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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.
PERSON OF INTEREST (CBS)
(Thursdays at 9:00/8:00c)
Tonight will mark the first time in over a decade - since February 1, 2001 to be exact - that "CSI" hasn't aired on Thursday nights. Tasked with filling said void is "Person of Interest," which gets to launch behind back-to-back episodes of the night's top draw: "The Big Bang Theory." Going forward however "Person" will have to self-start behind fellow newcomer "How to Be a Gentleman," bowing next week.
Here's how CBS has fared on Thursday nights the past two seasons:*
thursdays in 2009-2011 | time | viewers (retention) | adults 18-49 (retention) |
The Big Bang Theory: Season 4 | 8:00 PM | 12.50 (N/A) | 3.94 (N/A) |
Survivor: Season 20 (Heroes vs. Villains) | 8:00 PM | 12.33 (N/A) | 3.83 (N/A) |
Survivor: Season 19 (Samoa) | 8:00 PM | 12.23 (N/A) | 3.74 (N/A) |
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 10 | 9:00 PM | 14.88 (127.62%) | 3.43 (99.42%) |
The Mentalist: Season 2 | 10:00 PM | 15.15 (101.47%) | 3.39 (96.86%) |
Bleep My Dad Says | 8:30 PM | 10.35 (81.11%) | 2.95 (73.57%) |
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 11 | 9:00 PM | 13.15 (133.77%) | 2.94 (104.26%) |
The Mentalist: Season 3 | 10:00 PM | 14.39 (109.43%) | 2.89 (98.30%) |
Rules of Engagement: Season 5 | 8:30 PM | 8.50 (77.20%) | 2.44 (72.40%) |
* 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.
COMING TOMORROW: CBS's "A Gifted Man."
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