Reading fragmentary Thursday night tea leaves to predict weekend boxoffice is a dicey business, particularly because in our post-Aurora era, those numbers now include showings as early as 9PM in addition to the once-traditional 12:01AM screenings.  So the $2M earned by OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (Disney) last night can be parsed in several […]

You know it’s a weird night when the clearest-cut winner is Community. FOX:  As of this morning’s preliminary numbers, FOX won the night, but it’s loaded with asterisks.  AMERICAN IDOL‘s 3.5 may change because it ran until 9:32PM–for now, it’s down 0.3 from last week, and down a giant 1.4 from this time last year. […]

  CBS has reversed its previous strategy of launching GOLDEN BOY with two Tuesday airings and then moving it to the Friday 9PM slot.  Instead, the show will remain on Tuesdays, with that night’s VEGAS shifting to Fridays starting April 5 (after the network’s NCAA tournament coverage is over). It’s a “why not?” move for […]

FORMAT NOTE:  As you see, we’ve added some new information to our daily ratings posts, with charts below by Mitch Metcalf showing not just the previous night’s 18-49 overnight ratings, but also the ratings for the parallel night one year ago.  The results, in some cases, are pretty startling. FOX:  AMERICAN IDOL is now a […]

The 10th weekend of 2013 looks to be the first up weekend after six down weekends in a row.  The top 12 films Friday-Sunday should total $128 million, up 6 to 11% from the same weekend the last few years.  Keep in mind this is the weekend that has given us John Carter, Battle: Los […]

Just a dismal night, even for the winners. FOX:  A special 2-hour AMERICAN IDOL (live, except on the west coast) won the night with a 3.4, but according to CBS, during the 8PM hour it was actually at 3.3 (climbing in Hour 2), which meant that it was edged out by NCIS.  Idol was also […]

  PaleyFest tried something a little different tonight as part of a rambunctious celebration of COMMUNITY, replacing the usual screening with a live table read that featured most of the regular cast, aside from Donald Glover and–of course–Chevy Chase (Fred Willard subbed for Chase).  Slightly disappointingly, the episode read was last month’s series premiere, so […]

CBS reruns don’t change much for the other networks. FOX:  Last night’s THE FOLLOWING felt a lot like an episode of 24, and parts of it were borderline ludicrous, but it was the game-changer the series needed, allowing it to broaden its canvas from here on.  In CBS’s absence, it was the highest-rated show of […]