Very little has changed on Sunday nights this fall in the broadcast network lineups, the only new additions being CBS’ Three Rivers and Fox’s The Cleveland Show, and because of that I’d expect this fall’s ratings to look a lot like last fall’s.
There is one major change for the CW in that it will no longer be programming Sunday nights on a network basis after September 27, but that will likely have little effect on the rest of the broadcast competition. The CW hasn’t put anything even marginally successful on Sunday nights for several years.
Below are the hourly lineups, including each shows 18-49 demo rating average (which includes in-slot repeats) from the 2008-9 season as well as my guesses for the fall nightly overall results.
If you enjoyed the Sunday night look ahead for the 2009-10 season, check out Friday’s, Thursday’s, Wednesday’s and Tuesday’s. For those fans of ABC College Football and Fox’s Cops and America’s Most Wanted, no, there won’t be a Saturday preview.
7:00
America’s Funniest Home Videos (ABC), 2.2 18-49 demo rating
60 Minutes (CBS), 2.7 18-49 demo rating
The OT (Fox), 4.4 18-49 demo rating
Football Night In America (NBC), 4.2 demo rating (7-8:30pm)
8:00
Extreme Makeover Home Edition (ABC), 3.3 18-49 demo rating
The Amazing Race (CBS), 3.2 18-49 demo rating
The Simpsons (Fox), 3.1 demo rating
8:30
The Cleveland Show (Fox), New
Sunday Night Football (NBC), 6.5 demo rating (8:30-11pm)
9:00
Desperate Housewives (ABC), 5.2 demo rating
Three Rivers (CBS) New
Family Guy (Fox), 3.5 demo rating
9:30
American Dad (Fox), 2.7 demo rating
10:00
Brothers & Sisters (ABC), 3.4 demo rating
Cold Case (CBS), 2.6 demo rating
My Guess
Football makes this by far NBC’s strongest night of the season, and, like always, they should be the overall adults 18-49 winners. Again, as before, I’d expect ABC’s line up to win with women 18-49, and Fox’s line up to be competitive in adults 18-49 and particularly strong in the adults 18-34 demo ratings. This is CBS’ relatively weakest lineup of the week, but every other Sunday in the fall when they get the late afternoon NFL national game a football overrun into primetime can always boost them into second place for the night. Their Sunday NFL motto might as well be “Play for overtime!”.
Note: I make all my guesses completely unburdened by having read any reviews of any of the new shows, having seen any of the pilots, or knowing any more than the most casual details of their subject matter. Does that make mine better or worse than the typical TV writer which focuses almost solely on those? Your mileage may vary.
Fox caveat: Regardless of their other shows, the outcome of the major league baseball playoffs can make or break Fox’s fall averages. If they get long series with good matchups their overall season averages benefit tremendously. If they get short series with bad matchups, they’ll suffer.
This is pretty much a stable night so I won’t make predictions over all anymore. The Cleveland Show might get a 2.9 demo (9 million viewers) and Three Rivers my guess is 2.5. (10 million viewers).
Wow, I did not realize Desperate Housewives was still doing this well on the demo. Brothers and Sisters is a solid performer. I wonder if ABC will ever risk schedule Brothers and Sisters on another night, just to check if it could stand on its own (let’s say if The Forgotten or Eastwicks bombs hard, could they place Brothers and Sisters there)
I hope The Amazing Race will consistently perform well. I really wonder why the show is not as big as the other CBS shows.
I will miss the CW here. I was hoping that they would find something here that would work. Only 7th Heaven and Reba did good on that schedule. I was thinking before that if they didn’t dropped Smackdown, they could also schedule the show on Sunday.
I have a feeling that this will probably be Cold Case’s final season as the Sunday 10pm slot has been the kiss of death to past shows. Three Rivers is an odd one but I don’t have high hope for it due to competition from football and Desperate Housewives.
Isn’t it funny that three quarters of the Animation is Seth MacFarlane shows.
