FOX Wins With American Idol, Series Premiere of Missing Ranks Second During the Hour

Despite American Idol (3.46 A18-49 Live Rating) falling 6% week-to-week, FOX still ranked first among A18-49 viewers Thursday evening, ending the night with a repeat airing of Touch at 9PM. Though down among A18-49 viewers, American Idol still earned the greatest amount of social media buzz (74,167 comments), up 54% from a week ago.

The series debut of ABC's newest drama, Missing, posted a 1.63 Live A18-49 rating, improving 15% from ABC's last original Thursday night program, Wipeout, on 02/23/12, though was down 8% from the series premiere of the now-cancelled Charlie's Angels on 09/22/11. During the 9PM and 10PM hours, Grey's Anatomy (2.17) and Private Practice (1.68), respectively, reported similar declines among A18-49 from their prior episodes on 02/23/12.

With NCAA Basketball being split between 4 networks, CBS' coverage of the tournament led the network to only a third place finish among A18-49 Thursday night. Games in the evenings first window across CBS, TNT, TRU TV and TBS were up 14% among A18-49 from last year's multiple telecasts, while the final window of the night was up 10%.

Univision's lineup of Familia Con Suerte 2, the Thursday night premiere of Abismo De Pasion and Que No Podia Amar drove the network to a fourth place finish among A18-49 across all of broadcast and cable.

Finishing fifth overall, all of NBC's programs remained flat or were up among A18-49 from their prior originals, with the exception of The Office (1.56), which was down 7% from a week ago. After a long hiatus, Community (1.73) at 8PM saw its A18-49 audience improve by 66% from its previous episode on 12/08/11, while 30 Rock (1.49), in its new 8:30PM time-slot, experienced 54% growth from its 8PM airing last week. At 9:30PM, Up All Night (1.34) remained relatively stable among A18-49 week-over-week, leading into Awake (1.38), which remained flat.

Fueled by its Thursday night block of Swamp People and an original episode of Mudcats, History led the night among A18-49 across Cable.

With an original airing of Jersey Shore at 10PM, MTV earned the second highest A18-49 Cable ratings Thursday night. Jersey Shore was the most widely talked about Cable show online Thursday evening, earning just over 62,000 remarks.


Ranking among the top ten networks last night, The CW's The Vampire Diaries (0.76) and The Secret Circle (0.53) still experienced declines among A18-49 from their prior originals on 02/16/12, falling 20% and 12%, respectively. Though down among A18-49, Vampire Diaries still earned the second largest commentary across broadcast (61,624 comments), growing 23% from 02/16/12.

Source: Nielsen, based on Live data; Bluefin Labs Social TV Analytics

Wednesday 03/14/12 - American Idol Secures Win for FOX

Fueled by its two-hour episode of American Idol (4.09 A18-49 Live Rating), which dipped 4% from a week ago, FOX easily averaged the largest A18-49 audience Wednesday night. In addition to garnering last night's greatest viewership, American Idol also generated 111,801 online comments as the Finalists competed last night, the greatest amount of online buzz for a broadcast program, but a 15% decline compared to last week's chatter.

Rolling out a full lineup of original programming, CBS' Survivor (2.01), Criminal Minds (2.24) and CSI (2.39) landed the network second overall, despite only the latter program improving A18-49 viewership from its previous original airing two weeks ago.

ABC's original schedule of The Middle (1.59), Suburgatory (1.75), Modern Family (2.91), Happy Endings (1.90) and Revenge for Real special (1.09) landed the network third overall among A18-49, as only Happy Endings reported growth among A18-49 from a week ago, benefiting from a larger lead-in audience last night. Though Modern Family reported the third largest amount of social comments last night (13,584) among broadcast programming, the show's one-week hiatus resulted in a 42% drop in online conversation from its previous original airing on 02/29/12.

Improving 10% from a week ago with A18-49, Univision's lineup of Una Familia con Suerte (1.68), Abismo de Pasion (1.38) and La Que No Podia Amar (1.61) placed fourth among A18-49 broadcast viewers last night, with the network's middle program reporting 19% greater A18-49 viewing than last week's episode of El Talisman.

