Category Archives: Spring 2018

The Resident #9

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Why did The Resident absolutely tank in ratings this week compared to last week?

 

On March 26th the show received a rating of 0.9, and on April second it went down to 0.3. Last week it had 4.21 million viewers, this week it had 1.78.

 

The drop in ratings was due to the March Madness final game on TBS.

Most Networks knew they would lose ratings so they chose to air repeats of episodes. Fox took the night off and showed repeats in all time slots, including The Resident. CBS showed repeats as well except for its new show Living Biblically. This was strategic because the networks know they cannot compete with such a big event.

 

NBC and ABC still decided to show new episodes because they lead Monday nights with The Voice and American Idol. The Voice generated 9.91 million viewers while Idol generated 7.08.

Black Lighting #9 – Renewed for Season 2

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Monday, April 2nd The CW announced renewals for 10 series for the fall of 2018. That list includes Black Lightning, Supernatural, and the other DC Comic series and excludes iZombie, Life Sentence, and The 100. Along with the announcement of the ordered shows, The CW also shared that they will be expanding their original programming from Sunday-Friday nights.

This will be important in how the network considers scheduling their fall shows considering Black Lightning and Dynasty, both debut series on the renewal list. As I have mentioned before, Black Lightning aires during a popular time with shows including Blackish, This is Us, and Bull. With a consistent audience, The CW may consider how to gain a wider live audience.

Research by the network should be conducted to see if the audience demographics for the competing shows relates to the consistent audiences of Black Lightning. If there is a connection, The CW may consider how they can profit from a larger audience if it doesn’t have a huge competition night. We will have those answers in May when The CW releases its programming schedule for the fall.

Sources:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/riverdale-flash-supernatural-10-cw-renewals-1098997

http://www.tvguide.com/news/the-cw-fall-2018-schedule-supernatural-the-100-izombie/

Deception #9

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The Sunday, April 1st premiere of the fourth episode of ABC’s “Deception” came up a tenth of a point in adults 18-49, to reach a 0.8 rating in a 3 share. The episode entitled ‘Divination’ had 4 million total viewers. The network average for ABC is a 1.2 rating in a 5 share, and 5.82 million viewers for this past Sunday. This is the first week that “Deception” has not been downward adjusted since the show’s premiere date on March 11th.

The producer of the show, David Kwong (@davidkwong), is clearly the most prevalent on social media, showing his passion in magic and dedication for his new show. Aside from being one of the crossword constructors for the New York Times, Kwong reveals many of character Cameron Black’s (Jack Cutmore Scott) magic tricks from the show, with help of Francis (@MenottiMagic). Whether that is more popular among magicians, whose potential tricks might be revealed, or viewers, whose curiosity may be satisfied, is undetermined. What shows, regardless, is his driving interest and experience in magic.

 

Jesus Christ Superstar Live

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Jesus Christ Superstar Live

Sunday, April 1 on NBC.

 

Programming:

Aired on primetime from 8-10:15 pm ET/PT and was also available on HULU instantly.

It starred John Legend, Alice Cooper and Sara Bareilles and was set during the final week of Jesus’ life, with the story being told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, the infamous betrayer. As more followers are drawn to Jesus, Judah becomes worried that Jesus is losing sight of his principles and becoming arrogant. So, suddenly when Jesus attacks the people in charge of money in a temple, Judas turns on his teacher which sets the path to tragedy. Jesus Christ Superstar was originally developed as a concept album which hit No. 1 on Billboard charts, and paved the way for the Broadway show in 1971. It received five Tony nominations, and won a Drama Desk Award.

 

NBC is trying to change the way they have been previously presenting live musicals, and instead are going to present Jesus Christ Superstar Live as a “Rock Opera”. It was shot in Brooklyn, New York with a multi-level stage that featured thirty-two musicians interacting with John legend, who is playing Jesus.

