The first official day of the 2012-13 TV season finally arrived last night. And it was a night packed full of surprises
I'll start with NBC. According to TVByTheNumbers, NBC won every single half hour period in primetime last night, except the first half hour, where CBS's How I Met Your Mother tied with the first half hour of The Voice. TVByTheNumbers didn't actually state the exact figures, they just said the two shows tied, and seeing How I Met Your Mother pulled a rock solid 3.6 18/49 rating from its half hour, then it's reasonable to assume that The Voice also had a 3.6 rating in its first half hour
Also in the first hour, Bones equaled last weeks premiere with a 2.3 18/49 rating, but dropped just under 400,000 viewers on last week, with 7.98 million. This week also saw the return of ABC's Dancing With The Stars, which lost the ratings battle to NBC's The Voice (2.5 vs 4.4) but won the share of audience, with almost 2 million viewers more than The Voice (14.11 million vs 12.18 million). At 8:30pm, following a solid How I Met Your Mother lead-in, CBS's new series, Partners, debuted with a 2.4 18/49 rating, and 6.56 million viewers
Moving onto the 9pm timeslot now. Of course, ABC and NBC still had their big guns running alongside each other, but on CBS, 2 Broke Girls returned for its second season, with a very strong 3.7 18/49 rating, and 10.14 million viewers. On FOX, The Mob Doctor dropped on last week's premiere 1.5 rating, down to a 1.3 rating this week, with only 3.85 million viewers this week, compared to 5.11 million for last week's premiere. Not good, despite being a really good episode in my opinion. FOX have screwed up big time here, and even with Bones holding firm, it seems The Mob Doctor didn't benefit from that at all
At 9:30pm, Mike & Molly returned on CBS to finish off the 4 show, 2 hour Monday comedy line-up, with a good 3.1 rating and 9.45 million viewers
To the 10pm timeslot now, which saw the highly anticipated return of ABC's Castle, and CBS's Hawaii Five-0, to compete with NBC's Revolution, which premiered last week. Revolution dropped a fair bit, though this is to be expected following a premiere/pilot, with a 3.4 rating and 9.21 million viewers this week when compared to last weeks premiere of a 4.1 rating and 11.65 million viewers
Castle kicked off its fifth season with a fantastic premiere, but due to a multitude of factors including Monday Night Football and a Dancing With The Stars premiere overrun, an initial 2.5 18/49 rating was revised down to a mere 2.1 rating. The final audience was also heavily reduced, from an initial 11.38 million down to 10.45 million. Downward adjustment is something Castle has had to deal with throughout its lifetime, but this amount of adjustment is unprecedented. Last season's premiere pulled in 13.28 million viewers, and a 3.2 rating
Things were perhaps worse for Hawaii Five-0 for its third season premiere, however. It was actually adjusted up, from the initial Nielsen Fast Affiliate Ratings, but it still didn't break the 2.0 rating mark last night, slipping to 1.9, and 8.06 million viewers. This is a big drop on last seasons premiere, which had a 3.4 rating and 12.19 million viewers
You may recall that I made the following predictions in an article I wrote last week:
"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"
Let's see the results:
- DWTS lost out in ratings, but won handsomely in audience (1/2 point)
- Bones ratings held firm, but dropped in audience (1/2 point)
- The Mob Doctor dropped in both ratings & audience (1 point)
- CBS comedies were indeed OK (1 point)
- Revolution won the 10pm timeslot ratings (1 point)
- Castle won the 10pm timeslot audience, but wasn't close behind Revolution in the ratings (3/4 point)
- Hawaii Five-0 did take quite a hit (0 points)
Total from a possible 7 points: 4 3/4
So you can see why I try not to predict what will happen with the statistics. It's a losing battle, but nonetheless, it's an interesting experiment
I will leave you with the ratings and audience graphs of the 18 primetime shows I'm tracking this season on my website, www.seriesmonitor.com. These graphs will grow quite impressively as the season progresses. Make sure you check out the site for more advanced and detailed statistics. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section below, and I'll do my best to answer them
Thanks for reading
Jimmy
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| With more shows set to premiere this week, this graph will look quite different by this time next week |
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| With more shows set to premiere this week, this graph will look quite different by this time next week |
