adult 18-49 Rating 4-Network Total
September 19-November 9, 2011
Excluding WS Game 6 & 7 and LSU-ALA
Excluding WS Game 6 & 7 and LSU-ALA
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
4-NET 11.8 11.3 11.8 11.6 5.4 5.2 15.3
% CHG - 3% + 0% + 6% + 1% +10% -16% - 6%
The Sked: SATURDAY RATINGS November 5 & Sweep Update
It's rare that a Saturday night has a huge impact on a sweep race, but last night featured a college football pairing between the #1 and #2 teams in the country on CBS. In an SEC matchup for the ages, #1 LSU defeated #2 Alabama in overtime 9-6, earning a 6.4 Adult 18-49 rating in the fast nationals. The game ended just past 11:30 pm ET and will probably be adjusted upward in the official nationals.
CBS's preliminary 6.4 rating was up from a 1.2 rating on the same night last November. In fact, no November Saturday on CBS in 2010 scored above a 1.2 (10.30.2010 1.1, 11.6.2010 1.2, 11.13.2010 1.0, and 11.20.2010 1.2 rating).
ABC scored a 0.9 with #3 Oklahoma State versus #14 Kansas State, down from a 1.2 on the same night last year.
FOX also averaged a 0.9 with Cops and a repeat Terra Nova, down from a 1.5 for the Cops and America's Most Wanted combo this night last year.
NBC averaged a 0.7 with repeat dramas, down from a 0.8 this night last year.
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The updated sweep scoreboard through ten days:
NOVEMBER SWEEP SCORECARD
2011 vs 2010 Through Day 10 of 28
2011 2010
FOX 3.6 2.9 +26%
CBS 3.1 2.4 +29%
ABC 2.2 2.4 - 8%
NBC 2.1 2.1 + 0%
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THE SKED: CBS and Its Unforgettable Back Orders of Interest
It was a good day for most of the bubble shows on the CBS schedule, as the network handed out back-orders to UNFORGETTABLE and PERSON OF INTEREST (joining 2 Broke Girls). Neither of these shows are performing very impressively--Unforgettable is doing about as well in its Tuesday 10PM slot as The Good Wife did last year, and that show was moved to another night; Person Of Interest is below CSI's score both last year in its Thursday 9PM slot and this season in its new home of Wednesday 10PM. But both are Good Enough: CBS tends to be patient in any case, neither is flopping, and the network has a slim bench of midseason 1-hours (just the cop show The 2-2) to play with.
Conspicuously absent from the announcement was any news about the remaining new CBS series A GIFTED MAN--not even an order for additional scripts. This can't be good, although the show will continue to get some more rope on Friday nights before said rope is cut.
In other back order news, reports are that PAN AM will get some breathing room from ABC despite its languishing ratings, now that a new showrunner is being added to the flight crew. Steven Maeda is a veteran of CSI Miami, Miami Medical and Lie To Me, and one assumes that his arrival will also mean a new creative tone for the series, hopefully including some consistency about whether it's a soap or a spy thriller.
The Sked: RATINGS ADVISORY -- CBS Fast Nationals for Monday
Fast National ratings for CBS Monday programs will be inflated slightly. The CBS station in Baltimore (WJZ) is carrying the ESPN Monday Night Football game locally (between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars). A non-network affiliated station in Jacksonville is carrying the game there and will not disturb the fast nationals.
THE SKED: CBS Explains "How To Be" A Flop Sitcom
Well, that didn't take long. Here's the difference these days between CBS and NBC: earlier this week, NBC rewarded UP ALL NIGHT and WHITNEY, two sitcoms that most recently had 2.3 ratings, with full season back-orders, and has generally been treating them like new smash hits. This afternoon, HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN, which had a 2.5 rating last night, was demoted by CBS to the wasteland of Saturday night and had its order cut from 13 episodes to 9 (the 9th episode being the one that's shooting tonight--Happy Yom Kippur, everyone!). So basically, as close as a show can come to being cancelled without actually using that word.
