Movie Box Review

The most recent Promo Watch numbers are based on prime time broadcast network programming between March 4 and March 8, with about 10 hours of programming sampled for each network over that period.  (Click "read more" to see the latest chart.)


ABC.  Missing has become the top promotional priority for ABC over the past week, now running at about 38 seconds per hour.  GCB receded to a still substantial 33 seconds per hour, with promos trumpeting its premiere viewership Sunday.  Some promos mentioned "11 million viewers fell in love", while others said "18 million viewers watched".  The first number refers to the average audience in any given minute, and the second measures who many people saw at least a few minutes of the show (the "total audience").  Rather than throwing two numbers around, why not pick one and stick with it?  Don't Trust the Bitch in Apt 23 and Scandal are up from previous weeks, now at 18 and 15 seconds, respectively. 

NBC.  Fashion Star increased to 37 seconds per hour over the past week, clearly the #1 promo priority for the struggling network.  Awake has been dialed back to 24 seconds per hour, promoting the second episode and referencing the show's premiere performance.  Rather than saying a number, NBC said "millions were thrilled".  
        
CBS.  Person of Interest increased again this past week to 28 seconds per hour.  The episode (featuring a cute baby and a "two men and a baby" theme in the promos) was one of the few original episodes on CBS among a sea of repeats, and the on-air promotion paid off as Person of Interest edged past its previous season high.  Big Bang Theory, also an original episode, moved into the top priority list, up to 11 seconds per hour after bumping around the 5-6 second range in recent weeks.  .      


FOX.  Bob's Burgers, returning Sunday, moved up to 22 seconds per hour -- as heavy a commitment as FOX has given recently.  .     



                          PROMO WATCH

Back to a first place tie on Thursday between CBS (with mostly original episodes this week) and FOX (with Idol down to a one-hour edition) followed by The Finder.  You will notice we do not have year-to-year comparisons for this night.  Two very helpful readers identified a problem with recent year-ago comparisons, and it is clear the past several days were comparing incorrect data.  (Although the rest of the data for the 2010-11 season appears correct, we are making sure the error is isolated and then will resume the comparisons when the entire year is cleaned up.)   

             Nightly Adult 18-49 Rating
Thursday     FOX    NBC    CBS    ABC  
03.08.2012   3.6    1.8    3.6    1.3   THIS WEEK  
03.01.2012   5.4    1.9    2.1    1.1   LAST WEEK
03.10.2011   N/A    N/A    N/A    N/A   LAST YEAR  

NBC aired the second episode of Awake at 10 pm, which declined from a 2.0 Adult 18-49 last week in the official nationals to a 1.6 last night in the preliminaries.  This second-week decline is in line with the ShowBuzzDaily forecast of a three-tenths of a rating point drop.  Awake declined slightly at 10:30 pm last night (1.6 from 10:00-10:30 and 1.5 from 10:30-11:00), although a one-tenth drop for a 10 pm drama is fairly typical.  The audience seems to be locking into the very weak 1.5/1.6 range.  The comedies from 8:30-10:00 were up a tenth or two from last week (with ABC in repeats) but none of that extra audience flowed to Awake.

GCB finally arrives Sunday night at 10 after Desperate Housewives, as it lurches toward its series finale in May.  With a little luck, we will stop hearing "we shall receive" in the ABC promos at a carpet-bombing rate of 45+ seconds per hour.  The light soap/drama from Robert Harling (creator of Sex and the City) is based on the book Good Christian Bitches, with the pilot re-titled Good Christian Belles and ultimately GCB.  The premiere episode should build slightly on its Desperate Housewives lead-in and settle slightly in the next few weeks.  We are giving Desperate a 2.6 Sunday as it rebuilds back toward a 3 rating after the January/ February pre-emptions and stiff competition.  The audience for GCB should be very compatible and a small additional bonus audience of the curious will probably check it out.  We expect GCB to win the time period Sunday with Adults 18-49, with NBC in second (the second hour of Celebrity Apprentice at a 2.5 rating and the full 9-11 pm episode at a 2.4) and CSI: Miami in third with a 1.9 rating.    
  



            ShowBuzzDaily Forecast
              GCB -- ABC Sunday
             Adults 18-49 Rating

          Week 1   Week 2   Week 3   Week 4
  Forecast  2.8      2.7      2.6      2.6


The premiere of NBC's Awake Thursday rounded up in the official nationals to a 2.0 rating (from a 1.9), bringing it a bit closer to our original forecast of a 2.4 rating.  We still expect a decline in week two (the show's rating dropped a bit at the half-hour mark -- and even at each quarter-hour mark).  With The Mentalist returning with an original episode this Thursday on CBS, look for a 1.8 from Awake in its second week.  
  

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

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


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The most recent Promo Watch numbers are based on prime time broadcast network programming between February 16 and March 1, with about 16 hours of programming sampled for each network over that period.  (Click "read more" to see the latest chart.)


ABC.  GCB continues to be the top ABC priority as it heads toward Sunday night's premiere.  On-air promotion has been heavy, averaging 38 seconds per hour over the last two weeks.  Over the past week, the on-air promo commitment to GCB has been 46 seconds per hour, nearing saturation levels.  As we have seen with NBC's Awake, heavy promotion does not guarantee a high premiere rating.  A compatible lead-in and an easy to communicate premise helps, and GCB has both of those things going for it.  Check back later today for a forecast of GCB's premiere ratings.  Promotion for Missing (starring Ashley Judd) has picked up to 20 seconds per hour over the past two weeks (and up to 25 seconds per hour over the past week).  Scandal (starring Kerry Washington) premieres later and has fallen down to 8 seconds per hour over the past two weeks (and an almost non-existent 2 seconds per hour the past week).  It will be interesting to see if the creative approach for Scandal has been re-tooled when promos start airing again in heavier rotation.  

