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Fox Slides Into a Tie for Last Place With CW as Broadcast Ratings Suffer a Halloween Hit

Nov 1, 2013  •  Post A Comment

Viewership levels dipped Thursday night because of Halloween, TVbytheNumbers.com reports, with the broadcast networks down 8% from a week ago in the key 18-49 demo, based on Nielsen overnights.

High on the casualties list was Fox, which fell into a tie with the CW for fifth place — last place among the broadcast networks — with a 0.7 average rating in 18-49. Fox paired a clip show for "The X Factor" (0.8 average) with a "Glee" repeat (0.6).

ABC notched an overall win for prime time, with its drama series "Scandal" coming in as the top show of the night even while it equaled last week’s season low. "Scandal’s" 2.9 average in 18-49 was good enough to easily win the 10 p.m. hour.

ABC’s "Grey’s Anatomy" slipped 7% from a week ago to a 2.6 in the 18-49 demo, tying its all-time low. The annual Halloween telecast of "It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" delivered a 2.2, off 19% from the Wednesday airing a year ago.

Second-place CBS got its best number from a repeat of "The Big Bang Theory," which scored a 2.5 average in viewers 18-49. A second "Bang" rerun had a 2.0. An original installment of "The Millers" fell 26% from a week ago to a series-low 2.0.

CBS’s "The Crazy Ones" also had a series low, losing 17% of its 18-49 viewership from a week ago to settle for a 1.9. "Elementary" slipped 6% to a 1.7.

NBC placed a distant third, with the "Saturday Night Live" Halloween show leading the way with a 1.7 average in adults 18-49. "Sean Saves the World" ticked up 8% from last week to a 1.2, "The Michael J. Fox Show" fell to a series-low 1.1, down 8% from the previous week, and "Parenthood" notched a 1.3, the same as last week.

The CW had a 0.8 in 18-49 for "The Vampire Diaries (down 38% from last week) and a 0.6 for "Reign," matching last week’s number.

For prime time overall, ABC’s 2.6 average led the broadcast nets in adults 18-49, followed by CBS (2.0 average), NBC (1.4), Univision (1.0), the CW (0.7) and Fox (0.7). CBS came out ahead in total viewers with 9.4 million, topping ABC (8.4 million), NBC (4.4 million), Univision (2.7 million), Fox (2.6 million) and CW (1.8 million).

One Comment

  1. its amazing to me how the networds and rating systems still think people are sitting with baited breath in front of their TV’s to watch a show. People live their lives, and TV shows can now be seen online, on demand and reruns. Stop judging a show by its first run numbers. they aren’t real anymore and you’d think hollywood would know that.

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