February sweeps

Can Empire keep its hot pace? Will Blacklist still be a hit on Thursdays? Will Mom become a hit? Will Black-ish revive? Can any show challenge cable’s The Walking Dead?

In the February sweep, Paternity Court with judge Lauren Lake from MGM’s Orion TV Productions posted a 29% year-over-year time period increase to a 1.44 household rating, 2 share, based […]

The court topper’s 8.0 is the best in syndication and represents a 7% household increase since February 2013. Other genre leaders include Dr. Phil, Entertainment Tonight and Wheel of Fortune.

The February sweeps were all about sports. NBC won the four-week period used to set ad rates by local stations, thanks to 16 days of Winter Olympics coverage. But Fox was a fairly close second, buoyed by a record-setting Super Bowl during the first week of the sweeps period. NBC averaged a 4.0 adults 18-49 rating during sweeps, which wrapped up on Wednesday. That was up 233% over last year, when the network averaged a 1.2 and famously finished fifth, behind Univision.

In a February that saw ABC and CBS air plenty of repeats opposite NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics, Univision rose to third place among adults under 35 — a first for the network in any sweeps month.

The Winter Olympics will lift the network to a February win, after fall’s November victory. The Super Bowl will push Fox to second ahead of CBS. ABC will lag in fourth.

The Spanish-language network on Wednesday put a bow on an historic February, which saw it finish ahead of one of the Big Four broadcasters — NBC — in a major sweep for the first time.

In NBC’s Today Show’s home market, New York, Today was beat by Fox O&O WNYW’s Good Day New York for the first time since the introduction of the Local People Meters in 2003. For the February sweep, Good Day NY averaged a 1.3/9 in adults 25-54 vs. 1.2/.8 for Today from 7-9 a.m.

With three days left in the February sweeps, CBS looks certain to top the period for the first time in 15 years. Tracking from Jan. 31 to Feb. 24, the network is poised to win among adults 18-49 with a 4.3/12 rating. CBS’s results are well ahead of number two ABC’s 2.2/06 and third place Fox’s 2.0/06. With a 1.2/03, NBC looks set to come a historic fifth after Univision in the sweep for the first time.

As sweeps month nears its end, the network is struggling to recover from an embarrassing and potentially costly ratings plunge.

An already bad month is getting worse for NBC. For the first time in sweeps history, the network is projected to finish fifth in the key adults 18-49 demographic. That’s crushing blow for NBC, which went from flying high in November with a sweep win to its shows cratering and ratings plunging. From the beginning of the February sweep on Jan. 31 through Feb. 19, NBC has averaged a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49. That’s below the 1.5 that Univision has been averaging so far over the 20 nights of the sweep period.

The network should win in 18-49s and total viewers, getting a major boost from Sunday’s Super Bowl and the always-huge post-Super Bowl show. It also has the Grammy awards, which outdrew the Oscars last year, and The Big Bang Theory, broadcast’s top scripted show in 18-49s.

All the shows in the genre posted improvements over the sweeps a year ago. Others doing well for the month include some talk shows, the top four court shows and newcomers Anderson and Big Bang Theory.

Are the days of dominant, No. 1 news stations over and done? Not quite. But the headlines from this year’s February sweeps do make you wonder. When former powerhouses struggle and former rivals are neck-and-neck, have we entered a new era of local news?

Boosted by the most-watched Super Bowl in history, NBC cruised to an easy February sweeps victory among adults 18-49, its second February victory in the past two years. Fox and CBS tied for second while ABC fell to fourth.