THE SKED'S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: "How To Be A Gentleman"
Previously... on HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN: Andrew (series creator David Hornsby) is happy to be an oddity: a prim and proper writer of magazine columns about etiquette who prides himself on behaving in an old-fashioned gentlemanly manner at all times. Despite the fact that his peculiarity has driven off his wife, and that even his mother (Nancy Linehan), sister Janet (Mary-Lynn Rajskub) and brother-in-law Mike (Rhys Darby) regard him as an alien in their midst, life is basically good. Then a new publisher takes over the magazine, demotes Andrew's accepting boss (Dave Foley) and demands that Andrew's columns become hipper and more in touch with modern reality. As it happens, Janet and Mike have just bought Andrew a birthday gift certificate for a personal training session, which turns out to be given by Bert (Kevin Dillon). Bert used to bully Andrew in high school, but now he's eager to help Andrew become a "real man." Andrew somewhat hesitantly submits to Bert's tutoring, and that will lay the cornerstone for a new friendship.
Episode 2: Just in case the show's premise weren't contrived enough, the second episode of Gentleman, written by Hornsby and directed by Pam Fryman, pushes things in an even more sitcommy direction: Bert isn't just Andrew's new life guide and trainer, the two of them are now roommates, because although Bert tries to make Andrew believe he's moving in to Andrew's apartment in order to intensify their training on a 24/7 basis, in fact Bert lost his own apartment when he put all his money into the gym. This development unfortunately emphasizes what's most repetitive and predictable about the show, namely the Andrew/Bert byplay.
The main storyline of the episode has Bert encouraging Andrew to make passes at all the best-looking women in a bar, so Andrew will be rejected repeatedly and thus become immune to rejection. To his own surprise, Andrew instead meets a woman who's game for an evening together; but naive as he is, he thinks it's true love, and ignores Bert's sage advice that it was only a one-night stand. The story puts the two men together almost constantly, reinforcing the dynamic between them over and over (Bert is crude but good-hearted; Andrew is endlessly deluded). It's already starting to feel suffocating, and the show is only 2 episodes old.
The B story is actually more entertaining, except that it doesn't really have an ending: Mike is a New Zealand immigrant, and although his and Janet's marriage is completely genuine, they have to be tested by Homeland Security to make sure he didn't marry her for a green card--which is complicated by the fact that Janet can't handle tests and goes completely blank at the most routine questions. Rajskub and Darby have a complimentary off-beat charm that makes them far more pleasant to watch than Johnny Drama Bert repeatedly explaining the rules of guy-hood to Andrew.
The premiere ratings for How To Be A Gentleman were underwhelming (we'll see how it holds up in a little while), and getting off to an inauspicious series start creatively won't help any. The show needs to tread a very precise line between the oddball and the traditional if it's going to work, and initial signs are that it's in danger of a tilt.
Original Verdict: Potential DVR Alert
Pilot + 1: Needs to Figure Out Its Tone
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THE SKED: Week 2 + 1 - CBS Network Scorecard
The third week of a network season is a critical one. Ratings erosion after a series or season premiere is expected and even acceptable, because it's understood that not every viewer drawn by hype and marketing will be a satisfied customer. But a continued fall in Week 3 can be a sign of trouble, and if that decline is from a number that wasn't great to begin with, the trouble could be serious. That being said, let's take a look at where the networks stand as they begin this crucial week. (Note: since only 2 networks debuted their Monday schedules on the season's first official day, we'll include the next Monday in our review of the week.)CBS
Thriving:
2 BROKE GIRLS - Even those (like I) who don't particularly love the show have to respect the way it fits into CBS's Monday night schedule. With its addition, the 8-10PM hours on CBS are the most effective ensemble on TV.
CSI: The addition of Ted Danson and consequent reboot couldn't have worked out better for an aging series that's now convincingly winning its new timeslot.
Holdovers: 2 1/2 MEN, MIKE & MOLLY, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, THE BIG BANG THEORY, NCIS, NCIS LA, CRIMINAL MINDS, SURVIVOR, BLUE BLOODS, HAWAII 5-0, THE MENTALIST
Struggling:
UNFORGETTABLE - This should have been a perfect CBS procedural, but while it's not a flop, its ratings have been soft, just a bit ahead of Parenthood. With so much of the schedule--and especially Tuesday night--performing well, it's not clear how patient the network will be with it (even though it would already have gotten a back order from NBC).
