“Reign” is my new favorite show on TV.
No, I didn’t love the pilot in either of the versions I saw.
And no, I haven’t watched the second episode yet.
But I’m really loving the week-to-week numbers comparisons with “The Vampire Diaries.” It’s not that I want to criticize The CW for attempting to expand its audience reach, to do things that don’t feel like our conventional idea of what counts as a CW show, but it’s still sad/funny to look at the core audience’s rejection of that attempt to try new things.
“Reign” drew a semi-respectable 1.83 million viewers for its second airing, so I hope The CW will stick with it, so that I can keep looking at the numbers each week.
In addition to eyeballing “Reign,” this installment of ratings analysis also takes an early look at the results for NBC’s “Dracula” and “Grimm,” as well as the premiere of The CW’s “The Carrie Diaries.” The Friday analysis is based on Fast National figures, rather than Nationals, because Friday Nationals tend not to show up in my in-box til Monday, so take them with a grain of salt.
On to the data…
*** CW shows usually only get 18-49 ratings variations of 0.1-ish between Fast Nationals and Nationals, but “Vampire Diaries” got a nice jump from from a 1.1 rating to a 1.3 rating in Nationals, allowing “TVD” to top “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland” in that key demo. The downside, though, was that by going up, “Vampire Diaries” only accentuated the drop for “Reign,” which stayed flat with a 0.6 in the key demo. Last week, I went through a series of demo numbers to reenforce how badly off-brand The CW went with “Reign” and, alas, I’ve gotta do that again. Among women 18-49, “Vampire Diaries” did a 1.7 rating, while “Reign” did a 0.7 rating. Among adults 18-34, “Vampire Diaries” did a 1.4 rating and “Reign” slipped to a 0.5 rating, with the biggest part of that drop happening among women 18-34, as “Vampire Diaries” did a 2.0 rating and “Reign” fell to a 0.7 rating. For the second straight week, though, “Reign” beat “Vampire Diaries” among adults 55+, at least in Fast Nationals.
*** Going back quickly to “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland,” ABC likes to think of itself as a network that effectively caters to young female viewers. “The Vampire Diaries” beats “Wonderland” among women 18-34 (2.0 to a 1.3) and women 18-49 (1.7 to a 1.4). I was going to mock “Wonderland” for its 0.7 rating among men 18-34 (behind the 0.8 for “Vampire Diaries), but that 0.7 beat all of NBC’s programs for the night.
*** Since I picked on “Vampire Diaries”/”Reign” for being incompatible, I should salute two apparently very compatible shows. In Nationals, “Grey’s Anatomy” inched ahead of “Scandal” in total viewers with 8.73 million to 8.62 million. “Scandal” had the advantage among adults 18-49 with a 2.9 rating to a 2.8 rating. The two shows were tied with a 2.5 rating among adults 18-34, while “Grey’s” had a 0.1 advantage among adults 25-54. The two shows are within 0.2 in just about every demo.
*** I don’t know why, but “The Big Bang Theory” is constantly under-measured in Fast Nationals. This week’s episode rose from a 4.9 to a 5.2 rating among adults 18-49 and to 16.98 million viewers overall. Given that it was going against FOX’s coverage of the World Series, that’s really impressive, but it’s hard to find anything unimpressive about “Big Bang Theory,” so there you go.
*** “Sean Saves the World” dipped to 3.96 million viewers in Nationals, falling just short of being NBC’s first Thursday program in three weeks to go over 4 million viewers, but still outdrawing “The Michael J. Fox Show” and “Parenthood.” “The Michael J. Fox Show” still has an advantage among adults 18-49 and adults 25-54, but “Sean Saves the World” topped “TMJFS” among adults 12-34 and tied among adults 18-34, with advantages among women in both demos. I have no idea why this would be. I’m just telling you the numbers.
*** Both “Grimm” and “Dracula” did a 1.8 rating among adults 18-49 for their first airing. [I wouldn’t be shocked to see “Dracula” drop to a 1.7 in Nationals, but we’ll see.] On the surface, the two shows seemed very compatible and they ranked within 0.1 of each other among adults 18-34 and 25-54 as well. The closeness remains in most demos, though the youngest of male viewers didn’t seem very interested in “Dracula,” which did a 0.4 rating among dudes 12-17, compared to the 0.7 for “Grimm.” Yeah, that’s reaching to find any meaning. Apologies. I do think, though, that there’s meaning in the half-hour drops for “Dracula” and NBC should maybe have worries. I already spent 3500 words on how disappointing “Dracula” is and very few people have popped in to defend the show, so when I look at “Dracula” doing 5.68 million viewers and a 1.9 key demo rating for the 10 p.m. half-hour and then 4.88 million and a 1.7 key demo rating in the second, that might be causal. The half-hour drops appear to be slightly larger among women, but I wouldn’t draw any big conclusions here yet. Probably, in fact, there’s no point in drawing any conclusions about either “Grimm,” which came in above last year’s Friday premiere, or “Dracula” until at least the Live+3 figures have come in. “Grimm” was one of TV’s biggest gainers last year in both Live+3 and Live+7, at least percentage-wise, and I figure that’ll continue and carry over to “Dracula,” because of both genre and target demos.
*** Demo targets aside, “Shark Tank” still beat both “Grimm” and “Dracula” in nearly everything. With more than 7.3 million viewers, this was apparently the largest “Shark Tank” audience ever for a regular telecast.
*** The CW had no reason to expect “The Carrie Diaries” to suddenly find an audience. It got some summer replay, but not the sort of aggressive push that might have genuinely helped. It doesn’t appear to be on DVD. And the network decided to use a promotional tactic that couldn’t possibly work. If saying “Carrie Bradshaw” over and over again last spring didn’t get anybody to initially tune in for this “Sex and the City” prequel, what were the chances saying “Samantha” over and over again was going to work? It’s a pity, because “The Carrie Diaries” remains a decent little show, one I enjoy despite a total dislike for the HBO original. And there’s not much that The CW can say about 837,000 viewers and a 0.3 rating among adults 18-49. That’s lower than random drama repeats have been doing there for The CW. And there’s no demo I can point to in which “Carrie Diaries” does surprisingly well. On the contrary, I can point to the totally irrelevant, but still funny, fact that among male viewers 12-17, “The Carrie Diaries” did a 0.0 rating/0 share. Even the random IHeart Radio special with Katy Perry did a 0.1 in that silly demo.
That’s all for me for today. I’m being distracted by baseball.