ratings

It was a rough beginning last night for Fox’s new comedy Mulaney. The sitcom became the lowest-rated new show premiere so far this fall, posting a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating, The 9:30 program lost nearly half the 1.0 rating its lead-in, Family Guy, posted at 9 p.m. The low numbers may call into question the wisdom of pairing a live-action sitcom with Fox’s solid long-running animated lineup, which drew huge numbers last week following an NFL overrun.

Media buyer Zenith Media will use Rentrak for its local TV buys and will share that data with TV stations that don’t currently subscribe to Rentrak. Zenith is making the move away from Nielsen’s diary-based measurement to Rentrak’s passive TV viewing measurement from 27 million set-top boxes, because it “is driven by a strong dissatisfaction with the current state of local TV [audience] measurement,” says Rob Jayson, chief data officer at Zenith.

ABC’s new Thursday night lineup continued to show promise last night. All three Shonda Rhimes dramas held up well following last week’s strong debuts, with each retaining at least 84% of their premiere ratings. CBS was first for the night among 18-49s with a 4.2 average overnight rating and a 13 share thanks to Thursday Night Football.

The national ad agency will use Rentrak data for local TV planning and buying, instead of Nielsen numbers.

It’s hardly a shock that ABC’s Good Morning America wore the morning-show ratings crown for the first week of the television season, but its margin of victory over runner-up Today on NBC was rather surprising. Racking up its highest-rated frame since mid-spring, GMA bested Today by its largest margins for any week in more than 20 years (since May 1994). The NBC program was down double-digits in key demos vs. premiere week 2013, while both Good Morning America and third-place CBS This Morning were on the rise.

The Walking Dead’s debut on MyNetworkTV Wednesday night scored the best demo premiere for the programming service in six seasons. Versus the year-ago premiere of Law & Order: Criminal Intent on Wednesday night in the time slot, the AMC zombie drama is up 13% in households (0.9 vs. 0.8) and up 67% in the demo (0.5 vs. 0.3).

Wednesday was a down night for broadcast. Only three Big Four shows managed to avoid declines versus last week’s ratings, and several programs dropped by double-digit percentages. One was ABC’s Black-ish, the new 9:30 p.m. comedy, which posted a 2.5 adults 18-49 rating, down 24% from last week’s impressive series debut. That’s still a solid rating, and Black-ish was the No. 3 show on broadcast for the night, behind lead-in Modern Family (3.5) and timeslot competitor Criminal Minds (which posted a 2.7 for its 10th season debut, down just 4% from last year).

The new broadcast season is only 10 days old, and we already have the first ratings controversy. Pundits are scratching their heads over the abnormally big upward adjustments ABC’s series are getting every day in the final Live+Same Day ratings vs. the fast nationals.

The hit reality show posted a 4.0 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., equal to last week’s fast national rating and easily the evening’s top show. NBC won all six half hours in primetime in the demo, with Chicago Fire drawing a 2.4 at 10 p.m. Without any lead-in support, ABC’s new comedies premiered to low ratings at 8 p.m., with Selfie bowing to a 1.4 and Manhattan Love Story averaging a 1.3.

For the sixth year in a row, CBS won premiere week, averaging 10.9 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 10 million, and won among the adults18-to-49 demo. ABC had 8.3 million and said it won among young viewers if football is taken out of the equation. Fox had 5.2 million, Univision 2.9 million, Telemundo 1.4 million, Ion Television 890,000 and the CW 780,000.

The drama added 6 million viewers with three days of time-shifting, making it the top freshman performer in the adults 18-49 demo with the biggest DVR viewership increase in history.

CBS’s Scorpion and Fox’s Gotham maintained most of last week’s impressive debut numbers in their second outings last night. Scorpion averaged a 3.0 adults 18-49 rating, down only 6% from last week’s 3.2. An original Big Bang Theory at 8 p.m. on CBS was easily the night’s top show, posting a 4.7, down 13% from last week.