PERSON OF INTEREST - It's a bit of a puzzle why this show isn't doing better. As procedurals go, it's high-quality and has an intriguing premise, yet it's holding 4th place in its hour. A timeslot move is more likely than an early removal.
HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN: It's only aired once, so judgment is premature, but it certainly didn't get off to a good start. If it squanders most of Big Bang's lead, it won't be around for long.
THE GOOD WIFE - Any hope that the move to Sunday would find a wider audience for this excellent show seems to have been in vain. It's the only true prestige show on CBS's schedule, so it's unlikely to be at great risk as long as its numbers stay stable, but it may not keep its Sunday slot for the entire season.
CSI MIAMI - Being pushed downward by Good Wife.
DYING:
A GIFTED MAN - It's OK to have low ratings on Friday night compared to any other night of the week (except Saturday). But Gifted Man is in Fringe territory with a 1.2. Any further slippage and the patient may die on the table.
GRADE: B
GRADE: B
THE SKED"S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: "A Gifted Man"
A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to rear their ugly heads. The results can include changes to tone, pace, casting and even story. Here at THE SKED, we're going to look past the pilots and present reviews of the first regular episodes of this year's new series as well.Previously... on A GIFTED MAN: Dr. Michael Holt (Patrick Wilson) is a brilliant, prosperous and narcissistic New York neurosurgeon. One day he runs into his ex-wife Anna (Jennifer Ehle), who he hasn't seen in years, and they talk at length about her new job as Medical Director for a free clinic. Soon after, Michael is shocked to discover that Anna had been dead for 2 weeks when they had their reunion, and in fact he's being haunted by her ghost. A very demanding ghost, too, who keeps reappearing to insist that Michael rediscover his better instincts and help the poor at her clinic--which, reluctantly, he begins to do.
Episode 2: The series has had a bit of shuffling since the original pilot: the character of Michael's down-to-earth sister (Julie Benz) has vanished, although the word is that she may recur every so often. Meanwhile, the healer Michael visited in the pilot to have Anna removed from his life has been made a regular, played by the very hard-working Pablo Schreiber, who in the past year has been cornering the market on NY-produced shows, with roles on Lights Out, The Good Wife, Weeds and now this.
The big question, though, after the Gifted Man pilot was how the series would balance the three main elements of its story: the patients at Michael's fancy uptown practice, his new unofficial post at Anna's clinic, and the Blithe Spirit scenes of his haunting by Anna. The answer seems to be that he'll do an awful lot of commuting.
The first regular series episode, written by Executive Producer/Showrunner Neal Baer and Daniel Truly and directed by Jonathan Kaplan, is much more a conventional medical series than one about the supernatural, as Michael shuttles back and forth every few minutes between his office and the clinic. Uptown, there's the case of an old friend's wife who finds out in quick succession that she's unexpectedly pregnant with her first child and has a massive brain tumor--she can't have needed chemo treatments while pregnant, so does she lose the baby to save her own life? Meanwhile, at the clinic, a lovable little Haitian immigrant boy is diagnosed with sickle-cell anemia, and the resulting tests prove that his single father isn't actually his biological dad at all. Both plots are resolved in the most sentimental way possible, as the pregnant woman's tumor hemorrhages and Michael manages to save both her and her premature child, and urged by Anna's ghost, Michael convinces the boy's father to take his son back no matter what the biological facts might be.
When A Gifted Man is telling stories like this, there's nothing very interesting about it at all. And the dynamic between Michael and ghostly Anna is so far one of sheer repetition, with Michael resisting doing the right thing because it's too much effort for no financial return, and Anna shaming him into doing it anyway. Playing a begrudging hero is blanding Patrick Wilson out and makes Jennifer Ehle seem downright smug; there's an attempt to liven things up with smaller, more colorful roles played by Rhys Coiro and Raul Esparza, as well as Schreiber, but despite the excellent casting (Margo Martindale, who just won a titanically deserved Emmy for her work on Justified, is also around as Michael's assistant), the center of the show is far too flat and tame.
A Gifted Man didn't do much in the ratings on its debut, and with this content, it's hard to see how it's going to win wider audiences over. By choosing to be the safest version of itself, it's responsible for putting itself in the TV ER.
Original Verdict: If Nothing Else Is On...
