I love television
ratings. I love what they tell us about
individual shows, the networks, and the industry in general. My intention with this weekly article is to
take a look at the week in ratings and prognosticate about their future and the
health of each network. Ratings
presented here are the Adults 18-49 rating, which represents the percentage of
adults between 18 and 49 watching a particular program.
Television syndication is incredibly boring to talk about in
any kind of long-form discussion, but it’s very important for the futures of a
handful of shows airing right now, so I’m going to try to summarize it as
quickly and as painlessly as I possibly can.
You see, the most lucrative aspect of television production is
syndication, wherein a production company sells its shows to cable networks or
broadcast affiliates to run in repeats.
Do you watch The Big Bang Theory
repeats on TBS, Family Guy repeats on
Cartoon Network, or NCIS repeats on USA?
That’s syndication. It’s an
incredibly lucrative business (upwards of $2-3 million per episode nowadays),
especially when a show has enough episodes to be “stripped,” essentially
running episodes in the same timeslot every day. The old threshold for stripped syndication
was 100 episodes but today it’s typically 88 episodes, meaning that a series
that runs four full seasons (at 22 episodes per season) will have enough
episodes for syndication.
Where things get really interesting is when a show is
earning cancelation-worthy ratings at the end of its third season. The network that airs the series may want to
cancel it, but the production company that makes the show has a huge incentive
(tens or hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of incentives) to make 22 more
episodes. In these cases, the production
company will often give the network a steep discount on the license fee for the
show in order to get those extra episodes made.
The most famous example of this is probably ‘Til Death,
which was canceled less than a month into its third season, but surprisingly
renewed when Sony (the production company) made Fox an offer it couldn’t
refuse. In fact, this syndication-driven
television economy has become so common that it’s virtually unheard of to see
the cancelation of a series that is within one full season of syndication.
The corollary to this development is that networks now face
a much more difficult choice when it comes to their sophomore series, for
renewing a show in its second full season is essentially giving it a two season
pickup akin to the academic decision of tenure, wherein universities must decide
whether to give a professor a lifetime job, or terminate them. Which brings us to the “Tenure Twos,” what I
call the shows in their second seasons that are pulling borderline ratings
that, while not necessarily worthy of cancelation by themselves, will make a
network think twice about renewal when it’s extremely likely to be a two-season
deal. Each network has a sophomore
series sitting near (but not at) the
bottom of its ratings that will force a tough decision come May.
 |
| The cast of "The Mindy Project," though it'll probably change tomorrow |
Fox –
The Mindy Project
is Fox’s Tenure Two show this year. Mindy struggled a
bit last spring, but still managed to snag a renewal. This year, however, it debuted weak and just
went down from there, the past two weeks earning ratings below even the
critically-reviled Dads, which just
this afternoon received an unexpected full-season pickup, indicating that Fox
really enjoys being in the Seth MacFarlane business.
The magic number for scripted series renewal is usually
80%. That is, a show (unless it airs on
Fridays) typically needs to draw 80% of the network average ratings in order to
be renewed. This is because networks never
cancel half of their shows, so even being a little below average is okay. The
Mindy Project so far this year is drawing 69.8% of the network average. Exacerbating the problem is that, while Fox’s
comedies have been struggling, its dramas (or rather its hour-long shows, including
Glee) have been doing pretty well,
meaning that Mindy is now the lowest
rated show on the network. Now, I’ll usually
predict a low-rated veteran to be renewed over a low-rated freshman, but will
Fox really commit to two more seasons of Mindy
at this level? I have a hard time seeing
that happening, so Mindy likely needs
either to make a big run or for some more shows to fail.
Moving away from The
Mindy Project, Fox gave us the strangest news of the week when, on
Wednesday, it announced that the premiere of Almost Human was being moved.
Originally scheduled to debut on November 4th with the return
of Sleepy Hollow after that show’s
brief hiatus, Fox pushed Human’s
debut back two weeks, giving it a two-night premiere, with the first episode
following a late NFL game on November 17th and the second episode
debuting the next night. The move also
allows Sleepy Hollow to have two more
weeks with its Bones lead-in.
The move, in and of itself is actually a good one. What is so confusing is that Fox waited so
long to make this decision. In fact, it
came so abruptly that Fox’s advertisers working the World Series didn’t get the
memo, causing them to run an ad behind home plate of the first game still promoting
the show’s November 4th debut.
Nothing has changed for Fox in the last month. Why they waited so long to make this
completely sensible decision is beyond me.
The World Series is back and once again giving a temporary
boost to Fox’s ratings. The network
could really use a long series, though, to get them back to even. As it is right now, the network is still down
5% over last fall, keeping them in last place for the moment.
 |
| "Revolution's" logo is the best part of "Revolution" |
NBC –
NBC’s troubling Tenure Two show is Revolution. It was a monster hit last fall, debuting
to huge ratings airing after the first fall run of The Voice. But the show
couldn’t sustain its high numbers, falling throughout the season especially
after its return in the spring. NBC
moved the show to Wednesday night this year, forcing it to survive on its own
and, while it has done okay, it’s only barely breaking the aforementioned 80%
mark at 86.1%. It’s also not doing a
very good job at providing a lead-in for SVU,
which has already lost half its premiere audience. Now, SVU’s
struggles are as much do its timeslot as anything else (it would likely be much
better served airing at 9:00 instead of 8:00) but Revolution certainly isn’t helping matters.
In other NBC news, the network’s desperate attempt to save Sean Saves the World and The Michael J Fox Show was a disaster in
its first week. As I mentioned last week, NBC decided to put Parks and
Recreation on hiatus for most of the rest of the fall, instead airing The Voice and SNL specials in its stead.