 

Jesus Christ superstar live went off without a hitch, and finished with the dramatic crucifixion scene of John Legend’s Jesus Christ, which left audiences at home amazed by the elaborate set. It ended by Legend being lifted into the air and disappearing into a cross made of light

 

The original stage production of the musical was highly criticized by religious organizations, with Jewish groups calling it anti-Semitic and catholic and protestant organizations felt it was incorrectly represented. However, the NBC adaptation went off without any of these criticisms and instead was highly praised.  Being as how it aired on Easter, a day when families are together, it is when people are looking to share common experiences and have bonding moments, making this a family piece of entertainment. “The message is perfect for not only Easter but what is going on in our world right now and in our country…It has a universal message and it has universal entertainment appeal.”

However, people watching this at home complained of the audience being too loud and being unable to hear the vocals during the performance.

 

 

 

Ratings:

1.7 rating and a 6 share in the demo and 9.36 million total viewers This special led NBC to its most-watched Easter Sunday in 12 years, since April 2006. It also topped the most recent live musical on a broadcast network, Fox’s A Christmas Story Live last December.

 

Competition:

 

Jesus Christ Superstar was up against American Idol, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Instinct and Madam Secretary. American Idol hit a new viewership low and demo low, along with CBS’ Instinct which drew less than half of the 1.3 demo rating that it scored last week.

 

Jesus Christ Superstar tied with CBS’ 60 minutes as the top program of the night in households.

 

 

Promotions:

 

Track were prerelease the day before the show aired to gain excitement. Promotional photos were released on March 21st and interviews were being conducted across all major online newspaper outlets prior to the show. As for during the show, Chrissy Teigan was live-tweeting and #JesusChristSuperstarLive was trending on Twitter as of midnight Sunday night, four hours after it premiered on NBC.

 

 

Advertisers/sponsors:

 

The most prominent advertisers for Jesus Christ Superstar were McDonald’s, Jeep, T-Mobile, Progressive, KFC, Microsoft and Google. NBC did not integrate any sponsor messaging within the show. However, John Legend appeared alongside his wife Chrissy Teigan in a 30 second Google ad while his collaborator, Common, appeared in Microsoft commercials. NBC also used the large size of their holiday audience to promote in-house shows. During two minutes of airtime, NBC ran spots for “The Voice”, “Rise”, “Good Girls”, “Timeless”, “Dateline”, and “2018 Billboard Music Awards”.

 

Melas, Chloe. “Jesus Christ Superstar: Where to Watch and What to Expect. CNN Entertainment. April 1, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/01/entertainment/jesus-christ-superstar-musical/index.html.

 

Crupi, Anthony. “Jesus Christ Superstar’ Ratings are a Little Shy of Miraculous. AdAge. April 02, 2018. http://adage.com/article/media/jesus-christ-superstar-ratings-not-miraculous-nbc/312957/.

Station 19 #9

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Station 19 is on its second week and the ratings grew on Thursday night, compared to the previous week’s two hour 9-11 pm launch (1.2 vs. 1.1), which is rare for a debuting show. Station 19 took the No. 1 spot at 9pm on the 29th and was ABC’s biggest overall viewing in that timeslot since Premiere week, earlier in the year. As Station 19 marks Shonda Rhimes last new show with ABC before moving to Netflix, it is showing a promising trajectory with viewers, and is more successful then her other new show, For the People.

 

During the second episode of Station 19, the hashtag #Station19 was not trending, however the Shonda Rhimes #TGIT twitter was at the top throughout the night. The Station 19 twitter has been relatively active on days of the show, posting gifs with quotes to get interaction with fans

 

 

 

Moraes, Lisa de. ‘Station 19’ Builds, ‘Supernatural’ Jumps, ‘Big Bang Theory’ Dominates Thursday. Deadline Hollywood. March 30, 2018. http://deadline.com/2018/03/station-19-builds-big-bang-theory-wins-scandal-slides-supernatural-grows-tv-ratings-1202356072/. Retrieved April 2, 2018.

Splitting Up Together #8

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The show has finally premiered this past week to very strong pilot ratings! The show aired with a 2.8 rating and 6.96 million viewers in its 9:30pm time slot on Tuesday. However it is very unlikely that the show can credit the strong premiere to itself. It is far more likely that the show received a halo effect from a little revival known as “Roseanne”.