After predicting a CBA win for every other night so far, I’m definitely changing my tune on Sundays. NBC will win the night with football unless it’s a particularly bad match-up with ABC taking second. Fox will be competitive in the demos. Aside from football overrun, CBS will come in last.
Aside from football:
7:00–Looks like The OT takes this hour. 60 Minutes will perform above it gets a football lead-in, easily beating AFV. If football ends early, the two are close.
8:00–Close, but EMHE wins the hour, AR and Fox animation close in the demo with AR winning viewers.
9:00–Easy win for DH. Animation second. Three Rivers will bomb.
10:00–Another win for ABC. CBS gets an “also ran” for Cold Case.
Of course, when there is football overrun on CBS, their whole night goes better. 60 Minutes, Race and 3Rivers will see a boost (progressively smaller for each show). Cold Case will get hit a little if it runs to late.
i don’t think the cleveland show will do too well
Has Sundays always been CBS’ weakest night or have they have success here, they have Monday-Fridays sorted with only one or two holes but Sundays alway seem to be a struggle.
To me, ABC will win the night like always. Not counting stupid football. Dont understand why NBC would do football on a Sunday night but the network is just stupid.
Jon, all networks have nights that they dont do good in.
Sunday is usually CBS’s worst night.
Tuesday and Wednesday are bad nights for ABC.
Friday is a bad night for FOX.
Monday is a bad night for NBC.
Usually on Thursdays, all networks do good.
rob, Why would it be stupid for NBC to air something that will almost invariably win the night, be by far their strongest night, and bring in millions of advertising dollars? In addition, that gives them a great platform to advertise their shows to people who wouldn’t be watching NBC otherwise.
If CBS is putting Three Rivers against Desperate Housewives, they must have even less faith in the show than I thought.
CBS was very successful on Sundays about quite a few years ago (maybe the 1998/99 season) when Touched By An Angel and the Movie were averaging 28 million viewers for a while. Cold Case was around 17 million for a season or two, but it’s been the law of diminishing returns since then.
As for ABC, their line-up was really hurting late last season. They really need a back-up for EM:HE. I know that it’s not a huge priority given the other nights, but it was below a 3 demo for most of the last part of last season, swiping DH’s numbers in the process. And yes, ABC needs to move B&S to launch a new show in what is still on of its best timeslots. With DH in season 6 and definitely on its downside, ABC needs to prep a new tent pole for the night.
Doug, good memory. On an average viewership basis in 98/99 both Touched by an Angel and the CBS Sunday Movie were top 10 shows. That season Touched averaged 19.5 million viewers, and the Sunday Movie averaged 17.36 million.
Saw a couple of complete scenes of Desperate Housewives that were very sharp and funny rather like in season 1. Of course, ABC is going to put its best foot forward, but these scenes are far cries from previewed scenes in seasons past. If they keep this sharpness througout the season, DH may be able to bring back a few viewers. Three Rivers looks to have a limited premise and previews on CBS.com do not show complete scenes. Hard to gage how compelling the show may be. If Three Rivers has a voice that resonates, it may give Wisteria Lane a speed bump.
Sunday should have about the same numbers per network as last season. But 9:00 could become interesting.
I take it that was the last Defying Gravity. It even felt like a finale, just eight episodes in.
Chad, I’m pretty sure 13 episodes were made. Whether the other 5 will ever air on the networks is another story. If they don’t wind up getting burned off on Saturday night during the Christmas holidays, I’m sure they will wind up online.
Why on Earth do you cancel The Unit to replace it with Three Rivers? No one is going to watch that. What a waste?
I understand The Unit wasn’t GREAT from a business standpoint but to create and need to market a new show that no one is going to watch is a total and complete WASTE. It makes even less business sense given the startup cost.
I’m really not feeling the Cleaveland Show
I’d rather have him on Family Guy!!
Do the demo results include reruns? It seems to me like especially the Fox Animation has pretty low numbers.
