Ratings News - 16th May 2014

Today's Early Overnight Ratings

This table shows the early overnight ratings. These ratings are normally adjusted later in the day when all the ratings have been consolidated to take into account any local preemptions and/or overruns. You can find all the final adjusted numbers in our Ratings Database. (See the About section below for details about ratings)

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Early Ratings Analysis

The analysis below is based on the early household numbers and are NOT the same as the numbers that will be posted in the above table later. (See the About section below)

For more information on the Nielsen Ratings see this Wikipedia Entry.

NOTE: The opinions expressed here are NOT those of SpoilerTV but of the Author of this Article, Marc Berman.

Thursday 5/15/14 Metered Market Ratings
“Big Bang” Season-Ender Leads CBS to Victory

Household
Rating/Share
CBS 6.1/10
Fox 4.6/ 8
ABC 4.2/ 7
NBC 2.2/ 4
CW 1.3/ 2

-Percent Change from Year-Ago Evening – Thursday 5/16/13:
CW: – 7, CBS: -10, ABC: -23, NBC: -31, Fox: -52
———-

-Winners:
“The Big Bang Theory” (CBS), “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC)

-Losers (excluding repeats):
“Hollywood Game Night” (NBC), “Rosemary’s Baby,” part 2 (NBC), “Reign” (CW), “Bad Teacher” (CBS), “Black Box” (ABC)

———-

-Ratings Breakdown:
CBS, which featured three season finales, topped this third Thursday in May (and final Thursday of the May 2014 sweeps), with a 1.5 household rating point advantage over No. 2 Fox. The season-ending installment of “The Big Bang Theory” led the night, of course, with an 11.0 rating/19 share at 8 p.m. Comparably, that was 11 percent above the comparable year-ago season-finale (9.9/17 on 5/16/13). Lead-out “The Millers” concluded its season with a dominant 6.5/11 at 8:30 p.m., which dipped by 41 percent from “Big Bang” and is not worthy of remaining in this time period next season (after Thursday Night Football concludes). Now that obnoxious “Millers” Mama Carol (Margo Martindale) is moving out, maybe the writers can send her into the land of the TV lost.

Next on CBS was an encore of “Two and a Half Men” (#2: 4.9/ 8 at 9 p.m.), which will finally conclude next season, followed by canceled “Bad Teacher” (#3: 3.7/ 6) and the season-finale of sophomore drama “Elementary” (#1: 5.3/ 9) from 9:30-11 p.m. CBS, which is keeping “Elementary” intact in the Thursday 10 p.m. hour next season (out of new sitcom “The McCarthys”) could certainly put this time period to better use.

Veteran “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC concluded its season with a healthy (and dominant) 6.7/11 from 9-10 p.m., which was on par from the year-ago evening. Moving to Thursday at 8 p.m. next season on “Shonda-Night” will, no doubt, result in audience erosion. At 10 p.m., canceled ABC drama “Black Box” earned its walking papers with a 3.2/ 6 (#2) in the overnights. And a repeat of “Grey’s Anatomy” opened the night with a third-place 2.6/ 4 from 8-9 p.m.

Fox, which featured the two-hour season-finale of “American Idol” on the year-ago evening (hence the steep erosion), featured “Hell’s Kitchen” (#2: 3.4/ 6 at 8 p.m.), which will anchor Wednesday on the network next season, and “American Idol” (#2: 5.7/ 9 at 9 p.m.).

Over at low-rated NBC, “Hollywood Game Night” (#4: 2.4/ 4 at 8 p.m.), which has been renewed for midseason in 2014-15, led into part two of the anemic revival of “Rosemary’s Baby” at a 2.2/ 4 from 9-11 p.m. The night’s two other season-finales were “The Vampire Diaries” (#5: 1.4/ 2) and “Reign” (#5: 1.1/ 2) on The CW. Year-to-year, “The Vampire Diaries” dropped by 26 percent, which could be concerning for next season. Retention for “Reign” out of “The Vampire Diaries,” meanwhile, was modest at 79 percent.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

Source:

Marc Berman@tvmediainsights

About the Daily Ratings

Each day (except Sunday) during the main TV Season we post the TV Ratings for the previous nights primetime shows for the major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC). Cable Network ratings will be added to the Ratings Database.

The first item that gets posted (normally around 2pm GMT) is the early overnight analysis based on the early household numbers (these are not the same as the Total Viewers and 18-49 Demo numbers that are posted later).

Next, if available, we will post the Top 25 Market 18-49 Ratings to give you a rough idea of the ratings to following.

Later on (normally between 4pm-5pm GMT) we post the official early overnight Total Viewers and 18-49 Demo numbers in the table above.

Finally, later in the evening (10pm-11pm GMT) or the following day, the final adjusted ratings numbers are released, these are then posted in the Ratings Database. The Final Adjusted numbers are what we use for all our Renew/Cancellation Tables, Full Season Tables, Ratings Scorecards etc (see below). Friday's Final Adjusted Ratings are normally available on the following Monday.

Additional Ratings Resources

If you’re interested in Ratings/Renewals/Cancellations then we have a number of resources here at SpoilerTV that we recommend you check out.

Renew/Cancel

Our Cancellation/Renewal predictions for the current season.

Ratings Database

Historical Ratings Database for nearly all major US shows going back to their first episodes.

Full Season Tables

The current season full ratings tables for both Total Viewers and 18-49 Demos

Ratings Scorecard

See how all the shows stack up against each other in the Ratings Scorecard Table.