Take note, other Big Five networks: Last night Fox and ABC proved that big event broadcasting still works. Both networks saw surges for their signature Sunday shows with events that had been hyped for weeks leading up to their season premieres. Fox’s Family Guy was the big winner on the night. A highly anticipated crossover with The Simpsons boosted Guy to its best numbers in four years, posting a 4.5 adults 18-49 rating for an hour-long episode at 9 p.m. Meanwhile, ABC’s Once Upon a Time soared to a nearly two-year high in its season premiere, posting a 3.4 at 8 p.m.

ABC’s Shonda Rhimes lineup got off to a strong start against tough competition on Thursday. The network, which aired the Rhimes dramas Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How To Get Away with Murder, averaged a 3.5 rating and 11 share for the night among adults 18-49, up 30% from the 2.7 it averaged on the first Thursday of last season. Making the performance more impressive was the fact that it aired against CBS’s Thursday Night Football, which averaged a 4.2 rating from 8 to 11 p.m.

Los Angeles Telemundo affil KVEA is celebrating a huge accomplishment: finally beating Univision rival KMEX in the ratings. According to Nielsen data, Noticiero Telemundo52 at 11:00 p.m. was the most-watched local program for adults 18-49, regardless of language, during September.

Extended episodes of Survivor and Big Brother helped CBS to No. 1 among viewers 18-49 on the first Wednesday of the season. The network average a 2.6 rating and 8 share for the night in the demo, led by the season premiere of Survivor, which posted a 2.7 rating from 8 to 9:30. That was up 4% from last fall’s premiere. The season finale of Big Brother closed the night with a 2.6 from 9:30 to 11, also up 4% from last year. Those two shows gave CBS the most consistent lineup of the night.

Years after the rise of Netflix and YouTube, traditional television is thriving. Americans are watching more broadcast and cable television than ever — five hours a day — and they are simply adding more time with videos by watching online.

The network posted its second straight nightly win on Tuesday, and it even saw night two of The Voice increase over night one for the first time ever. Voice was Tuesday’s top show with a 4.0 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., up from a 3.9 for Monday’s sixth-season premiere. That was down 15 percent from last year’s Tuesday debut. Many other shows also saw double-digit percentage declines versus last year.

Dr. Phil, which has been the highest-rated talk show every year since Oprah left syndication in 2011, kicked off its 13^th season and easily topped all talk rivals. Judge Judy again rules the court genre and first-run overall. ET powers the magazines, while Wheel is the gamest.

NBC kept its edge on Monday night, but CBS and Fox also had something to be happy about. NBC’s combination of The Voice and The Blacklist, which dominated Mondays last season, stayed strong, lifting the network to first on the opening night of the new TV season. NBC averaged a 3.7 adults 18-49 rating and 11 share in primetime, with CBS right behind with a 3.5/10. NBC’s season premiere of Voice averaged a 3.9 from 8 to 10 p.m., its best rating since March though down 24 percent from last fall’s premiere (5.1).

With a big lead-in from 60 Minutes, fueled by NFL overrun earlier in the evening, CBS’s Madam Secretary posted a decent debut last night. The new drama averaged a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., as well as a 2.9 among CBS’s target 25-54s. The 18-49 rating was just a tenth off of what The Amazing Race drew behind Minutes in its season premiere last year. Secretary also drew 14.3 million total viewers.

I find it encouraging to learn that Nielsen is finally moving ahead with plans to replace paper diaries with electronic boxes that count viewership passively. People in the sample homes won’t have to do anything except, I suppose, keep the boxes plugged in. However, I’m a bit skeptical that Nielsen can pull this off

Opposite strong competition from CBS’s Thursday Night Football, NBC’s The Biggest Loser slid to a series low last night. The weight loss reality competition posted a 1.3 adults 18-49 rating, off 19% from last week’s season premiere, which averaged a 1.3. Loser was the No. 1 non-sports show on a night littered with repeats. ABC, Fox and the CW aired all reruns.

NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA postseason drew its biggest television audience in seven years with a double-digit increase in ratings over last season. The Phoenix Mercury’s three-game sweep of the […]

A lot of the recent hand-wringing about TV ad spending may be overblown, but the medium will have to fight for its sponsors in days ahead.

With a big lead-in from the season finale of America’s Got Talent, NBC’s new dramedy The Mysteries of Laura got off to a good start. Laura posted a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating at 10 p.m., marking the highest demo rating in the 10 p.m. Wednesday hour for any Big Three network show since Feb. 26, not including sports programs. Laura retained an impressive 91% of Talent’s lead-in 2.3 rating. The show did slide a bit from its first to its second half hour, from a 2.3 to a 1.9, always cause for concern. Talent was the night’s No. 1 show with a 2.3 from 8 to 10 p.m., down 8 percent from last year’s finale.

Tuesday’s New Girl season premiere demo ratings fell 42% from the prior season’s debut. The Mindy Project dropped 32%. Those are glaring numbers, but Fox TV COO Joe Earley says that internally his network isn’t necessarily considering them bad ones. As a matter of fact, the current discussion at Fox is one of pulling positive conclusions from the figures.

Pat McDonough, a long-time Nielsen executive who was key to the development and oversight of many of the company’s most important media research services, will retire at the end of the 2014, Nielsen U.S. Media President Lynda Clarizio announced in a memo to clients this morning.

CBS aims to accelerate the industry’s move to Live Plus 7 as the standard metric for evaluating the performance of primetime series. The network said today that it will add projected Live Plus 7 numbers to its daily overnight ratings reports.

The NBC show posted a 2.5 adults 18-49 rating from 9 to 11 p.m., surging 32% over a 1.9 last week. Talent was also up 4% over last year’s 2.4 for its next-to-last episode, notable because very few programs have seen year-to-year gains this summer. Talent, which airs its season finale tonight, was the night’s top program among 18-49s, on an evening with a slew of original shows.

As the networks prepare for the start of the new TV season next week, NBC took another victory lap on Tuesday as it celebrated its first primetime victory in the 18-49 demo for a full television year in a decade. The Peacock, which had won the September-May broadcast season in the demo, clinched its 52-week crown with a strong summer. Led by America’s Got Talent, the rising American Ninja Warrior and rookie scripted success The Night Shift, NBC won in adults 18-49 to make it four straight summers on top.

The Monday episode’s overnight ratings were up 55% from its year-ago time slots and up 21% from its average lead-in rating.

In case you are wondering why The View brought back polarizing Rosie O’Donnell — Monday’s season debut clocked 3.902 million viewers — the show’s biggest overall audience in eight years — which is also since Rosie joined the show the first time back in ’06.

The Labor Day week ending Sept. 7 had a mix of new and repeat episodes. Many talkers were up; courtrooms were all in the plus column; magazines were a mixed bag; while games were either flat or down.

ABC’s long-running hit Dancing with the Stars was a little less jazzy in its 19th season premiere last night. The two-hour bow averaged a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating, down 8% from last spring and a new low for a debut episode. But the program still finished well ahead of Fox’s MasterChef as the No. 1 show on broadcast last night, and it lifted ABC to a tie for first place with Fox for the night.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football once again dominated the ratings last night. SNF averaged a 14.0 metered-market household rating, up 3% from the same night last year, when the game was hit by a long weather delay. The contest between the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers, which the Bears won 28-20, averaged a 27.0 in San Francisco for the first game in Levi’s Stadium, the best rating for any game in the market since Nov. 17, 2003. Against the NFL, ABC’s Miss America pageant took a hit. The show averaged a 1.5 adults 18-49 overnight rating from 9 to 11 p.m., down from a 2.0 last year.

The group’s outlets in Atlanta, Hartford and Nashville are the latest to subscribe to the rating service.