2018-19 TV Season Ratings: 90 Percent of Veteran Broadcast Shows Fall

Hollywood Reporter ^ | May 25, 2019 | Rick Porter

[EdnaMode]

It's a widely accepted piece of TV ratings dogma that same-day numbers represent a starting point, not the complete picture for a given show.

What's also true, however, is that in 2018-19, the starting point for nearly every returning broadcast series retreated from the previous season.

In fact, only 10 percent (10 of 102) of veteran series increased or held steady with their same-day adults 18-49 rating from the 2017-18 season. The Hollywood Reporter's comparison includes same-day ratings for all original episodes of series that aired more than one episode in the 2018-19 season, including those coded as specials.

Only episodes that aired within the boundaries of the Nielsen-measured season (Sept. 24, 2018-May 22, 2019) are counted, which leaves out a handful of early-September football games and the odd early premiere.

That leaves 92 shows— just over 90 percent — that declined year to year in the key ad demographic. The declines range from minuscule (four hundredths of a point for top-rated Sunday Night Football) to huge (a 0.75-point drop for Will & Grace, which was off by half vs. its first revival season). A heavy majority of those declined by more than 10 percent.

[trisham]

Exactly!

[right way right]

Should be naked people with black brief cases.

Gotta be nakeee!

[Political Junkie Too]

NCIS had to resort to bringing Ziva back. Maybe if CBS cancels Bull, they'll bring Tony back, too.

-PJ

[thoughtomator]

The product quality is abysmal and getting worse every year.

[sparklite2]

Did you see the re-enactment of All in the Family and the Jeffersons the other night before a live audience? What did you think of it?

[EdnaMode]

I saw some of it. Thought it was pretty good.

[sparklite2]

I couldn’t stand BBT. The live audience was coached to laugh at ever line, comic or not. It was too tedious to watch.

[EdnaMode]

Yeah, I thought it would be almost 100%.

[sparklite2]

I thought Woody was miscast as Archie. I don’t know who would have been better, but Woody doesn’t have the heft.

My favorite was Edith. I can’t recall the actress’s name but she’s an Academy Award winner, and she nailed Edith. What a beauty, too.

[sparklite2]

I loved seeing Harmon Rabb and Sarah McKenzie again.

[LibertarianLiz]

Netflix's move called The Highwaymen was very good. It was a more fact based account of the hunting for Bonnie and Clyde. Very interesting movie. When the film finished, my hubby just said, "Now, that, was a good movie."

[bert]

That was foolish puritanism. You jumped off the deep end needlessly

[mowowie]

Clicking through the channels i ALWAYS skip the 3-5 major networks.
not worth my time ESPECIALLY during the daytime.

[mowowie]

“ROKU rules”
YES

Amazing amount of free content on there..

[mowowie]

COSI and THIS TV is really good as well along with H&I Heroes and icons.

[napscoordinator]

Oh my gosh. 365 dollars? That’s the highest I ever heard anyone pay. I refuse to pay more then 200 to Comcast and currently pay 186 which is sick too. But I have for tv’s with HD, internet with a good speed so for now we’ll keep it. But if I have to continue fighting, I’ll drop the cable. I figure that eventually the price of just internet will be the same as having cable. They can’t keep seeing cord cutters and survive.

[Phlyer]

That was foolish puritanism.

Foolish? To decline to provide financial support to ideas I find abhorrent? I consider that simple exercise of responsible judgment. Do you think it is wise to provide financial contributions to politicians whose policies you dislike?

You jumped off the deep end needlessly.

Perhaps. But I do not *need* Netflix. So instead I would say that I declined a needless contribution to politicians with which I disagree. More than that, if every company that makes a strident political statement alienating half their potential customers paid a price for that political statement, then perhaps - just perhaps - they'd get back to entertaining instead of propagandizing. And I believe this nation *needs* that return to a search for common ground rather than polarization.

[sparklite2]

Have you seen Netflix’s “Still Laugh-in” special? I just watched it. My god, how could they do this w/o Goldie?

[minnesota_bound]

You would have thought they would try to make Big Bang Theory funny during it’s last season. They did not even try.
You can tell what season during the reruns. Beginning was funny, last 5 or so more and more whiny, just whine whine and whine and not the kind that Penny drinks.