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Winners notwithstanding, the obvious shortcomings of the 78th annual Golden Globes on-screen last night were reflected in the ratings for the NBC broadcast ceremony today. Though the Comcast-owned network doesn’t plan to release final numbers from Nielsen until tomorrow, semi-adjusted fast nationals reveal the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler bicoastal hosted show took a hit from last year. A big hit. And we don’t just mean the worthy whack the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been taking from some of Tinseltown’s heaviest hitters over the 87-member group’s total lack of Black members. Coming in with a 1.2 rating among adults...

Fox News, which has watched its ratings leadership slip since the election loss of President Trump, announced a major revamp of its daytime lineup Monday. The conservative-leaning network, which is typically the dominant leader among cable news viewers, has seen CNN and MSNBC surpass it in the Nielsen ratings in many hours throughout the day since the Nov. 3 election. -snip- The major change is the move of "The Story With Martha MacCallum" out of its 7 p.m. Eastern time slot to make way for a new opinion show, tentatively named "Fox News Primetime," which will have a rotating group...

The rise of Newsmax TV has caused a major shake-up at Fox News, which announced Monday that its early evening show host Martha MacCallum has been demoted back to an early afternoon slot, among other changes to the lineup. "Newsmax's consistently strong numbers during the day and especially at the 7 p.m. ET slot has caused panic at Fox, which rarely makes lineup changes," Newsmax said in a statement Monday, adding with a wink, "The Fox is on the run." MacCallum's "The Story" had long been the #1 cable news show in the 7 p.m. time slot, until Newsmax TV's...

The 2020 American Music Awards delivered a big decline in rating and total viewership from last year, falling to record lows in both measurements. Last night’s awards show, which was hosted by “Empire” star Taraji P. Henson and saw Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Dan + Shay emerge as the big winners, averaged a 0.9 rating among adults 18-49 and around 3.8 million total viewers. That represents a 50% rating decline and a 43% loss in total viewership. For comparison, last years AMAs were down only 4% on the year prior in the ratings column, and in fact gained around...

In the latest TV ratings, Fox’s coverage of the World Series opener between the Dodgers and Rays averaged 7.2 million total viewers and a Tuesday-topping 1.8 demo rating — though down sharply from the preliminary numbers (11.6 mil/2.9) for last year’s Nationals/Astros Game 1. Check back later for the final tally! NBC | The Voice (7.5 mil/1.0) was down a tick from Monday’s premiere, but teed up Transplant for Stateside highs of 4.3 mil/0.6. ABC | The Bachelorette (4.1 mil.1.1) slipped about 20 percent from last week. Leading out of that, a Supermarket Sweeeeeeep! encore did 1.8 mil and a...

Broadcast-TV ratings may again be on the decline — as they have been since… well, for a while! — but that does not mean ABC, CBS et al are about to close up shop and leave your Zenith with nothing but test patterns. And here is the important reason why. Money. “But,” you argue, “ratings are down! You typed it right up above! I see it with my own eyes!” And the short retort to that is: Remember what your high school economics teacher told you about supply and demand…. The longer answer, for those interested enough to stick around:...

It's a widely accepted piece of TV ratings dogma that same-day numbers represent a starting point, not the complete picture for a given show. What's also true, however, is that in 2018-19, the starting point for nearly every returning broadcast series retreated from the previous season. In fact, only 10 percent (10 of 102) of veteran series increased or held steady with their same-day adults 18-49 rating from the 2017-18 season. The Hollywood Reporter's comparison includes same-day ratings for all original episodes of series that aired more than one episode in the 2018-19 season, including those coded as specials. Only...

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” and its behind-the-scenes spinoff, “Untucked,” are cultural touchstones that have launched catchphrases and minted stars. But neither series has ever lit up the ratings. Recent episodes of each series garnered only a few hundred thousand viewers and were the 285th and 359th most-viewed shows in the cable ratings for the week of April 15. But both series performed extremely well in another ranking. The “Drag Race” and “Untucked” episodes were the No. 3 and No. 9 most watched among same-sex households that same week. This is according to Nielsen’s same-sex spouse or partner household rating, a new...

The American Music Awards hit a new all-time low in the Nielsen ratings on Tuesday night. ABC aired only the AMAs on Tuesday, with the three hour show drawing a 1.8 rating in adults 18-49 and 6.5 million viewers. That is down 25% in the key demo and approximately 29% in total viewers compared to the 2017 broadcast, which drew a 2.4 rating and 9.2 million viewers. The show also moved from Sunday in November for the first time in more than a decade this year. More to come…

It’s become a major trend, when tax season arrives, cable and satellite subscriber numbers tank according to Nielsen estimates. I don’t know if that’s because come spring tax season everyone looks at their yearly budgets and many people, in an effort to save money, decide they don’t need cable and satellite subscriptions any longer, or whether the end of the NFL, college football, and college basketball causes many sports fans to tune out for the summer. But regardless of the reason cord cutting in the spring has become an annual trend And the start of this spring was brutal for...

