The 10|9c timeslot is the timeslot I've been keeping the closest eye on this television season.
ABC's Castle, NBC's The Blacklist, and CBS's Hostages and Intelligence are the four shows from the three competing networks which have battled for the late night primetime viewers.
Castle is in its sixth season, and has resided in the 10|9c timeslot from day one. It's a well established campaigner with a solid following. The Blacklist is a freshman, but has already secured a second season, along with a sizeable audience and massive ratings both live and timeshifted. Hostages, also a freshman, suffered from poor promotion from CBS, and never got a chance to fire a shot. However its ratings and audience, despite being low, was consistent. After its 15 episode run, Intelligence debuted to a below par ratings and audience behind NCIS last Tuesday.
At the halfway point of the season, Castle hasn't suffered at all. After 12 episodes and the winter hiatus, Castle is averaging a 2.03 adults 18-49 Live+SD rating, and 10.53 million viewers. Looking at the Live+7 DVR ratings, the show grows to a 3.30 rating and 15.204 million viewers. There's nothing wrong with those numbers at all.
However Castle is rather reliant on its lead-in, ABC's stalwart Dancing With The Stars, to lift its audience by around 2 million viewers. Without Dancing With The Stars as a lead-in, Castle still rates reasonably well, but the older demographic, of which the majority is outside the 18-49 target demographic, that tune in to watch Castle are the viewers which push audience numbers beyond the 10 million mark.
You can see all of Castle's ratings in comparison to Dancing With The Stars as its lead-in here.
The Blacklist is NBC's big hit of this television season. It's done much better than Revolution, which debuted in its timeslot last season. The Blacklist has maintained consistently high ratings and audience numbers both live and timeshifted. After 12 of its 22 episodes scheduled for this season, The Blacklist sits at an impressive 3.08 18-49 rating, and 10.91 million viewers. After 7 days, those numbers grow to a 5.17 rating and 17.156 million viewers, putting The Blacklist right up the top of the list of most timeshifted series.
It's hard to tell for sure how much The Blacklist relies on its power lead-in, The Voice, to garner these ratings. After the winter hiatus, its first episode of the new year earned a series low 2.5 rating and 9.35 million viewers. There's several factors at play here, including the trend this season which sees most shows dropping on their new year return as viewers get back into the swing of things thanks to large variations in return dates between networks, along with new pilots and returning shows for viewers to consider. Considering The Voice averaged a 4.17 rating and 13.18 million viewers when leading in The Blacklist, American Ninja Warrior, which led in The Blacklist last night, garnered a pitiful 1.9 rating and 5.54 million viewers in comparison, I'd say The Blacklist's ratings last night were pretty good. I'm expecting the timeshifted numbers for last night's episode to be pretty close to normal though.
You can see all of The Blacklist's ratings in comparison to The Voice as its lead-in here.
When CBS announced they were moving Intelligence to Tuesday 8 January, I really couldn't understand why. Though NCIS gave Intelligence more than 20 million potential lead-in viewers, the majority of them were outside the 18-49 ratings demographic. NCIS is well known as television's most watched show, but its ratings are poor in comparison. Intelligence needed to be in its Monday 10|9c timeslot from day one. Viewers who watch NCIS aren't necessarily those who would also watch Intelligence.
NCIS viewers also know what to expect. They know what they will get, week in, week out. But for those who watched Intelligence, they would have seen a heavily jumbled and confusing story, with 2 main characters who should have their names swapped with each other, and poor character and backstory development. Intelligence got off on the wrong foot with the wrong audience. A debut in its normal timeslot, where a similar show by nature, The Blacklist, also airs, may have seen a better response from viewers.
In comparison, the poorly promoted Hostages debuted in its designated timeslot to a 1.8 rating and 7.41 million viewers. Though that was low, the second episode garned a 1.5 rating and 5.96 million viewers. Compare that to massively hyped Intelligence, which premiered after NCIS to a 2.5 rating and 16.49 million viewers. Six days later, it dropped more than half its rating and a massive 62% of its premiere audience, to a 1.2 rating and 6.20 million viewers. I've never seen such a massive drop from premiere to week 2.
You can see full ratings and lead-in data for Intelligence here.
So Castle and The Blacklist are stable and will both be back next season. They're both stringing together excellent episodes each week.
I do hope CBS see the light and bring Hostages back for a second season. It's a very well written show with an excellent cast, and I know the creative team have it in them to sustain and improve the show further if given the chance.
Intelligence is my kind of show. The concept is appealing, and the promotion had me hooked. The CGI is also very impressive. But I was pretty disappointed with the pilot, and how the second episode backed it up, effectively killing off what seemed to be an important story arc before it even began. Hopefully this was the result of the powers that be at CBS, who saw the potential but also noticed the poor execution. But then again, they must have been on something pretty strong when they decided to move the premiere to Tuesday.
That's all for now. Thanks for reading! Don't forget to share your thoughts on these three shows and their ratings and storylines!
Jimmy