“Roseanne” premiered on ABC from 8-9pm on Tuesday night with the strongest ratings all season except for the post Super Bowl “This is Us” episode. The show premiered with a 5.1 rating and 18.16 million viewers. So strong that ABC has already renewed the show for a second season and re aired the premiere later in the week.

Other shows that have had previous weeks of ratings to compare to on ABC certainly saw a boost on Tuesday which is why it is very likely that “Splitting Up Together” received a strong premiere from Roseanne’s  strong viewership just continuing to tune into ABC following the show. What will be important to watch in the coming weeks will be whether or not this halo effect continues, if it diminishes, and what happens to the ratings of “Splitting Up Together”

AP Bio #9

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While there hasn’t been much in the news on AP Bio lately, I thought it might be worth taking a look at their marketing on Facebook to see how they promote the show. From a quick scroll through some of the recent posts it seems that the show is trying a humorous approach that their target audience would be likely to connect to. Reading through many of the posts it felt like I was reading through a page of memes or gifs except that the content was all based on scenes or images from the show.

This strategy though could be smart in that is something the audience of the show may be likely to relate to. Mixed in with that style of marketing is also links to articles from magazines that discuss the cast or characters of the show. Overall the show is creating a fun and attention grabbing way of promoting itself on social media however when looking at show ratings it still doesn’t seem like it is enough.

Splitting Up Together #7

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Splitting up Together has at long last been previewed to critics and so far it has not received the warmest of receptions. Two different critics have said the show has fallen flat of its standards.

““Splitting Up Together” has a few interesting things to say. It would have been a better show if it didn’t try to be a family sitcom, too.” This quote was from a review on Variety.

“This is just one example of Splitting Up Together’s tendency to go for easy laughs instead of humor that’s rooted in recognizable truth. It also doesn’t make any sense. Considering how large this family’s damn house is, it’s hard for me to believe that Mason has to share a room with his younger brother and therefore can’t have his own space in which to privately relieve his aching balls.” This from a review on The Vulture.

It seems like the show is trying to hard to be many different things and its leading to minimal character development and continuous plot. This can lead to problems for any show and while the show did premiere to strong and sound ratings thanks to a Halo from Roseanne to be discussed in my next blog, that halo seems like it may not be enough to save the show if the audiences don’t connect.

 

A.P. Bio #8

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As renewal season grows nearer and nearer I thought it would be interesting to compare the ratings of Ap Bio, a new comedy, with the ratings of a more seasoned NBC 30min comedy to see how the two compare. The show that I decided to compare AP Bio with was Superstore as it airs just before AP Bio on Thursdays.

AP Bio appears to have been struggling in the ratings world even for an NBC comedy. Since the show has settled into a “regular” schedule it has been averaging around a .8 rating each week. Meanwhile, Superstore in its third season is averaging a rating of 1.07 so far in its season, with generally ~1,000,000 viewers more each week than AP Bio.

While this difference of almost 0.3 in ratings does seem significant the question is how big this difference really is for NBC and if potentially 0.3 could be the difference between a show getting renewed and a show getting cancelled. This will be important to keep an eye on as we are in the home stretch of announcing renewals with April upon us.

Alex, Inc. (9)

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Last week, Alex, Inc. finally premiered on ABC to decent ratings. The show scored a 1.1 with the 18-49 demographic and 4.6 viewers overall. For perspective, this is about what ABC’s Speechless was advertising during its run in the same time slot. Good news for Ale,x Inc.: Speechless was renewed. However, the following weeks will have to experience the same consistency in order to guarantee additional seasons. The show also had to compete with strong shows on rival networks. New episodes of FOX’s Empire and CW’s Riverdale were among the competition. The former brought in a 2.0 rating with 6.14 viewers, and the latter scored a disappointing 0.3 rating and a total of slightly less than a million viewers. Though Alex, Inc. did lose to Empire, it performed moderately well against an established, popular program. Next week’s episode should give a broader perspective regarding the future of Zach Braff’s new network vehicle.