Sunday, October 3, 2010

First Two Weeks, "The System" Observations


Here's "the system" through the Thursday premiere week premieres.


Lots more explanation on the previous post.



SAMPLING
$#*! My Dad Says 4.0
Hawaii Five-0 3.9
Mike & Molly 3.9
The Event 3.6
Outsourced 3.6
Hellcats (3.2)

Raising Hope 3.1
The Defenders 2.9
Nikita (2.7)
Better with You 2.5
Running Wilde 2.4
Chase 2.3

Outlaw 2.3
Detroit 1-8-7 2.3
Undercovers 2.1
My Generation 1.6
The Whole Truth 1.5
Lone Star 1.3

Friday premieres = 1.25 * A18-49
CW premieres = 1.5 * W18-34

RETENTION
Raising Hope even
Mike & Molly -5%
Hawaii Five-0 -8%
Chase -9%
Detroit 1-8-7 -9%
Better with You -12%

The Defenders -14%
Nikita -17%
$#*! My Dad Says -18%
Hellcats -19%
The Event -19%
The Whole Truth -20% 

Running Wilde -21%
Outsourced -22%
Lone Star -23%
Undercovers -24%
My Generation -31%
Outlaw -52%

EXCELLENT (5-6 points): Hawaii Five-0, Mike & Molly (6 points), The Event, $#*! My Dad Says, Hellcats (5 points)
BORDERLINE (3-4 points): Better with You, Chase, Outsourced, Raising Hope (4 points), The Defenders, Nikita (3 points)
IN TROUBLE (0-2 points): Running Wilde, Detroit 1-8-7 (2 points), The Whole Truth (1 point), Outlaw, Undercovers, My Generation, Lone Star (0 points)

Now, there isn't all that much to be said that I haven't said already in the 18 individual First Two Weeks posts linked above, but here are a few observations with it all in one place:

A bad year for new shows. I did a lengthy post on this last week based on just premieres, but the week two drops haven't been any more encouraging. It looked pretty good for the newbies on Monday and Tuesday, but the large drops began to pour in later in the week.

Here's a quick and easy way of looking at how bad it's been: the median premiere so far is a 2.6 and the median week two decline is 18.5%. These are both down from the median 2.95 premiere and 16% decline at the end of last season. Perhaps that doesn't look terribly bad, but it isn't really an apt comparison, because all the typical midseason dreck hasn't been factored in yet. At this time last year, the medians on the 2009 debut of "the system" were a 3.65 premiere and just a 12% decline! Those figures would both be top-tier finishers in this year's incarnation! Both those medians may get a little better when Blue Bloods, No Ordinary Family, and LOLA join the mix, but we're still going to be looking at a much worse start than last year.

On CBS, "excellent" is the new "borderline." Because CBS had such good premieres comparatively speaking, it currently owns three of the five "excellent" shows. But that means you should probably think of something like $#*! My Dad Says as a little less safe since it had a relatively large decline, and The Defenders may not even be borderline, just looking at the first two weeks.

On Fox and ABC, is "borderline" the new "excellent"? Both these nets have already canned one show, both have at least one other in the danger zone, and both have zero shows in the "excellent" column. Does that mean we should look even more favorably than usual on the likes of Raising Hope and Better with You? Probably so. (Though ABC is fairly likely to have No Ordinary Family join the "excellent" club barring a huge week 2 drop, and Raising Hope may eventually work its way up there after all the midseason premieres.)

On NBC, revenge of the week 2 numbers? I very hesitantly predicted The Event and Outsourced to make it into season 2 despite their big drops in week 2. Both seem likely to get the 4 points for having top-tier premieres, but if they get canned, maybe I'll have to go back and reconsider my de-valuation of the week 2 number. Maybe. That said, with Undercovers and Outlaw pretty much dead and Chase looking modest at best, they may stick around almost by default anyway.

No comments:

Post a Comment

© SpottedRatings.com 2009-2022. All Rights Reserved.