I can’t believe FOX cancelled King of the Hill for the Cleveland Show, that’s pretty lame.
Dennis, the adults 18-49 ratings listed for each show do include in slot repeats. That definitely reduces the averages of some shows more than others. Ex. Sunday Night Football had no repeats.
A story in the LA Times a few months ago talked about why the show was in danger of getting the axe, the was before it actually got it. It said the average age watching The Unit was 55 years old and that’s a big no no for advertisers. Plus, it was produced by a different studio (20th Cent Fox) and probably had a higher licensing fee.
I can understand why CBS greenlighted 3 Rivers. Alex O’Loughlin is a young handsome actor who probably has quite a few young female fans, especially from his short stint on Moonlight. Also, the show mostly takes place on a studio sound stage, which is probably much cheaper than big action scenes and special effects that the Unit required. And finally it’s a CBS/Paramount show.
Despite what some of you may think, I think Cold Case easily beats Brothers and Sisters at 10pm in total viewers.
well, we pretty much watch everything on DVR delay, so nothing on CBS Sunday gets watched in our house anymore. We watched Shark regularly when it was on Thursday, but when it switched to Sunday, we never got the complete show because of football over-runs. So we stopped even trying to DVR it. Based on some of the comments above, I wonder if CBS’ Sunday declines can be correlated to the rise in numbers of DVRs?
I don’t think Sundays are entirely uninteresting to spectators:
Cold Case: I too think this will decay leading to the cancellation come May. Of course, how much will be lead-in failure…
Three Rivers: Speaking of which, I don’t see this show going anywhere. Question being whether CBS immediately yanks it (see The Ex-List) or lets it stumble for a while (see Eleventh Hour). Given the apparent positive prognosis on The Good Wife, CBS has a lot of replacements in the wings (Miami Trauma, the Canadian shows), so it will be interesting to see just how much slack CBS cuts TR. I think the show will do 2.5 – 2.8ish and run through nearly the whole 13-episode order.
The Cleveland Show: I see this doing 90% of Family Guy’s numbers initially (3.0 – 3.2ish) before dropping to American Dad levels. Speaking of which, I could see AD ratings drop a tick or three, whether because of age or simple MacFarlane overload. Interesting to see whether Fox sticks with 1.5 hours of Seth again next season.
Tom-
With the deal Seth made with FOX, I wouldn’t be surprised if Seth took over 8-10p in a few years when Simpsons rides into the sunset.
Fox didn’t cancel King of the Hill
Mike Judge wanted to move on.
Huge Alex O’Loughlin fan over here. Not really looking to start any debates. What would it take for CBS to keep Three Rivers on the air? Cold Case averaged 12 million viewers in the same time slot.
Doug: Correct me if I am wrong re: Extreme Makeover HE, but the 3.3 demo ratings cited do include in-slot repeats, which didn’t do that well…
…plus it’s a reality show, with products provided free or at reduced cost by many manufacturers, so the cost factor is rather low for the demos that it does get…
…plus it’s a “feel-good” reality show that actually does something positive…
…and given the chatter I’ve heard about Desperate Housevives not being as good as seasons’ past, I’d split the problem of DH’s falling ratings 70/30, 70 percent on DH’s writers, 30 percent on EH becoming a bit boring.
And at least ABC isn’t doing a Leno at that hour, with AFV and EH:ME at least an attempt to program. And with Sunday Night Football on NBC, if ABC can get similar demos to last season from AFV and EM:HE, they would be really happy, given their dollar to demo value would be rather good…
…better than SNF, but NBC has to pay that premium in order to have any chance to add audience to its other nights.
Re; Seth MacFarlane
Robert and I only recently started seeing demo rankings/breakdowns for cable shows, and MacFarlane’s Family Guy is roughly as dominant among adult demos as Spongebob is among kids/avg. viewers. In the latest week we have data for, Family Guy had 15 of the top 50 18-49 rated shows, and 16 of the top 50 18-34 rated shows.
