It was a half-hearted Monday night that was missing the presence of ABC and CBS, but it still had its full share of surprises across the two smaller networks, NBC and FOX, who decided to face off a week early, in the hope of getting their shows a head start. It worked for one, but not the other.
NBC and FOX are also the only two networks to bring new shows to Monday nights, with NBC bringing the heavily promoted Revolution, and FOX with its House part-replacement, The Mob Doctor
Let's put CBS and ABC on the sideline for a minute, while we run through what happened between NBC and FOX last night.
At 8pm, FOX brought back Bones for season 8, which led in The Mob Doctor at 9pm. After that, local programming resumed. NBC aired The Voice in its usual 2 hour slot from 8-10pm, then Revolution for the final hour.
Back over on FOX, Bones premiered with a 2.3 18/49 rating, and 7.98 million viewers. Despite only having NBC for worthy competition, Bones pulled its lowest premiere by audience, ever, and its lowest premiere by ratings since at least season 4, which is as far back as my own records go. But The Mob Doctor barely got off the ground last night, with an unbelievably low 1.5 18/49 rating, and just 5.11 million viewers. A repeat of 2 Broke Girls on CBS got a better rating, though only 200,000 less viewers
On NBC, The Voice improved by an impressive 0.5 18/49 rating on last weeks season premiere, with a 4.7 18./49 rating, and 13.57 million viewers. Bear in mind that The Voice had no competition from any other network except FOX, which may as well not have turned up to the party. But competition or not, Revolution obviously got a solid kick from The Voice as its lead-in, pulling an incredible 4.1 18/49 rating, and 11.65 million viewers. According to TVByTheNumbers, this is the highest rated drama debut across all networks in 3 years, and NBC's highest rated drama debut in 5 years. This is despite NBC releasing the pilot episode early on the internet. Revolution also eclipsed NBC's Smash, which aired - and failed miserably - in the same timeslot last season
Time to give CBS and ABC a run off the bench
NBC will be pretty pleased with their effort last night, but I don't think FOX will feel the same way. It's not going to get any easier for FOX either, because next week, things will be turned upside down with the return of ABC's Dancing With The Stars: All Stars, which runs directly opposite NBC's The Voice, and FOX's Bones and The Mob Doctor from 8-10pm. CBS brings four half-hour comedies to the table, including How I Met Your Mother, 2 Broke Girls, and a new series called Partners. At 10pm, ABC brings back the highly anticipated fifth season of Castle, and Hawaii Five-0 returns for season 3 on CBS - both shows share the same timeslot as Revolution on NBC
Viewers are pretty spoiled for choice on Mondays, but something's got to give. Having such a promising line-up of shows across all four networks will put pressure on peoples' DVR's as well, so DVR viewing may be the only thing to rescue some of the shows if they fail to perform upfront, though DVR viewing isn't taken with much weight by the networks.
Obviously, ABC and NBC, with Dancing With The Stars and The Voice, will dominate the 8-10pm timeslot, with potential viewership upwards of 30 million combined if both shows get off to a good start. The pressure points I'm seeing at the moment will be with FOX and CBS from 8-10pm. Bones might be able to hold off the competition because of its sheer age, loyal fanbase, and partially reinvented storyline. If CBS's Partners fails to fly at 8:30pm, then Bones is in a position to capitalize, dependent on people's taste, if they don't bail to ABC or NBC. The Mob Doctor is the show that I think will be hit the hardest of all, running up against 2 returning CBS comedies, and the big shows on ABC and NBC. Scheduling The Mob Doctor in such a competitive timeslot was a pretty dumb idea in the first place on FOX's part no matter how much potential they think it has, and what's more disappointing is that the premiere last night was actually pretty good, in my opinion. A 1.5 rating and 5.11 million viewers isn't the ideal stats to premiere a series with, but fingers crossed those numbers will improve, though I have to say that it is a big ask.
If you were to ask me for my predictions for next Monday, I believe Dancing With The Stars will win the night, followed by The Voice. Bones and The Mob Doctor will drop a little, while the CBS comedies will be ok, given that its their premiere night. Following such a strong premiere performance last night, I think Revolution will win the 10pm slot on ratings, but Castle will be very close behind, and will pull more viewers than Revolution. Hawaii Five-0 shouldn't take much of a hit, as it's statistically been a very consistent show over the past 2 seasons
I'll leave you with the Bones season comparison charts for both ratings and audience, to demonstrate how much the show has dropped off over the last few seasons. Like The Mob Doctor, Bones will have its work cut out to improve those numbers, with last nights premiere pulling lower numbers than the averages of the whole of last season
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| Last season kept heading down, though it was only 13 episodes long |
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| The audience numbers bottomed out around the 7 million mark last season |
Thanks for reading. I'll happily answer any questions you may have in the comments section below. Don't forget to check out my website, www.seriesmonitor.com. where all the statistics I mentioned can be found, along with much, much more.
Jimmy
