WIN SOME, LOSE SOME
Fall TV’s hits and misses
The rules may change, but the game stays the same.
It’s more difficult these days to tell winners from losers because many people have changed their viewing habits. A show may register low ratings the night it airs, but then get a boost once later viewing is added.
Advertisers still prefer that viewers watch programs live, however. Old habits die hard.
Two months into any new TV season, winners and losers emerge. And this season is no different.
Here’s a night-by-night look of early winners and losers, with one caveat: These are based on homegrown, Canadian numbers. The U.S. ratings, which determine renewal and cancellation decisions for imported shows in most cases, don’t always jibe with Canadian tastes. When and where a show airs — Monday nights on easy-to-find CTV, for example — can determine how many viewers watch a particular program in any given city or town.
Numbers won’t help some shows, though: Alleged comedies Selfie, Manhattan Love Story, A to Z, Bad Judge and Mulaney have already been cancelled.
MONDAY
Gotham is the big winner here, with an average two million viewers. That’s good news for CTV, which continues to get mileage out of the aging but still solid Castle, with a further two million viewers.
Global is doing well with NCIS: Los Angeles and The Blacklist. Sleepy Hollow, on the other hand, has hit a speed-bump — it’s down year-to-year, thanks to stiffer time-period competition. Its fate isn’t in doubt, however, as it’s one of those programs that gets a ratings bump once same-week DVR viewing is added to the overall total.
CBC continues to get mileage out of Murdoch Mysteries, with more than a million viewers each week. Strange Empire is shakier; fewer than 400,000 viewers watched the Oct. 13 episode.
City, meanwhile, has a minor hit with the cyber-centric drama Scorpion, also doing well for CBS in the U.S.
TUESDAY
Sequels, spinoffs and franchises may be easy to dismiss from a quality-creative point of view, but they’re popular.
Global is pulling in two million viewers weekly for both NCIS and the new NCIS: New Orleans. Chicago Fire continues to do well, too.
CTV has lit a fire with The Flash, an overnight hit that, coupled with Arrow, Gotham and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., has made CTV the go-to network for comicbook fans.
The Voice has suffered on CTV Two, despite doing well in the U.S. City hasn’t had much luck with imported comedies New Girl and The Mindy Project, and The Bachelor Canada no longer appears to be the talking point it once was.
The Mercer Report and 22 Minutes are starting to show their age on CBC, with little more than 600,000 viewers each one recent week in October.
WEDNESDAY
Survivor continues to draw a crowd for Global, with nearly two million viewers. The new slasher series Stalker is pulling in more than a million viewers. Chicago PD, meanwhile, is collaring an average 800,000 viewers a week, also for Global.
CTV meanwhile is scoring more than a million viewers for all three of its Wednesday dramas: Arrow, Criminal Minds and Law & Order: SVU.
CBC continues to pitch Dragons’ Den, but the million-viewer mark is proving to be more elusive this season than last.
Republic of Doyle is playing out its final season, with an average 600,000 viewers each week.
THURSDAY
The most important viewing night of the week, from an advertiser’s point of view, is now the hardest to read, thanks to The Big Bang Theory’s moving back to Thursdays after an early-season tryout on Mondays. Several returning comedies debuted this past week, further clouding an already cloudy picture.
Overall, the audience continues to favour old favourites, such as Big Bang, Grey’s Anatomy and Two and a Half Men.
The biggest hit among the newcomers is How to Get Away with Murder, with an average 1.8 million viewers each week for CTV.
Bones continues to perform for Global, with 1.5 million viewers, but new murder mystery Gracepoint and the aging Parenthood have stumbled.
City is finding little joy in Scandal, in part because of the stiff time-period competition and in part because of where it airs.
CBC continues to struggle with The Nature of Things and Doc Zone, which both drew fewer than 400,000 viewers one recent week.
FRIDAY
The Amazing Race, long a favourite with Canadian viewers, has stumbled, but still draws more than 1.5 million viewers for CTV most weeks. That’s well off the pace of Sundays, though, where it used to draw more than two million.
Shark Tank scored nearly 900,000 viewers one recent week for CTV, a hair ahead of Dragons’ Den’s 850,000 viewers that same week for CBC.
Global continues to do well with Hawaii Five-0 (1.2 million). And CTV is still getting mileage out of Blue Bloods (1.7 million).
CBC’s Marketplace pulls in 700,000 viewers, and while that may not seem like much, it’s nearly double the audience of some other CBC prime time shows — and this on a night when fewer people are home watching TV.
SUNDAY
Thanks to NHL hockey on City TV, The Amazing Race moving to Fridays and Global’s decision to move The Simpsons and Family Guy to late night, the most competitive, crowded night of the TV week just became more complicated.
Early winners include Madam Secretary, a comfortable fit with The Good Wife, enjoying another fine season, on Global. Madam Secretary has proved to be effective counter-programming to hockey, too: Both are pulling in more than a million viewers a week.
CTV continues to tap the family audience with Once Upon a Time, with 1.3 million viewers most weeks. CTV has benefited, too, by moving CSI to Sundays. More than two million viewers are watching CSI on CTV.
CBC’s Heartland now pulls in more than a million viewers. The filmed-in-Calgary Heartland is now one of the beleaguered broadcaster’s most solid performers.