Well, this week’s repeat of The
Voice notched a 1.3 rating, the exact same number that Parks and Rec had been putting up on its own. This led, obviously, to Sean and Fox pulling the
exact same ratings that they did last week, airing after Parks and Rec and the now canceled Welcome to the Family.
NBC is still in first place, and they’re still up from last
year. But it’s tough watching their
Wednesday and Thursday lineups tank so badly, especially when NBC Thursday has
traditionally been the night of “Must Watch TV.” Hopefully, NBC can get something figured out
for next year, but for this season it seems to be a lost cause.
 |
| "Nashville" has a lot of terrible images on GIS. This is the least bad one. |
ABC –
ABC is in an extremely strange position right now. The other networks have made
extension/cancelation decisions on the vast majority of their new shows, with the
lone exception being NBC’s Sean Saves the
World (I don’t count CBS’s Hostages
which is certain to be canceled though it hasn’t been already). ABC, on the other hand, has only made two
decisions: giving a full-season order to SHIELD
and canceling Lucky 7. Every one of its other new shows is still in
limbo.
Since ABC has been so reluctant to make decisions on its
shows, I figured I would use this space to give them a hand. Wonderland
is dead in its current home. Betrayal is dead no matter where it ends
up. So why not swap the two or, at the
very least, cancel Betrayal and let Wonderland air where it was always meant
to: with parent Once Upon a Time on
Sunday nights. As is, both shows are sure
to be canceled after 13 episodes, if not earlier. They might as well try to save one of
them.
As for ABC’s comedies, The
Goldbergs, Super Fun Night, and Back in the Game have all pretty well
stabilized, so it makes sense to give them all full-season orders. Whether Super
Fun Night stays in the prime post-Modern
Family timeslot is up for debate.
Personally, I think The Goldbergs would
do far better there (or at least is more compatible), so ABC should switch those
two in January. Unfortunately, Trophy Wife’s ratings aren’t worthy of a
back-nine order, but it’s such a good show that I’d love to see ABC let it air
its first 13 at least. I wouldn’t be
surprised to see the show canceled, though.
ABC actually has two Tenure Two shows: Nashville and The Neighbors. The latter is a difficult show to evaluate
since it airs on Friday nights. But all
you probably need to know is that its ratings are currently worse than the
ratings for Malibu Country, the
series that aired in its timeslot last year and was canceled in May. Nashville,
on the other hand, is just straddling that 80% line at 79.4% of the network
average. The show does air at 9:00,
which is a tougher timeslot than normal, but unlike the other networks, ABC
doesn’t really have as much trouble at 9:00 (see Scandal and Castle), so
that’s unlikely to be much of an excuse for Nashville.
It’s easy to look at ABC and feel bad for the last place
network. But what gets me is that they’re
really not in that bad of a position.
They just lack that one big event series that they can put on for 3-4
hours per week. NBC has The Voice and Sunday Night Football. Fox
has The X-Factor and American Idol. CBS just has a lot of highly rated
shows. ABC’s series aren’t that
poorly-rated, but neither do they crack the top ten much. Until they find such a show, it’s unlikely
that ABC will be able to move out of fourth place.
 |
| Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller in "Elementary." No joke, just awesome. |
CBS –
Elementary is,
perhaps, the most intriguing of the Tenure Twos. This was the show that likely didn’t reach
CBS’s expectations last year, especially after the network gave it the
post-Super Bowl spot. But it still
pulled in decent ratings, especially given its 9:00 timeslot, by far the worst
time for CBS shows to air. This year its
lead-in has been down thanks to the departure of Person of Interest for Tuesday night but that still doesn’t explain
why it fell to a 1.5 two weeks ago.
What has surprised me most about the Tenure Twos (and likely
explains their struggles) is that their ratings this fall have basically been
on par with where they finished last spring.
Most shows see their best ratings in the fall, drop throughout the
spring, then rebound a bit the next fall to start the cycle all over again. For instance, Modern Family earned a 3.3 in its penultimate episode last season,
debuted to a 4.2 this year and has stayed in that same 3.9-4.2 range
since. The Tenure Twos, on the other
hand, have experienced no such fall bump.
In its most recent episode, The Mindy Project pulled the
exact same 1.3 rating that it got in its last three episodes last year. Revolution
finished last season on a 1.9 and returned to a 1.8. Nashville
received the smallest of bumps (from 1.9 to 2.0) but has dropped forty percent
from there. And Elementary has only barely been able to maintain the 1.8-2.0 ratings
it was earning last spring.
Perhaps that’s the key to success on the broadcast networks:
build from spring to fall. Most shows
are going to have worse ratings in the spring than they do at the season’s
beginning. That’s the nature of television. But the shows that are successful are those
that can rebound the next year, to start the drop all over again.
Season to Date
Network Rating Averages (Adults 18-49) –
NBC – 2.79 (Up 1.8% YTD, Up 0.8% Week-to-Week, Down 12.7%
from Premiere Week)
CBS – 2.10 (Down 6.9% YTD, Down 1.9% Week-to-Week, Down
29.0% from Premiere Week)
ABC – 2.05 (Down 3.6% YTD, Down 2.4% Week-to-Week, Down
23.3% from Premiere Week)
Fox – 1.98 (Down 4.7% YTD, Up 3.0% Week-to-Week, Down 10.0%
from Premiere Week)
New Renewals,
Pickups, and Cancelations –
Dads – Full-Season
Order
So thoughts?
Comments? Just want to tell me my
blog sucks? Let me know in the comments
or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.
No comments:
Post a Comment