Movie Box Review

ESPN's Monday Night Football was back with a vengeance this week -- a 6.4 Adult 18-49 rating for the Pittsburgh Steelers at San Francisco 49ers, the highest-rated game since November 7 (6.9 rating for Chicago Bears at Philadelphia Eagles).   NFL Network was not so lucky Thursday, drawing the Jacksonville Jaguars at Atlanta Falcons.  The game fell well below a 2 rating and out of the top 10 for cable programs this week.

On the unscripted front, A&E's Storage Wars has been growing steadily over the past few weeks and has taken the crown of top unscripted cable program.  Almost as strong -- on less-viewed Friday night no less -- Discovery's Gold Rush continues to grow.  

Showtime's Dexter ended its season Sunday with a ho-hum 1.0 rating.  It should have been a series finale, but Showtime wants to grind out two more seasons of the once-great series that has become marked by wooden acting, predictable stories, clunky writing, and lazy narration.  Showtime can be proud of the Homeland season finale, which rose to a 0.7 (after spending most of the season in the 0.4-0.5 range).    

Tonight's ESPN Monday Night Football game (the 2-10 St Louis Rams at the 5-7 Seattle Seahawks) will have a limited impact on the broadcast fast nationals in the morning.  In St Louis, the game will be carried locally by FOX station KTVI instead of the Terra Nova original and House repeat.  The St Louis market is ranked #21 and has 1.094% of the nation's TV audience.  Look for the fast national Terra Nova rating to go down between one and two-tenths of a rating point in the official national ratings.

In Seattle the game is being carried on a non-network station and will run mostly outside of prime time.  So the larger market (ranked #12 with 1.580% of the audience) will not have any effect on the fast nationals.   

ESPN's Monday Night Football rebounded to more normal levels last night and moved back into its usual #1 spot on the cable Adult 18-49 rating chart.  (Kansas City upset San Diego in overtime.)  On AMC, Walking Dead is still the top scripted program on cable this week, but the 3.1 rating, while still very good, is down considerably from the past few weeks (which are now listed on the right side of the chart below). 

FX's Sons of Anarchy is steady at a 2.0 rating, while the Wednesday FX hit American Horror Story continues to grow nicely and is headed for that 2-rating level soon.  More disturbingly, MTV's Beavis & Butt-head returned to the cable landscape with a very solid 1.8 young adult rating.  I guess Newton Minnow was right.

ESPN's Monday Night Football this week was down from a 6.9 to a 5.0 rating this week.  Blame AFC teams and a lopsided score.  Jersey Shore was down a tenth of a rating point and pushed into third place by a very good season premiere of Walking Dead on AMC.  BET's Hip Hop Awards scored a 2.1 and edged the best baseball could do on cable this week, a 1.9 for Sunday's concluding Game 6 of the National League Championship Series.  It's going to be a tough World Series for FOX.

The CW station in Miami, WSFL, will carry the Miami-New York Jets Monday Night Football game locally in primetime tonight.  So the fast nationals for Gossip Girl and Hart of Dixie will be inflated Tuesday morning.  We will have to wait until later in the day to get a clear read on the two dramas in the official nationals.  Miami is #16 in market size, representing 1.4% of the country.


The game is being carried locally in New York on the MyNetworkTV station so there will be no ratings distortion by the game in the #1 market in the country.  

When you see the fast nationals Tuesday morning, ABC's ratings for Dancing with the Stars and Castle will be overstated by at least a few tenths of a rating point.  WXYZ, the ABC station in Detroit, is carrying the Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions Monday Night Football game live in primetime.  In contrast, Dancing with the Stars is scheduled to air at 2 am on WXYZ, followed by Castle.


The NFL sells local over-the-air broadcast rights to the markets involved in each ESPN Monday telecast.  (The station carrying the game in Chicago is an independent UHF station so it will not impact the fast nationals.)  Basically, the fast nationals measure all viewing and DVR activity on each network affiliate in primetime.  The fast nationals assume each network program is aired as scheduled -- so all the viewing in primetime on WXYZ in Detroit (and it will be substantial, a high double-digit demographic rating) will be temporarily credited to Dancing and Castle.  The official nationals released later in the day (precise program ratings rather than time period ratings) will correct this error and measure the Detroit viewing of Dancing with Stars and Castle in late night.

Sports dominate the top of the weekly cable ratings chart.  ESPN's NFL Monday Night Football was #1 again in the cable world, although down from a 7.2 demo rating last week when the more attractive Dallas-Washington game was on.  In addition, the early round of Major League Baseball's Postseason is scattered throughout the chart below. 

Naturally the highest-rated early round game featured the New York Yankees, a team with a huge fan base and a team others love to hate.  Program note: Wednesday night October 5, TBS will have the decisive Game 5 in the Detroit Tigers-NY Yankees series.  FOX and TBS executives are currently holding a vigil that the Yankees and not the Tigers advance to the next round.  FOX has to be pulling for a Philadelphia Phillies-NY Yankees World Series, as opposed to, say, Milwaukee Brewers-Detroit Tigers.


Another baseball note.  The "MLB Post Game" program in the chart below ranked #5 for the week, and capped ESPN's terrific coverage of the final night of the regular season (last Wednesday), when the wild card spots were finally decided in three close games in primetime.  The games themselves barely made the chart because the drama didn't build until the very end of the evening.  The post game rating shows the interest that did build like a crescendo. 

Boardwalk Empire and Dexter premiered against each other Sunday at 9 pm and tied at 1.1 rating, about a third of what True Blood routinely did in the time period.  Both episodes, by the way, were fairly slow as season premiere resets often are, but Dexter seemed especially uninspired and even lazy.  In contrast, the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad was filled with tension and excitement but failed to make our 1.0 rating cutoff for the chart (a 0.8 rating). 

The power of the NFL is in full display in this week's top cable program chart.  ESPN's Monday Night Football game featuring the Dallas Cowboys at the Washington Redskins scored a mammoth 7.2 Adult 18-49 rating, with over 17 million viewers 2+ watching in an average minute.  MTV's Jersey Shore placed second with about half the young adult rating, a still potent 3.5.  Comedy Central did well with a new comedy special starring Jeff Dunham in "Controlled Chaos", and the comedy clip series Tosh.0 returned with almost a 2 rating.

The much publicized Boardwalk Empire returned to HBO Sunday with a 1.3 rating.  Solid by cable standards, the Boardwalk number nonetheless pales in comparison to its flagship True Blood.  Click "read more" to see the complete weekly chart.