NBA basketball coverage (Philadelphia 76ers vs. Indiana Pacers & Miami Heat vs. Chicago Bulls) scored ESPN the largest audience among A18-49 cable viewers, while TBS' acquired series Family Guy and The Big Bang Theory, and USA's episodes of NCIS and Psych (0.66) placed the networks second and third, respectively, across the A18-49 cable landscape. Fueling the network to the highest cable ratings last night, ESPN's matchup between the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls was also quite a draw in the social space, as the highly-anticipated matchup reported 619,111 comments, by far the greatest online conversation of any program last night.

Preceding a repeat of Law & Order: SVU (0.60), NBC's 8pm hour of comedies, consisting of Whitney (0.90) and Are You There Chelsea? (0.81), combined to drop 27% from last week among A18-49, while the network's 10pm episode of Rock Center With Brian Williams (0.53) declined 44%.

Trailing significantly behind its broadcast counterparts, The CW's One Tree Hill (0.45) and America's Next Top Model (0.36) reported lower A18-49 viewership than a week ago, declining 4% and 20%, respectively, from last week's benchmarks. Though The CW continues to lag behind in television viewership, the network's latest episode of One Tree Hill drew 31,442 comments from the online social community last night, ahead of all other broadcast programs with the exception of American Idol.

Source: Nielsen, based on Live data; Bluefin Labs Social TV Analytics

2012-2013 Nickelodeon Upfront

Nickelodeon held its annual upfront presentation on Wednesday, March 14^th 2012 at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Cyma Zarghami, President of Viacom’s Nickelodeon Group unveiled plans to introduce 650 new episodes of brand new and returning content (the most ever). Additionally, Nickelodeon’s President presented details on several highly upcoming premieres of movies, live-action and animated series.

ANIMATED:

Nickelodeon will roll out a new roster of over 300 new animated episodes in 2012 which includes:

• New episodes of returning series including SpongeBob SquarePants, T.U.F.F. Puppy, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, The Penguins of Madagascar, The Fairly OddParents and The Winx Club
• The Legend of Korra, in which the mythology of the franchise from Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko continues. The half-hour series will debut on Saturday, April 14, at 11:00 am
• Raving Rabbids will join the network’s animation line-up with 26 new CG episodes in spring 2013, bringing to TV, Ubisoft’s Raving Rabbids popular video games
• Monsters vs. Aliens, the new animated television series marks the third partnership between Nickelodeon and DreamWorks Animation. Green-lit for 26 episodes and based on the popular characters from the 2009 feature film, the new series will continue to follow the funny escapades of the beloved, well-meaning monsters
• Robot & Monster, a 26 episode run of CG-animated comedy set in a unique world where gangs of Cyber Monkeys roam the street
• It’s a SpongeBob Christmas !, Nickelodeon’s first full-length animated special which features John Goodman as Santa Claus, and will air in December 2012
• Seven new animation pilots picked up for the 2012-2013 season, including four pilots helmed by Butch Hartman (The Fairly OddParents, T.U.F.F. Puppy)

LIVE ACTION:

As part of the overall 650 new episodes the network is rolling out this year, Nickelodeon’s live-action slate will include:

• More new episodes of hit live-action series, iCarly, Victorious, Big Time Rush and Supah Ninjas
• A 26-episode pick-up of Marvin, Marvin, an original new series starring internet sensation Lucas Cruikshank (AKA Fred)
• The third installment of the Fred movies, Fred Goes to Camp, as well as a pick-up of 28 additional 11-minute episodes of FRED: THE SHOW
• A development project for UK pop sensation One Direction, who will next collaborate with Nickelodeon when they perform live at Nickelodeon’s 2012 Kids’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles on March 31^st, hosted by Will Smith
• Rags, a music-infused modern-day fairy tale debuting this spring. The two-hour original TV movie is executive produced by Nick Cannon, directed by Billy Woodruff (Beauty Shop, Honey) and features original music by Rodney Jerkins and choreography by Rosero McCoy (America’s Best Dance Crew)
• A Fairly Odd Christmas, a sequel to 2011′s live-action TV movie, A Fairly OddMovie: Grow Up Timmy Turner, which will air this holiday season
• Figure it Out, a contemporary revival of the ’90s family friendly game show. The show will launch later this year with 40 brand-new episodes
• New Nick-at-Nite series Hollywood Heights (debuting in June), a daily scripted series with 80-one hour episodes based on the Televisa telenovela, Alcanzar Una Estrella 