Pilot + 1: And Only If You're Desperate For a Medical Show
THE SKED'S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: "Person Of Interest"
A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to rear their ugly heads. The results can include changes to tone, pace, casting and even story. Here at THE SKED, we're going to look past the pilots and present reviews of the first regular episodes of this year's new series as well.
Previously... on PERSON OF INTEREST: John Reese (Jim Caviezel) is a former CIA assassin who fell into a drunk and homeless life after something unspecified happened to his girlfriend some years ago; he's recruited by the utterly mysterious Finch (Michael Emerson), who has created a master government system which sifts through every single surveillance camera, e-mail and phone call in the country to detect potential terrorist plots. However, the system has an unintended additional ability: it can also predict which people will soon be involved in violent crimes--although it can't tell whether those identified people will be the victims or perpetrators of the crimes. Finch talks Reese into joining him to stop these crimes before they happen, alternately protecting and capturing the people implicated. Reese ultimately agrees, and along the way he gets enough damaging evidence on corrupt cop Fusco (Kevin Chapman) that the man has to become his inside source when police info is needed; Reese also draws the attention of honest cop Carter (Taraji P. Henson), who knows something strange is going on but can't quite figure out what.
Episode 2: Person Of Interest has an original slant on the procedural, and in the second episode, written by series creator Jonathan Nolan and Executive Producer Greg Plageman, and directed by Richard L. Lewis, the series continues to be intriguing. Finch's magic machine has popped out the ID of a teenage girl who, according to the files, was murdered with her family 2 years earlier. Since the magic machine can never be wrong, Reese sets out to investigate, and sure enough, it turns out the hired killer who shot her parents allowed the girl to live. Now, however, her life is in danger once again, because she's in line for a huge inheritance that the people who killed her family can't let her claim. The story, like the pilot's, was quite cleverly worked out as long as you didn't think about it too much.
We also get a dribbling of tantalizing details about Finch, including flashback glimpses of him and his business partner 5 years earlier, as he started to work on the magic machine. Since the partner is played by Brett Cullen, it's almost certain he'll turn out to be up to no good--we also find out that the partner is (apparently) dead in the present. Besides that, there's some welcome deadpan humor as Reese manages to follow Finch without being discovered and finds out that Finch's way of "hiding in plain sight" has him working as a humble software designer at a conglomerate that, in fact, he owns.
The episode all works pretty well, and although the series' debut numbers weren't too exciting, it seems like a show that has potential for growth, especially if NBC falters in the hour. A limitation, however, may be that since both Reese and Finch are largely keeping their lives secret, there's an awful lot of enigmatic clipped dialogue and little chance for emotion (although no one can do more with "enigmatic" than Michael Emerson). Also, the "pressuring the dirty cop for information" sequence has been just about the same in both episodes, and will get old-hat fast if there's not some variation. For now, the Taraji Henson plot and character are footnotes, although presumably Nolan has some ideas for where it's heading.
As the season's new procedurals go, Person Of Interest is easily the most promising. It's not essential viewing at this point, but it's a diverting way to spend an hour.
Original Verdict: If Nothing Else Is On...
Pilot + 1: Worth Keeping An Eye On
THE SKED PILOT REPORT: CBS's "How To Be A Gentleman" - PREMIERING TONIGHT
Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. So these critiques shouldn't be taken as full TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the new shows coming your way.
HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN - Thursday 8:30PM on CBS: Potential DVR Alert
Considering how utterly contrived it is, HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN is a surprisingly pleasant half-hour of television. Whitney Cummings may have written her own star vehicle sitcom, but David Hornsby has done her one better by writing and starring in one that's actually promising and funny. (OK, Cummings also co-wrote 2 Broke Girls, so she has 2 new shows on the air, but that's just mediocrity in bulk.)
"Based" on books of modern etiquette for men by Thomas Nelson, How To Be A Gentleman gives us Hornsby as Alan, writer of a magazine column on the subject. Alan is gentlemanly to the point of snobbery, concerned as much with when it is and isn't appropriate to wear a vest as with principles of courtesy. His sister (Mary Lynn Rajskub) finds him hard to take, and as a birthday present she gives him a gift certificate to a personal training session at a local gym, knowing a gentleman can't ignore any gift he's received. Well, guess what--it turns out the personal trainer is Bert (Kevin Dillon), who used to bully Alan in high school and is now a PG-13 version of Johnny Drama from Entourage. Since, as it happens, Alan's magazine has been taken over and he's being forced to write a less polite version of his column, he agrees to be taken under Bert's wing and taught about modern manhood.