NBC.  Awake averaged 44 seconds per hour over the past two weeks (peaking at 46 seconds per hour this past week leading up to Thursday's premiere).  The 1.9 Adult 18-49 rating the debut received Thursday at 10 pm is surely a disappointment.  Yes, it built on its Up All Night lead-in, it was in first place in the time period (if you exclude cable and forget it faced repeats on ABC and CBS), it improved on the performance of The Firm, and it slightly beat Prime Suspect's premiere (by all of one tenth of a rating point).  But these are "world's tallest midget" comparisons.  Amazing that some television writers actually picked up on that spin.  The promos were given every opportunity to run, and the audience either was confused or simply didn't care. Next up is Fashion Star, which has averaged 19 seconds per hour over the past two weeks (and 18 seconds over the most recent week).  Look for its allocation to zoom as Awake levels come back down to Earth.  
        
CBS.  Person of Interest stays in the top spot with 23 seconds over the past two weeks.  Even the repeat episode that aired Thursday received heavy support (19 seconds over the past week).  Undercover Boss has received substantial support, 19 seconds per hour over the past two weeks and 21 seconds over the past week (actually making it the #1 priority this week only), emphasizing an emotional sell and a teary Popeye's Chicken CEO understanding the pain of Americans.  CBS is hoping Boss can bounce back from last week's 1.9 rating (which featured a rather cold, unemotional CEO, by the way) after the very promising 2.4 rated premiere.  Amid scripted series repeats, Survivor and Amazing Race stand out with original episodes and have also received 18 seconds per hour each.      


FOX.  The heat has started to be turned up on Touch starring Kiefer Sutherland, 19 seconds per hour over the past two weeks but up to 23 seconds per hour over the past week.  While not a full commitment when compared to the other networks, Touch is clearly FOX's priority.  Bob's Burgers clocks in at 11 seconds per hour (over both the past two weeks and the past week), while the network has eased off the gas for Breaking In (10 seconds per hour over the past two weeks and a barely noticeable 6 seconds per hour the past week). Not shown on the chart, Q'Viva (Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony scour the world for young talent) premieres Saturday for a short run.  The show has averaged 3 seconds per hour the past two weeks and 7 seconds per hour the past week (with a few spots in American Idol, for Ms. Lopez's benefit).     



                          PROMO WATCH

With ABC and CBS in repeats in the first night after the February sweep concluded, American Idol rebounded a bit, while NBC had a very quiet opening for the new drama Awake.   

             Nightly Adult 18-49 Rating
Thursday     FOX    NBC    CBS    ABC   
03.01.2012   5.3    1.8    2.1    1.1   THIS WEEK
02.23.2012   3.3    1.6    3.3    2.2   LAST WEEK
03.03.2011   9.1    1.4    2.2    1.2   LAST YEAR
 
NBC premiered Awake at 10 pm with a disappointing 1.9 Adult 18-49 rating.  It beat its broadcast competition, but considering ABC and CBS both had repeats, this is a pretty anemic start for the heavily-promoted and well-reviewed series and below the ShowBuzzDaily forecast of a 2.4 rating for the premiere.  Awake started with a 2.1 rating from 10:00-10:30 and declined to a 1.8 from 10:30-11:00 pm.  Not a horrible drop, but not entirely encouraging.  In the 10:00 half hour, Awake beat the Mentalist repeat by four tenths of a rating point (2.1 to 1.7), but in the 10:30 half hour the margin narrowed to one tenth (1.8 to 1.7).  The comedies from 8-10 pm did not take advantage of the repeat competition on ABC and CBS, turning in numbers only slightly better than the season lows of recent weeks.  Last year on this night NBC averaged a 1.4 rating from 8-11 pm with a marathon of Office repeat episodes: 8:00 (1.2), 8:30 (1.4), 9:00 (1.6), 9:30 (1.7), 10:00 (1.6) and 10:30 (1.3).

The metered-market overnights, the first ratings available each day, show that NBC's Awake finished in second place in the 10 pm hour to the repeat episode of The Mentalist on CBS.  Remember that the overnights reflect viewing in 56 of the largest television markets only (about half of the country), and the ratings and shares available are only for the broader measure of households.  Demographic ratings, most notably Adult 18-49 viewing, will come later this morning with the fast national ratings that we usually report.

At 10 pm last night, Awake averaged a 4.6 household rating and 8 share.  The Mentalist averaged a 6.0 household rating and 10 share, and the repeat of post-Oscar edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live averaged a 2.5 household rating and 4 share.

There was a little tune-out over the course of the premiere of Awake, a 4.7 household rating in the 10:00 pm half hour and 4.5 at 10:30, but nothing to get too concerned about.           

The million dollar question is how many young viewers were in those households?  This is also known as the 18-49 "comp" (or audience composition).  A show like The Mentalist is very old-skewing (similar to the CSI shows or Harry's Law), and that 6.0 household rating will probably translate to an 18-49 rating around 1.8 or so.

Awake will probably be a middle-range drama in terms of young adult skew (similar to Law & Order SVU), meaning the 4.6 household rating will turn into a 2.4 rating or so, enough to pass The Mentalist for top honors among the broadcast networks in the hour and close to our ShowBuzzDaily forecast.

Keep coming back for more details.

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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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