Big Daddy is correct. It wasn’t ratings that killed KotH, it was producer fatigue.
@Amyvil, Last year Cold Case averaged a 2.6 in the demo and it was still up for cancelation (Without A Trace was canceled instead). 3 Rivers will have to get at least that and not be in the bottom 3 non-Friday shows at the end of the year to be safe.
At last season’s ratings levels Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is in no danger at all.
Here’s my bet
7:00
NBC
FOX The OT: 13 million
CBS 60 Minutes: 10 million
ABC AFHV: 8 million
With football, NBC and FOX will win 7, with CBS coming in third and ABC coming in fourth.
8:00
NBC Football 19-25 million
CBS Amazing Race 10-12 million
ABC Extreme Makeover Home Edition 8-10 million
FOX The Simpsons/The Cleveland Show 8-9 million
At 8 Football will easily win for NBC followed by Amazing race and Extreme Makeover likely tying and then iN Fourth a combo of The Simpsons and The Cleveland Show should do fine with around 8-9 million.
9:00
NBC Football 20 million
ABC Desperate Housewives
FOX Family Guy/American Dad 7-9 million
CBS Three Rivers 7-10 million
This is where CBS could get a drop, Football will get first and Housewives second, but newcomer Three Rivers is expected to drop from its Race, lead in. How much will it drop , who knows but it could benefit the animated Family Guy/American Dad combo.
10:00
ABC Brothers & Sisters 10-13 million
CBS Cold Case 9-11 million
10pm is about retention and Brothers & Sisters as a much better chance of retaining a good amount of Housewives like it always has. With Three Rivers likely to bomb, it will probably bring down Cold Case too.
Bottom line: NBC will easily win sunday night with football by a lot. ABC’s 9-11 drama combination will likely beat out CBS’s drama combo probably because of CBS’s weak point Three Rivers. FOX will still hold the night up with it’s animation line up though with around 7-10 million. With the CW gone, The Big 4 networks will be competing a lot sundays.
ABC and NBC have the same line up as last fall. FOX’s one change is replacing King of the Hill with The Cleveland Show, which is likely to be a success (and hopefully bring some freshness to the night). CBS’s only change is moving Cold Case to 10 and adding new drama Three Rivers to 9. Three Rivers will likely be axed after 4 airings and CBS will probably move Cold Case back to 9. Cold Case is highly likely to end in May.
It doesn’t help that from time to time, CBS show a Hallmark Movie which rates okay but skew old and a Jesse Stone film which rate very well but ancient demos. I guess CBS are happy airing Jesse Stone as a special as it is a good fit with their audience.
I’m not sure what would work for CBS on Sundays, I think comedy would work and with overrun, you could easily drop one show and have the rest of the lineup intact.
Jon, I wonder about the economics/strategy on taking advantage of football overruns. Is it better to do what CBS has typically done in the past and shift all shows later (but air everything) better? That benefits the early shows a lot, but hammers the numbers for the 10pm show (although they are then able to air their full 4hrs of commercials).
Or is it better to be able to pull 30 min (or 60 min) out of your schedule and keep the 10pm show airing on schedule?
I know we have some commenters on the site with more knowledge about this that I have. I’d love to hear from you.
My whole thing with the Unit is, why wouldn’t Fox, seeing as they own the show, bring it over to their network and pair it with 24? It was pretty close to syndication and it would be a great fit with 24. It would certainly see higher numbers across the board with Jack Bauer as a lead-in/lead-out
Sunday will not be too diferent at home ,
Football for the boys and Desperate Housewives and Cold Case for the rest.
We are not interested at all in Three Rivers , Organ Donations are important , but I don’t want to spend my Sundays night watching one transplant after another. I don’t know how people will feel about this show , but I find it boring and depressing.
Boys do watch Family Guy sometimes. I don’t know if they will like The Cleveland Show.
