Here's the Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending October 30, 2011:
- Happy Endings - Fox's World Series Game 6 last Wednesday got rained out, and suddenly the last pre-November sweeps evening really opened up for the few shows still programming originals. Against the limited competition, five of six originals on Wednesday night hit season highs. For most of those shows (The Middle, Suburgatory, Survivor, America's Next Top Model) it didn't really "matter" because the spikes weren't that big, and most of those shows are on relatively solid footing anyway. The best Wednesday performance came from the show that needed it most, ABC's Happy Endings. Even though its Modern Family lead-in was a repeat (albeit the highest-rated repeat of anything in years), the Happy Endings Halloween episode soared to series highs with 8.33 million viewers and a 3.5 18-49 rating. I've been fairly underwhelmed by most of its ratings this season, but this one may have been a game-changer. I'm leaning toward giving it at least a full season now.
- Beavis and Butt-head - It'd been over a decade since MTV's iconic animated program Beavis and Butt-head had last aired. Last Thursday, MTV revived the show to pretty solid results, as it pulled in 3.29 million viewers and a 1.8 A18-49. That's only about half of what usual timeslot occupant Jersey Shore gets, but otherwise it's a pretty darn good rating for MTV. Also consider the relatively male-skewing program had to face the high-rated Game 6 of the World Series. Leading out was the network's launch of animated newbie Good Vibes, which couldn't even hold half of the Beavis audience; it scored just 1.60 million viewers and a 0.8 A18-49 rating.
- Chuck - It's not like the ratings for Chuck really matter all that much considering NBC announced it as the final season. But considering how awful things are across NBC's entire schedule this fall, I suppose I wouldn't have thought you were completely insane if you'd thought Chuck could somehow score yet another extension. Now... you're probably completely insane. Chuck's Friday debut managed just 3.42 million viewers and a 1.0 demo. You can counter that the show had to face the massive Game 7 of the World Series, and that's true, but this still isn't much of a start. If anything, we learned last Friday that it isn't totally impossible to get a decent rating on a Friday against huge competition, as evidenced by...
- Grimm - Surprise! The premiere of Grimm turned out to be one of this fall's biggest ratings shockers. Despite a weak lead-in (see Chuck above), depressed Friday viewing levels and, oh yeah, Game 7 of the World Series, somehow Grimm managed to find 6.56 million viewers and a 2.1 A18-49 rating. There are a couple angles that should help illuminate how surprising this is. First, the NBC angle: it was NBC's biggest drama premiere of the season, soundly beating Prime Suspect (1.8) and The Playboy Club (1.6), both of which had much better timeslots. In fact, only four NBC drama episodes this whole six-week-old season (two of Parenthood, two of Law & Order: SVU) have done better than Grimm's 2.1. Then there's the Friday angle: the 2.1 demo is the biggest for a regularly-scheduled Friday episode this season and the biggest for Friday scripted TV in over a year, since the Blue Bloods premiere on 9/24/2010. There hasn't been a show to consistently pull a 2.0+ on a Friday night since Ghost Whisperer left the air back in the 2009-10 season.
As always, we can't read too much into a good premiere rating, especially for a genre drama. Those often take huge post-premiere drops. But I think this one is more significant than most. Because of that aforementioned ratings carnage on NBC, I think this premiere rating makes it pretty likely Grimm will be getting a timeslot upgrade in the relatively near future. Basically there are two scenarios: either Grimm "holds up" and becomes too strong of an asset to waste on Friday, or Grimm takes a hit and the perception grows that NBC is killing a show with real potential on Friday with a crap lead-in and low viewing levels. The only way I see the show not getting some kind of upgrade is if it completely bombs in week two. I'm talking about a drop to like a 1.3 or 1.2 next week. Seems unlikely since there won't be a World Series next week, but... stay tuned!
- Allen Gregory - I'm all for Fox trying to cultivate animation voices not named Seth MacFarlane, but it doesn't look like Jonah Hill's new show Allen Gregory is going to fit the bill. Its premiere pulled just 4.77 million viewers and a 2.4 A18-49 rating. That's a pretty low number by Fox animation standards, and it's made even worse by its huge lead-in (a 4.0 demo from the Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons). The show has no real hope of survival at this level or if it drops, so the only positive angle to take is that maybe the big NFL lead-ins in future weeks will help; it is a bit unfortunate that Fox premiered the show on a Sunday without the national NFL late-afternoon game. Also, Allen had to go up against one of the biggest NBC football games of the season to date. But Fox gave a back-nine to fellow animated show Bob's Burgers (which isn't even airing right now) on Monday morning, right around the same time they would've seen Allen Gregory's 18-49 numbers. Coincidence?!
For more in-depth TV ratings coverage every day, check out my blog at SpottedRatings.com or follow me on Twitter: @spotupj.
Nice and interesting!
ReplyDeleteThanks as always Spot.
ReplyDeleteGrimm certainly was one of the biggest surprises in terms of ratings.
Those numbers are very similar, are they not, to Terra Nova's overnight numbers?
And where did all the Chuck fans go?
I don't understand why Grimm should be such a surprise. I really enjoyed it a lot!!!!! Had everything and even a little more!
