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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.
UNFORGETTABLE (CBS)
(Tuesdays at 10:00/9:00c)
Sunday-bound "The Good Wife" was the first series to air back-to-back seasons in the Tuesday, 10:00/9:00c hour on CBS since "Judging Amy" in 2005. Along the way the Eye offered up such short-lived fare as "Close to Home," "Love Monkey," "Smith," "3 lbs." and "Cane." Hoping to not share said fate is newcomer "Unforgettable," which will be tasked keeping the sets on after "NCIS: Los Angeles." CBS gave "The Good Wife" a second season despite a middling 77% retention rate, not to mention a third despite that number falling to 66% in season two.
Here's how CBS has fared on Tuesday nights the past two seasons:*
| tuesdays in 2009-2011 | time | viewers
(retention) | adults 18-49
(retention) |
| NCIS: Season 7 | 8:00 PM | 18.96
(N/A) | 4.02
(N/A) |
| NCIS: Season 8 | 8:00 PM | 19.44
(N/A) | 3.94
(N/A) |
| NCIS: Los Angeles - Season 1 | 9:00 PM | 15.78
(83.23%) | 3.46
(86.07%) |
| NCIS: Los Angeles - Season 2 | 9:00 PM | 16.16
(83.00%) | 3.38
(85.35%) |
| The Good Wife: Season 1 | 10:00 PM | 12.99
(81.49%) | 2.70
(77.14%) |
| The Good Wife: Season 2 | 10:00 PM | 11.69
(72.97%) | 2.22
(66.27%) |
* 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: FOX's "The X Factor" & ABC's "Revenge" & "Suburgatory."
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