I’m surprised CBS keeps The Amazing Race on Sundays. I love the show and it seems to be getting better, with the editing changes they’ve made, but I think the show would do better on a different night.
^Where would you put it?
Thanks, Holly! Now I know what to look for.
John – CBS tends to stay consistent with their schedule from season to season and only makes minor changes. The Amazing Race does well sundays at 8 so why move it?
So Cal – If FOX was desperate for dramas, they probably could have picked up The Unit (which is going into syndication anyway) However FOX has done pretty well for themselves drama wise last season so why would they need to add another drama.
The only thing I know for sure is that this is likely the final season for Cold Case and Three Rivers will only bring the series down. What CBS may end up doing is if they axe Three Rivers after a few airings they should move Cold Case back to 9 to compete with Housewives/Family Guy/American Dad/Football. They could then add Flashpoint back to 10pm to air the remaining 9 episodes until a permanent replacement is found. Here’s what could happen
7:00 60 Minutes
8:00 Amazing Race
9:00 Cold Case
10:00 Flashpoint
Dan, That sounds like a good move.
When are the mid season shows traditionally ready?
i know V airs in Nov.
Flashpoint isn’t a traditional mid-season. It’s a co-production with a Canadian production company/network. The Canadian side has largely determined production schedule for the last two seasons. I know last year it was held until January even after Ex-List bombed because there weren’t episode available. I’m not sure CBS could force it into an earlier start. (Besides, one of the regulars is a star in a new show on ION, so he might not be available right away.)
Holly, the actor your speaking of is Hugh Dillon who plays Ed on Flashpoint. His other show on ION is Durham County and is only 6 episodes and was shot 2 years ago. Season 2 was shot 1 year ago and hasn’t aired in Canada yet. I think Hugh is definitely available for a season 3 of Flashpoint should CTV call.
Correction, season 2 of Durham County has already aired in Canada.
^Thanks, I don’t really know anything about the show, I just I saw him in ads for the premiere.
Didn’t CBS keep episodes of Flashpoint back? I imagine they will use FP as a filler then premiere Miami Trauma or The Bridge in January.
Vsaint – the interesting thing is that midseason shows start production usually when regular shows do, so the episodes can be available whenever needed. In 2006 after CBS’s Smith was axed, they replaced it with the midseason 3 lbs. in November. CBS has 9 episodes of Flashpoint left that were supposed to air this summer but got held until this season. If Three Rivers gets axed, the Flashpoint episodes could be used to fill in 10pm sundays (if Cold Case gets moved back to 9pm) from November-January.
Jon- If Flashpoint temporarily replaces Three Rivers, CBS would then likely premiere either The Bridge or Miami Trauma sundays at 10 beginning January. I’ll also bet that like last year’s Eleventh Hour, The Good Wife will get additional episodes (around 18) and then after those episodes air the series could be replaced around March with either The Bridge or Miami Trauma.
The sunday schedule could look like this by February
8:00 The Amazing Race
9:00 Cold Case
10:00 Miami Trauma or The Bridge
and tuesdays could be like this by March
8:00 NCIS
9:00 NCIS: LA
10:00 Miami Trauma or The Bridge
There are 9 more episodes left of Flashpoint.
I don’t know what it’s status is in Canada, but according to what I have read from Nina Tassler they aren’t investing in anymore episodes.
CBS hasn’t ordered anymore episodes beyond the remaining 9. It could be because they have a lot of dramas for midseason, and they may not want to order more Flashpoint if their new shows are successful. The show is very cheap though, so I’m guessing if Three Rivers flops and CBS moves Cold Case to 9 and airs Flashpoint at 10pm they could test the series and based on that they can determine with CTV whether or not they want more episodes. CTV will begin airing the remaining 9 episodes on September 25, 2009 at 10pm. If any CBS show gets axed this season, Flashpoint should just fill the gap until a new midseason show premieres.
Enough with the long list! BRING BACK THE TABLE!!!
Commenter, the return of the table is in sight. Your patience will be rewarded.