ReplyDeleteWhile I would point out that you are comparing a fifth episode with a series premiere... yes, the last Terra Nova and Grimm did about the same, which is kind of amazing.
ReplyDeleteAs for Chuck, its audience was never that large on Monday, and the vast majority of shows take big hits on Friday. It's not a big surprise IMO.
Yep, it will be interesting to see if Grimm holds onto it's numbers especially with Fringe returning. I wonder how many Fringe fans tuned in because there was nothing else on.
ReplyDeleteYep, quite understand the Friday "curse" :) It was more that when I first started this site, I think Chuck averaged around 8 Million viewers.
There are lots of reasons why it should be a surprise:
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, critical reaction to Grimm was quite poor. Reviews were more negative than positive, so that's a surefire way to get viewers to keep away.
Second of all, Grimm is airing on NBC. NBC is the lowest rated of the 4 major networks at the moment, so their shows aren't doing well in general, whatever their genre, quality, or the hype surrounding them.
Third of all, the night the show aired, it was up against a baseball game that hadn't been planned in advance (the team that was down a game won, which lead to a final game on Friday). Fringe was pulled from FOX's schedule for that reason. Scripted dramas don't beat sports. That's just how TV works :(. As such, on a night where baseball was set to dominate, no one expected ANYTHING to do well. Period. Except Baseball.
Fourth of all, Friday night is one of the least watched nights on TV (basically excluding Saturday, on which networks don't really air original content). The most popular shows (CBS procedurals generally, like Blue Bloods) tend to pull in 1.8 18-49 demo ratings. Grimm got a 2.1!
Finally, Grimm aired after a weak lead-in. Chuck pulled a 1.0 in the demo (less than half Grimm's audience). New shows tend to be launched after shows in places where they will find an audience. This means that a show like "Pan Am" can air after "Desperate Housewives" because ABC believe DH fans will want to watch Pan Am. For a new show to grow on its lead-in by 110% is really something (ignoring how abysmal Chuck's ratings were).
Add to that the fact that the average person would rather watch 2.5 Men, Modern Family, or Grey's Anatomy, who would have thought that a night already cluttered with "genre" fare would have one show perform so spectacularly. Fringe gets a 1.3/1.4. If it pulled a 2.1 regularly, it could last 6 or 7 seasons quite happily. For now, we'll have to see what happens with next weeks numbers as Spot pointed out.
Hope that helped :D!
Thanks for your insightful analysis again :D! I'm excited to see such tremendous numbers for Happy Endings. The one thing about ratings that still eludes me are the specifics of timeslot differences. If Happy Endings performed as well as it has been thus far this season (above 3.0) at 8:00 P.M., it would be a success. It would be doing better than The Middle, which is considered a "winner" in general. A 3.5 really is fantastic, but why would it be considered a loser with a 3.0. Is it a 3.0 relative to other networks doing better, or is it something to do with airing at 9:30?
ReplyDeleteSo chuffed for Happy Endings I hope that it continues to impress in the ratings its certainly has worked hard to become one of the best comedies on TV right now
ReplyDeleteI guess I was one of the ever-hopeful Chuck fans that thought maybe the move to the dead zone would inspire people to rally behind it.. now that the World Series is over, I can cling to some hope that the ratings will see a spike this week - not necessarily to gain an extension (though that would be great), but to show that we're not going out without a fight
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to see what the Live+3 for Chuck was. Without a new episode of Fringe, I wonder if people just decided to DVR Chuck and do something else for the night, particularly on Halloween weekend. I don't know for certain, but I wonder if there are are a lot of fans of the two shows, and having them on the same night one after the other would prompt people to alter or delay their Friday night plans.
ReplyDeleteThe Middle is valued so highly because it leads off the evening at 8:00, where there are not as many overall people using TV and the combined lead-in from the local programming is really weak - usually 1.5 or less, from what I've seen.
ReplyDeleteHappy Endings has one of the strongest shows on TV as its lead-in, so the expectations are much higher. To be honest, I'm not even sold that the 3.5 is a big "winner," but my point is that it's definitely a winner compared to its previous results. To go up that much when its lead-in went down, even with less competition, is fairly rare.
im glad grimm did well but my guess would be that it wont keep up those ratings this friday because fringe willl be backk!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for these spot, really enjoying them
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy i watched Grimm,i only decided at the last minute. I didn't expect to like it as much as i did. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's a question of where the Chuck fans went. I was expecting last Friday's ratings to be very interesting because of the reduced competition that Chuck faced. Then, closer to Friday, I realized that there were 2 huge competitors in addition to the Friday night dead night thing. One was the World Series, as mentioned above. The other, not mentioned above, was Halloween. I worked at Spirit on Friday and it was one of the busiest days of the month. Why? Because everyone was going to Halloween parties that night. The World Series took some viewers away, but I think Halloween took away more because it applies to a broader demographic, especially younger people. So, the ratings for this Friday (11/4) will also be very interesting since there won't be any World Series or Halloween to compete with.
ReplyDeleteAs an obvious huge Chuck fan, even I was watching the World Series. Baseball comes first over any other television programming, so it was a win-win for tv for me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I completely agree with this. It's the weekend of Halloween essentially. People were out or preparing to go to parties. I really think this caused a huge hit to normal viewers.
ReplyDelete