Bill Maher on Friday cut New Rules short to share an open letter to “dear friend” Roseanne Barr. The seven-minute segment found the Real Time host addressing the success of the Roseanne revival, while also questioning both Barr and her character’s controversial support of President Trump. “It’s 2018 and we have to talk about Trump,” Maher said. “Like it or not, you’re now the face of the Trump supporter, because you really do speak for a certain kind of American who knows they’re being screwed by someone, they just don’t know who. But here’s what you’re missing about Trump: When...

ABC’s Roseanne revival settled in last night with a slice-of-life episode focused on parenting after last week’s headline-grabbing premiere tackled President Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the election. The ratings took the inevitable dip but remained impressive — 15.1 million viewers and a 3.9 rating among adults 18-49 in the fast nationals at 8 PM last night. Vs. the 8-8:30 PM part of the double premiere episode last week (17.7 million, 4.9/21), Roseanne retained 84% of the audience and 80% of the adults 18-49 rating. It was once again the top program of the night by a mile in both...

More ratings milestones for the premiere of ABC’s Roseanne revival. After big Live+same day and Live+1 numbers, the classic sitcom’s Season 10 debut delivered the largest-ever total viewer Live+3 increase for any single telecast on any network with a +6.59 million viewer lift. Roseanne, which already has been renewed for Season 11, eclipsed the previous record holder, the 9/25/14 premiere of ABC drama How to Get Away with Murder (+5.93 million gain). After three days of delayed viewing, the average viewership for the Roseanne premiere jumped to 25.04 million total viewers (from 18.45 million in L+SD). In adults 18-49, Roseanne...

The revival of Roseanne returned to massive preliminary ratings Tuesday night. The premiere delivered 18.2 million viewers and a 5.1 rating among adults 18-49. In the adult demo, that even trumps Sunday’s 60 Minutes which featured an interview with Stormy Daniels. More relevant entertainment program comparisons to come shortly. More to come…

Preliminary television ratings for Sunday's NFL games finished lower as compared to the same week last year. CBS said its national games, which featured the Green Bay Packers' 27-24 win over the Cincinnati Bengals and the Kansas City Chiefs' 24-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers, were down 1 percent in the overnight ratings as compared to its Week 3 national games for the 2016 season. Fox's game, which featured the New York Giants against the Philadelphia Eagles in many markets, was down 16 percent, compared to Week 3 of last season, which featured the Giants playing the Washington Redskins....

The 69th Emmy Awards are looking as though they’ll be at or near an all-time low in the ratings. CBS’ live telecast of the awards is currently showing a 2.1 rating in adults 18-49 and 9.58 million viewers, compared to 2.5 and 9.69 million in last year’s preliminary ratings. CBS has ordered time zone-adjusted ratings, and we’ll update this post when they come in. Last year’s ceremony finished with a 2.8 and 11.3 million viewers and was the least-watched Emmy show on record. Elsewhere, “The Orville” is currently showing fairly steady numbers vs. its premiere, although it started after 8:30...

We all knew NBC would win last night — but how many of you had the Chiefs? (And be honest, commenters.) The 2017 NFL Kickoff Game slipped 12 percent versus 2016’s version, putting up a 14.6 rating/25 share. Last year’s — a rematch of Super Bowl 50 — was already down 7 percentage points when compared with its own predecessor. The 2016 season-opener (a 16.5 overnight rating) featured a rematch from the prior year’s big game. And it was a close contest, as the defending champion Denver Broncos edged the opposition Carolina Panthers by just one point. This time around,...

Kicking off on the night of last year’s election and Donald Trump’s ascension to the Presidency, there was a lot of 2016 in the debut of American Horror Story: Cult. But not the numbers: with 3.93 million viewers and a 2.02 rating among adults 18-49 on September 5, the latest installment of the Ryan Murphy- and Brad Falchuk -created series premiered down significantly from last year’s season opener of American Horror Story: Roanoke. In overall sets of eyeballs watching the politically drenched Cult, there was a 24% drop from the September 14, 2016 premiere of Roanoke. Among the key demo,...

When an episode performs poorly with viewers, the networks often intentionally misspell the show title in their report to Nielsen, according to the Journal. This fools the system into separating that airing out as a different show and keeping it from affecting the correctly-spelled show's average overall rating. The report says the practice was initially used sparingly -- for instance, when a broadcast would go up against a major sporting event. But it has now grown fairly common, with NBC misspelling the title of "NBC Nightly News" 14 times since the current TV season began last fall. At one point,...

EXCLUSIVE: After last night’s The Bachelor finale, we know who Nick Viall’s new love is, but we don’t know how well the Season 21 ender of the ABC reality romance show did in the ratings. And neither do ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, the CW — or Nielsen. An early Sunday morning power outage at the data company’s Oldsmar, FL facility continues to kneecap reporting of viewership and adults 18-49 demographic numbers for the Big 4 and the CW for a third day in a row. The lack of those fast affiliates and more is frustrating the nets. Right now, they...