You can certainly see the jokes coming in Gentleman, but the script is witty enough to keep them amusing. Also, Pam Fryman directed the pilot, and she brings the same deft touch she supplies regularly to How I Met Your Mother, underplaying the obvious. The cast also helps: Hornsby knows that Alan is a bit of a cartoon, but he manages not to let him become a prig. Dillon is so much in his own wheelhouse that his biggest worry should be typecasting. It's always great to see Rajskub (even if, on some level, she'll always be Chloe from 24), and sharp talents like Rhys Darby (as Rajskub's husband) and Dave Foley (as Alan's boss) add to the ensemble.
It's instructive to look at How To Be A Gentleman in comparison to some of the other men-being-men sitcoms we're getting this season, like Man Up and Last Man Standing. Here, the characters all have a little shading to them (they actually seem to like each other), and the script doesn't just roll from one purported punchline to the next; these are people you might want to revisit the following week.
Gentleman has perhaps the most enviable timeslot of any new series this year: not only does it follow the hit Big Bang Theory in its hour, but it's a model of compatibility with its lead-in. Mitch Metcalf's Thursday projection has it in 2d place for the slot, just barely behind FOX's X-Factor, and ahead of Charlie's Angels and Parks & Recreation. The show, frankly, isn't in the same league as its NBC competition (although in fairness, Parks & Rec took a season to find its own footing). But it's not bad, and in network TV, "not bad" in the right timeslot is often more than good enough.
THE SKED: Tuesday Ratings - Network Scorecard
On a night without a lot of movement, sometimes standing still works out for the best.
FOX: Zooey Deschanel may not be a mainstream movie star, but her Manic Pixie Dream Girl charms are definitely making her one on TV: NEW GIRL (see our Pilot + 1 Review) is just a hair behind 2 Broke Girls as the biggest hit of the new season (and 1 of them should be the first to grab a back-order of Spring episodes). Even more impressively, while Broke Girls is running essentially even with its strong How I Met Your Mother lead-in, New Girl had to do a lot of the heavy lifting itself. All that's keeping FOX from spending the morning doing handstands is that so far, New Girl is a smash in isolation: GLEE is settling into its new post-blockbuster, sub-4 rating world (as to last night's episode: the series is so willfully strange that sometimes the relatively naturalistic episodes are the ones that seem oddest), and RAISING HOPE is only slightly above last season's average.CBS: The NCIS franchise won 3 of its 4 half-hours last night, falling into 2d place only to New Girl and almost dead even with last week's numbers. But UNFORGETTABLE (read our Pilot + 1 Review) can't afford to fade much more--it's already running even with The Good Wife's numbers in that slot, and those are the numbers that got Good Wife moved to another night. On CBS, even winning your time slot isn't a guarantee of success if you squander your lead-in, and Unforgettable lost almost 40% of the NCIS: LA number.
NBC: BIGGEST LOSER is down an awful 30% from last season, and since it fills 2 hours of the night, Tuesday is basically cooked (albeit in a low-fat, nutritional way) for the network, much as Sing-Off is killing their Mondays. The only shred of good news is that PARENTHOOD, while down from last season's average, is holding steady (another great episode last night), and suddenly finds itself very much in the 10PM race against weak competition on the other networks. For NBC, that's a "hit".
ABC: The 8PM DANCING WITH THE STARS special is just a place-holder until Tim Allen rides to the rescue in a few weeks (they hope), but it's certainly not keeping the timeslot warm. The Dancing results show is a disaster, down 30% from last year's, and the same is true for BODY OF PROOF, which is getting slammed by the direct competition of Unforgettable.
CW: The good news is that there wasn't any bad news: Ringer, despite being a serialized show (and despite another disappointing episode) stopped bleeding and held steady at last week's 0.9, and 90210 even went up a tick to 0.8. Those numbers aren't much, but they're where the CW is these days.
Things to watch for tonight: whether Revenge can sustain its impressive opening (look for our Pilot + 1 Review), and whether Up All Night can avoid any more slippage for NBC at 8PM.
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