It’s been a busy day and I meant to have some ratings analysis up earlier, since there was a lot to talk about stemming from the numbers for Tuesday, October 1.
There are also several days of Live+3 ratings that I haven’t gotten to.
So it goes!
Click through for full discussion of the big “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” drop, which was slightly smaller than reported earlier; the dangerously low numbers for “Lucky 7,” which were slightly lower than reported earlier; and the ongoing weakness of FOX’s comedy lineup, which is every bit as weak as reported earlier.
*** By the time you read this, ABC may already have pulled “Lucky 7” from its schedule. There aren’t many hard-and-fast rules in network TV, but one of them is that if you’re on a major network and it’s not the summer, you can’t have new episodes of a TV show drawing a 0.7 rating among adults 18-49. That’s what “Lucky 7” did last night, dropping a hair from the 0.8 rating in Fast Nationals. Final figures of “Lucky 7” included an audience of only 2.62 million viewers. Half of the viewers in the key demo who watched the already dismally rated pilot disappeared. Seriously, how is ABC still scheduled to air another episode?
*** “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” ticked up to a 3.3 rating among adults 18-49 and 8.66 million total viewers in Final ratings, both up from the Fast National estimates, but still way down from last week’s 4.7 key demo rating and 12.1 million viewers. ABC knows that “S.H.I.E.L.D.” soared last week in Live+3, so the network isn’t close to panicking, but given the relatively modest drops by freshman hits “Sleepy Hollow” and “The Blacklist” in their third and second airings respectively, ABC can’t be excited by that decline. Let’s look at some of the bigger demo drops between last week’s Fast Nationals and Tuesday’s Fast Nationals for “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” shall we? Among adults 18-34, “S.H.I.E.L.D.” did a 3.7 rating last week and only a 2.5 this week. Among men 18-49, “S.H.I.E.L.D.” had a 5.3 rating last week and only a 3.7 rating this week. Among men 18-34, “S.H.I.E.L.D.” had a 4.3 rating last week. For a bigger drop, look to men 25-54, where “S.H.I.E.L.D.” had a 5.9 rating last week and a 4.1 this week. Really, the “S.H.I.E.L.D.” drops were fairly consistent across every demo, so you can’t just say, “Oh, so-and-so stopped watching live and will likely tune back in on DVR.” Again, though, ABC is probably worried, but they’re not freaking out, because…
*** Is “Lucky 7” still on ABC’s schedule?
*** How about “Trophy Wife”? Ugh. This one hurts, because “Trophy Wife” was possibly my favorite new network show of the fall. That wasn’t a HIGH bar, but I found this comedy to be fairly charming in both its pilot and its second episode. America does not agree, as the second episode of “Trophy Wife” drew 4.3 million viewers and a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49. That’s coming out of a 2.2 key demo rating and 6.06 million viewers for “The Goldbergs.” That’s not spectacular retention for “The Goldbergs,” but shedding 0.8 in the key demo from a mediocre lead-in is never good, nor is shedding almost a full ratings point from its premiere. Want to know who tuned out? It looks like it was women. While “Trophy Wife” slipped from a 1.8 to a 1.3 rating rating among men 18-49, it went from a 2.7 rating to a 1.6 rating among women 18-49. And it appears that most of the drop was among slightly older women, as “Trophy Wife” fell from a 3.4 rating among women 25-54 to a 2.0 rating in that demo. I could keep going, but yeah. It’s a 1.5 ratings point drop among women 35-54. That’s as deep as I’m digging.
*** It feels to me like FOX has a decision to make about “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” which slipped to 3.43 million viewers and a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49. If FOX keeps airing it after “Dads,” which is functionally dead, “Brooklyn” doesn’t stand a chance. For a couple weeks, “Brooklyn” was showing the ability to at least gain on its “Dads” audience, but this week “Dads” did 3.4 million viewers and a 1.3 key demo rating, so they’ve become basically the same show. The question FOX has to ask is, “Do we believe that these are the same show or do we have any desire to try to protect the Andy Samberg cop show we actually like?” If you’re curious, the third week of “Ben & Kate” averaged 3.3 million viewers and a 1.5 key demo rating last year. The way I see it: Both of these shows are dead unless FOX finds a way to reverse the trending, which is only down. And that trending has to be reversed fast. And the only way to try to do it is by giving one of the shows a lead-in and you probably can’t give both shows a lead-in. To me, moving “Raising Hope” back to Tuesdays at 8 p.m. for November Sweeps is a no-brainer, so FOX would then have to decide whether to keep “Brooklyn” or to move “Dads” to 8:30. [“Raising Hope” didn’t help or save “Ben and Kate” last year. I know this. But it would do better in that time period than “Dads.” Period. There aren’t many options here.]
*** “The Mindy Project” beat “Trophy Wife” among adults 18-49. It was only by 0.1 and “Trophy Wife” won easily in total viewers, but “Mindy” rarely gets anything to celebrate.
*** I feel like being positive about something. Even though “Chicago Fire” slipped a tiny bit [between Fast Nationals and Finals] to 8.74 million viewers and a 2.6 rating among adults 18-49, those are just solid numbers for the second year drama. And “Person of Interest” rose a hair to a 2.1 key demo rating and 12.35 million viewers in Finals, which is almost identical to what “Vegas” did in its second week last year. Since the “Vegas” premiere was well above the “Person of Interest” Tuesday premiere, this suggests CBS should be up year-to-year at 10 p.m. within a week or two. Now if “The Millers” is solid and “The Crazy Ones” holds 85 or 90 percent of its premiere audience, CBS can feel OK about that swap.
*** “NCIS” always goes up between Fast Nationals and Finals. I don’t know why that is. The Ziva transitional episode did 19.98 million viewers and a 3.5 rating among adults 18-49. Want some bad news for “NCIS”? After doing a whopping 15.4 rating among adults 50+, “NCIS” slipped to a 13.9 rating in that demo. The drops were much smaller among adults 18-34 and 25-54.
*** “Lucky 7” is still scheduled to air next week. For now.