Revolution Ratings Update (through November 19th 2012)

On November 19th, Revolution pulled in an Adult 18-49 Live + Same Day rating of 2.57. This was a bit of a stabilization from a slide it has been experiencing the last few weeks:

It's still winning its time period in this demo, unless you count ESPN's Monday Night Football. Hawaii Five-0 got a 2.24. Castle got a 1.98.

But, as you can see above from the comparison to some shows last year, Revolution is still holding its head well above water. It's interesting that the slide for Revolution started the night Superstorm Sandy knocked out power and many stations preempted programming. But, even when power returned for many, "same day" viewers didn't return to Revolution.

A lot of people are asking "what happened to everyone's ratings"?

A couple of things are happening. One if the rise of cable as a competitive force, particularly for younger demos. The NFL averaged a 4.8 last night. At 10PM, Teen Mom on MTV got a 1.4 A18-49 rating, but a 3.3 rating for Women 18-34.

The other competition is "stuff on your DVR". People are delaying their viewing more than ever. 10PM is an hour when people are watching stuff they recorded earlier. Thus, 10PM shows tend to get pushed to another night. Even the October 29th Revolution had a lift of 57% from Live + Same Day to Live + 7. Not even Nielsen knows how much viewing is getting pushed beyond seven days because that's when they stop counting.

Overall TV viewing is not down right now except for a small demo slice--Adults 18-24.  Other demos' viewing is not down.  It's just getting split into hundreds of tiny slices.

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Time-shifting Report for Week of Feb. 27th: Psych ratings double beyond "same day" viewing

I'm switching things up a bit this week and including some cable shows in the analysis. What I found is that some key cable shows have a bigger time-shifting lift than the broadcast shows that get most of the attention.

USA's Psych has its ratings double and White Collar's rose 86%. Three other cable shows beat out the biggest lift for the broadcast networks, which was 81% for the doomed Firm.

Top 10 shows by % Lift from Live + Same Day to Live + 7 Day rating:

Archer also found its way into the cable* top ten with a lift of 79%.

On the broadcast side, Grimm was in its customary spot at or near the top of the ranker. The show has gotten an early renewal for a second season, defying the expectations of many at the start of this season.

The premiere of Awake also got enough of a lift to make the list and pull in a respectable 3.05 rating in the process.

One prominent show that didn't make the cable top ten was Walking Dead, but its 48% lift from a 3.46 to 5.11 makes for a massive rating regardless.

Let me know below if you are interested in any shows not mentioned.

* Only the following networks were included in the cable analysis: USA, SYFY, BRAVO, BBCA, COMEDY, DISCOVER, ABC FAMILY, E!, FX, MTV, SHOWTIME, TBS, TLC, TNT, HBO, AMC, HISTORY. Only shows airing from 7PM to Midnight included.

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Ringer, Fringe, and Alcatraz lead in Time-shifting for week of February 13th

TVByTheNumbers.com lists Alcatraz and Fringe as "Likely Cancellations" on the basis of their "Live + Same Day" rating. But, if time-shifted viewing mattered more, at least Alcatraz would look much better, given it got nearly a 3.3 rating on February 13th facing NBC's The Voice:



Fringe's rating goes up to nearly a 2. Today's NY Times has an interesting article about time-shifted ratings (http://tinyurl.com/77bcexf). The bottom line, however, is that the networks get paid based on a show's "C3" rating and that is usually close to what the Live + Same Day rating is.

A high Live + 7 rating does show the execs that people do care enough about the show to DVR it. It also is of value if you can sell "in program" product placement in the show.

A high lift may not save a show like Ringer, whose rating is still low after time-shifters are counted or two canceled shows that showed up in the top ten--Pan Am and The Firm.

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Time-shifting Report for Week of Feb. 6th: Doomed Pan Am edges out Fringe and Grimm

Like the airline it is based on, ABC's Pan Am is destined for becoming history. But, it did win the time-shifting crown for the week from February 6th to 12th, 2012. Rising from a 0.7 rating to a 1.3 isn't going to save it, particularly when most of the lift probably avoided the advertising.

Top 10:


Last week's victor, Grimm, dropped to third, but still had a significant lift. The other shows it competes with in its time period--Fringe and Supernatural--also made the top 10.

If anyone is wondering why reality shows have taken over, take a look at how few of their viewers time-shift. They tend to watch live--something advertisers and networks love.

The Voice: 16% lift from Live + SD to Live + 7 day
Biggest Loser: 18% lift
The Bachelor: 16% lift

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Time-shifting Report for Week of Jan. 30th: Grimm tops Fringe for highest time-shifting

Two shows which compete in the same timeslot--NBC's Grimm and Fox's Fringe--battled it out for most DVR time-shifting in the week between January 30th and February 5th, 2012. Grimm won with a huge 84% lift above its "same day levels. That's an increase of nearly 1.2 rating points, the equivalent of what some shows get on a Live + same day basis.

Who knew that Grimm would be on so many people's DVR list given how little buzz it gets.



CW accounted for 4 out of the top ten including Secret Circle and Vampire Diaries. Fox's Alcatraz also showed that it had more viewers than the earlier ratings indicated.

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The Last Chuck Ratings: Time-shifting Report for the Week of January 23rd

The Live + 7 day ratings data is in for the week from January 23^rd to January 29^th, 2012 and that sadly means the very last time a new episode of Chuck will appear in a Nielsen report. All that remains now is the inevitable move of the reruns to some cable network yet to be named. Who knows if we’ll even know what ratings it will get.