Throughout the evening, the presentation was also highlighted by appearances by Nick Cannon, Keke Palmer, One Direction and musical performances by Big Time Rush, How To Rock’s Cymphonique Miller and Gravity 5. Nickelodeon’s newest network star, Rachel Crow of The X Factor, capped the evening with a performance of Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You”. The evening also featured an exclusive look at a 3D storyboard of Paramount Pictures live-action, Ninja Turtles features, presented by Michael Bay. The feature film will debut in 2013, following this year’s fall TV premiere of the brand-new CG-animated TMNT series on Nickelodeon.

Cyma Zarghami also announced several live-action projects currently in development, including pilots for Nick-at-Nite with Scott Baio (Daddy’s Home), Wendell & Vinnie, a comedy about a goofball uncle (Jerry Trainor from iCarly) who becomes the guardian to his conservative 12-year old genius nephew, a new Nickelodeon series from Dan Schneider that will star Jennette McCurdy from iCarly and a series starring Rachel Crow (The X Factor).

The Zenith Media Research Team will continue to monitor future development meetings and upfront announcements with the latest information on the upcoming 2012-2013 season.

Tuesday 03/13/12 - CBS Wins the Night But Fashion Star Wins the Hour

Despite running an all-repeat lineup (NCIS, NCIS: LA, Unforgettable), CBS still managed a first place finish with A18-49 viewers Tuesday night. Univision's lineup of Familia Con Suerte 2, the Tuesday premiere of Abismo de Pasion and Que No Podia Amar earned the network the second highest A18-49 ratings across the TV landscape last night. Univision's latest novella posted a 1.55 Live A18-49 rating, retaining 92% of its lead-in audience (Familia Con Suerte 2).

Finishing third among A18-49, NBC experienced mixed results Tuesday evening, with a 90-minute episode of The Biggest Loser (1.62 A18-49 Live Rating) growing 5% week-to-week, while the 90-minute series debut of Fashion Star (1.40) fell 21% from the season 3 premiere of Parenthood on 09/13/11 and 11% from its season 3 finale two weeks ago. Though falling among A18-49, the premiere of Fashion Star generated the greatest amount of online conversation (37,627 comments) across broadcast programming.

All of FOX's programs (Raising Hope, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, New Girl, Breaking In) experienced double-digit percentage declines among A18-49 from last week, landing the network in fourth place overall.

Ranking ahead of ABC, a block of The Big Bang Theory on TBS garnered the highest A18-49 Cable Prime ratings last night. Following a repeat of Last Man Standing to lead off the night, ABC's Cougar Town at 8:30PM (1.02) and Body of Proof at 10PM (1.08) posted similar ratings declines (-8% and -7%, respectively) among A18-49 from their prior originals, while The River at 9PM (1.03) posted a slightly higher drop-off.

Fueled by a block of Storage Wars and Storage Wars Texas, A&E earned the second highest A18-49 ratings across Cable. Despite ranking outside of the ten highest rated Cable networks last night, NBA TV's coverage of the Miami Heat vs Orlando Magic game garnered the largest social media buzz, generating 111,865 online comments.

Finishing last across broadcast, both of The CW's dramas, 90210 (0.39) and The Ringer (0.31), reported significant declines among A18-49 (-13% and -24%, respectively) from their prior originals last week.

Source: Nielsen, based on Live data; Bluefin Labs Social TV Analytics