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Welcome to The Futon's Ratings Survival Guide, our annual feature which takes each new fall series on the broadcast networks and tells you the numbers it will need to survive for a second season. In general, a show's success isn't so much where it lands on the weekly ratings chart but rather how it performs in two key categories:
1. How much of its lead-in audience it retains. If a show averages 10 million viewers that's a good thing. But if the show that airs before it is averaging 30 million viewers, that's not a good thing. Why? Because 20 of those 30 million viewers decided to turn off that particular channel when the next show came on.
2. How it performs year-to-year in its time period. A new show is usually in its time period because the network thinks it can do better than it did in that slot last year. In other words, do worse than the show that was canceled after three weeks last fall then you too probably are not long for this world.
As you'll see, together these measurements paint a clear picture on how a particular show is doing. So without further ado, let's begin.
CHARLIE'S ANGELS (ABC)
(Thursdays at 8:00/7:00c)
ABC has struggled in the Thursday, 8:00/7:00c hour since the departure of "Ugly Betty" after the 2008-09 season, from short-lived fare like "My Generation" and "The Deep End" to middling efforts like "FlashForward." It's actually "Winter Wipeout" that has provided the best numbers in the slot, a fact that will undoubtedly hang over "Charlie's Angels" as the network can easily swap the series back in should its needs merit.
Here's how ABC has fared on Thursday nights the past two seasons:*
thursdays in 2009-2011 | time | viewers (retention) | adults 18-49 (retention) |
Grey's Anatomy: Season 5 | 9:00 PM | 12.75 (183.19%) | 4.62 (223.19%) |
Grey's Anatomy: Season 6 | 9:00 PM | 11.08 (175.32%) | 4.03 (214.36%) |
Private Practice: Season 3 | 10:00 PM | 9.19 (74.59%) | 3.38 (76.13%) |
Private Practice: Season 4 | 10:00 PM | 7.77 (70.44%) | 2.76 (68.83%) |
Winter Wipeout | 8:00 PM | 8.27 (N/A) | 2.64 (N/A) |
FlashForward | 8:00 PM | 7.20 (N/A) | 2.20 (N/A) |
Spring Wipeout | 8:00 PM | 6.15 (N/A) | 1.83 (N/A) |
Rookie Blue: Season 1** | 9:00 PM | 6.49 (92.98%) | 1.69 (79.72%) |
The Deep End | 8:00 PM | 5.33 (N/A) | 1.42 (N/A) |
Rookie Blue: Season 2** | 10:00 PM | 5.28 (100.38%) | 1.37 (90.73%) |
My Generation | 8:00 PM | 4.58 (N/A) | 1.35 (N/A) |
* Viewers are in millions, adults 18-49 is the percentage of said viewers in the demographic; all are based on fast national data, using only first-run episodes in its regular time period.
** denotes summer series added for additional perspective
COMING TOMORROW: CBS's "A Gifted Man."
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