While one would think that the finale of a 5-year series would draw a higher than normal increase in viewing, Chuck’s finale only got a 29% lift for Live + 7 over Live + Same Day.

Still, the Live + 7 rating for “Chuck vs the Goodbye”(1.68) was the highest of the fifth season. The rating for “Chuck vs. Sarah”(1.52) was 3^rd highest. Second highest was the Season 5 premiere, which garnered a 1.59 back in October.

No Season 5 episode even matched the lowest rated episodes of Season 4 for Adults 18-49. Three episodes in Season 4 tied for the season low of 1.78. However, “Chuck vs. The Goodbye” did have higher total viewers (5.109 million) than two season 4 episodes (“Final Details” and “Wedding Planner”).

Top 21 Time-shifted Programs:


Here are Chuck’s season 5 averages:

• Live 18-49 rating: 0.79
• Live + Same Day 18-49 rating: 0.98
• Live + 7 Days 18-49 rating: 1.35
• Live + 7 days total viewers: 4.29 million (Median Age: 50.8)
• Percentage of Chuck’s viewers season 5 who were aged 2 to 11: 4%
• Percentage of Chuck’s viewers who were 55 or older: 40%
• Episode with the lowest number of viewers: “Chuck vs. the Bearded Bandit” with 3.87 million

Elsewhere on the Time-shifting ranker, Fringe had another big lift of 75%. Josh Schwartz’s Hart of Dixie came in second and Whitney (?) came in third.

Castle and Alcatraz also made the top six with lifts just below 50%.

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Time-shifting Report for Wk. of Jan. 16th: Huge lift for Fringe Again

Fringe was king of time-shifting on the broadcast networks. Its 78% lift was almost identical to that of the previous week.

Grimm's time-shifting lift dropped from 85% the previous week to 55% for this week.

Chuck's episode "Chuck vs. the Bullet Train" exhibited only a weak lift of 25%--from 1.06 to 1.33. The previous week it was 40%. I don't know if this is because what was left of Chuck's audience was watching "same day" as opposed to waiting until later or if it is some other reason. I wonder what we will see next week when the numbers come in for the finale.

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Time-shifting Report for Week of Jan. 9th: Returns of Fringe and Grimm See Them Shoot to Top

NBC's Grimm and Fox's Fringe returned from hiatus on January 13th. Their "Live + Same Day" ratings had been on par with what they had done before hiatus. But, today's release of Live + 7 ratings saw both shows getting phenomenal increases. More people are watching these shows. They just aren't watching them on Friday.

Behind them were CW's Secret Circle and Supernatural with 62% increases.

The remainder of the list was non-genre stuff.

Keep in mind that having these extra viewers is only as valuable as how many of them watched the commercials. Ultimately, that's what the advertisers pay for.



If you are wondering what happened with "Chuck vs. Bo". It got a 40% increase from 0.88 to 1.23. That put it in 24th place.

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Time-shifting Report: Supernatural and Chuck in Top 10 for Week of January 2nd

Starting the new year, more shows came back with originals, which always lifts time-shifting in general. Chuck fell down to 10th place, but its 41% lift was enough to make "Chuck vs. The Kept Man" the fourth episode of the season to break a 1.3 rating for Live + 7.



Note that a lot of 10PM shows have high time-shifting. That's partly because being on that late makes it hard for people to watch the same evening. People have to watch by 3AM to be part of "Live + Same Day". It's also because the 10PM hour is a big time where people play back what they've DVR'd earlier.

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Chuck has highest time-shifting lift in week of 12/26/11

Week of 12/26/11: Top 10 base on % increase in ratings.

"Chuck vs. The Baby" was the only new scripted show on the broadcast networks in a week of repeats. Despite the 42% lift, the Live + 7 total was still lower than last week's 1.35 for "Chuck vs. The Santa Suit" by 13%.

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Terra Nova, Prime Suspect and Chuck lead Pre-Xmas Timeshifting

The week before Christmas is a week dominated by repeats and specials. Thus, three shows that usually rank a little lower for in the Top 10 time-shifted shows list--often not making it at all--ranked in the top 3.

Terran Nova's season finale got pumped up to a 3.13 Live + 7 rating, which was just a tad lower than the prior week (3.19). Fox hasn't announced a decision on renewal. At TCA, they said they hadn't decided. Maybe they were waiting for this. I'm thinking they probably will renew, but it's definitely on the bubble.

Chuck built 39% for its well-received Xmas episode. The previous week's episode had a 36% lift.

There has been some talk about some thing's NBC's President said at TCA about Chuck's ratings.

I just thought I'd review what I've seen in the numbers. Here are the "pure live" ratings for Season 4 vs. Season 5 and the Timeshift-only. It's usually presumed that people who DVR show are the more loyal fans. As you can see, time-shifting has gone down as much as Live viewing. As regular readers of these reports know, Friday night shows such as Fringe and Grimm get a lot of time-shifting due to being on Friday.

Live Only A18-49:

Chuck Season 4: 1.33

Chuck Season 5*: 0.75

Difference: -43%

Time-shifted A18-49:

Chuck Season 4: 0.93

Chuck Season 5*: 0.56

Difference: -40%

* through 12/23 episode

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Modern Family and Revenge top Thanksgiving Week Time-shifting

Most of our favorite shows weren't on Thanksgiving week. So, only one Sci-fi show--Terra Nova--made the Top 10 for Time-shifting the week from 11/21 to 11/27/11.



Interestingly, a lot of these aired on Thanksgiving eve, a night known for heavy travel and allegedly one of the biggest bar days of the year.

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