Ratings and Scheduling

[ByaNose]

Rabbi, thanks for the updates and I hope you're (I think you are) right. Even, with the $1 Million prize (and, traveling budget) it's still a cheap show to produce compared to an hour drama. I think it's me who wants it off Friday night. I always liked ending my weekend & starting my work week with The Amazing Race on Sunday.

[AmandaPanda]

I'll be shocked if TAR gets canceled. However, I do expect it to stay on Friday nights. 

[Mrs. P.]

We should know tonight whether its been renewed for not. The CBS newsfeeds are starting to ignite (so far Battle Creek and the McCarthy's have been confirmed canceled, and they've picked up 4 new dramas and a couple new comedies to series). If it's renewed, we won't know the timeslot until Wednesday when the CBS upfronts take place.

Any new insights, Rabbi?

[TheRabbi]

It just got renewed within the last half hour! They only ended up announcing about a third of their shows fates on Friday, and just renewed everything else today. Was just coming here to post. RENEWAL. No word on how many cycles or any lame gimmicks

[Mrs. P.]

Thanks! Here's hoping that they go back to old-school TAR, "teams with a pre-existing relationship."

[scrb]

Ratings are lower for this season right, despite the generally younger, for photogenic young women?

 

Then again TAR and CBS in general seems to skew older demographic anyways.

[PhD-Purgatory15]

Super relieved. I know that there's a a little bit of a cushion by having it on Friday when overall tv viewership is down (that and I've never delved into how much TAR's audience grows via DVR numbers and online views in relation to other shows). But having the ratings drop down around the 1.0 number this season...honestly had me worried the last few days.

 

Hopefully TPTB take this into consideration and goes back in a more traditional direction......if you need a stunt casting (a la Globetrotters, former Boy Band member or somebody from Survivor) or two, fine. I'd be much more open to that happening instead another "gimmick" casting decision (like 24 strangers paired up from the get go) after this season where the team dynamics were so skewed right of the bat.

 

I'll also naively hope (again) for a return to a season where the race map would allow the inclusion of more point-to-point travel where independent decision-making and strategy comes into play. It would be amazing if we could keep the spoon fed flights that every team ends up on under 4 for an entire season.

[selkie]

Glad we're on for more TAR. It's a safe move for CBS in some ways- critically loved, and seems to be pretty cost-effective, and has a core audience that is willing to seek it out in whatever time slot it's moved to.

[blackwing]

Very relieved.  Hard to believe that TAR has been a part of our lives for 15 years now.  Can't imagine TV without it.

[Lantern7]

That's a load off my mind. Of course, I'm going to think that CBS is going to put it on Saturday nights at 10 until I hear otherwise in the upfront.

[TheRabbi]

First off, Friday's episode adjusted up to a 1.1 in the finals, so we've now been stuck on that 1.1 for about 6 straight weeks.

 

Ratings are lower for this season right, despite the generally younger, for photogenic young women?

 

 

 

Ratings are about equal to season 25 in the fall.  Collectively, they are both down about 30-35% from seasons 23/24 last year.  When you factor in that the spring season is generally slightly lower rated than the fall edition, you could say ratings have perhaps increased a tiny percentage vs 25.  The fall season actually dipped to 1.0 on a few occasions, which is something the spring cycle hasn't done yet.

 

Something I find interesting, is that CBS renewed nearly every single show that was on the bubble.  That includes fellow low rated shows like Hawaii Five O, Blue Bloods, Elementary, Good Wife, Person of Interest, CSI: Cyber, and Madam Secretary (granted that was renewed a while ago).  That means, if they still launch their usual 2-3 new dramas in the fall and a new comedy or two, then some of these returning shows must be held until midseason.  It gets even dicier when you factor in CBS has the Thursday football package again through the end of October.

 

Do I think Race will be held for midseason?  Not really.  I wouldn't be stunned, but first off, there's no way CBS tries to launch a new show Fridays at 8.  If something takes TAR's spot, it will be a low rated show going to live out its final days, kind of like what we thought they were doing with TAR at this time last year.  Candidates could be Good Wife, Elementary, POI, etc.

 

The chances that TAR moves to Monday - Thursday is 0%.  The Wednesday premiere this season didn't inspire a lot of confidence that it was qualified for a weeknight again.  So that leaves Sunday.  Honestly, I have no idea what CBS plans for the night.  Their Sunday ratings have been absolutely dreadful this year.  Madam Secretary was renewed way too early (it's doing worse than Stalker, which is a rookie show that was canceled), and The Good Wife continues to drop little by little each year..  However, launching new shows on Sundays in the fall has been a very risky endeavor for networks recently, as you have to go against the two big juggernauts: Sunday Night Football, and The Walking Dead.

 

If I was in charge of scheduling, I'd take a chance and move TAR back to Sundays at 8, move Madam Secretary to 9, and throw Good Wife at 10 with a "final season" tagline.  However, if I had to predict what will happen, I'll say that Madam Secretary and Good Wife stay at 8 and 9, and some other fading drama like POI or Elementary gets dumped at 10, with TAR staying on Fridays.

 

Anyways, as you can see, I spend way too much time analyzing TV ratings and trends, so I'm eager to see what CBS does with their schedule.

[SnideAsides]

It could be worse. CBS could do what Channel Seven has done to the show in Australia this season - it was delayed several weeks, started scheduled at 11pm Thursday, frequently got delayed by up to half an hour because the people responsible for their locally-made shows earlier in the night are apparently unfamiliar with the concept of "editing", then was randomly moved to 10:45pm Monday with a few episodes left because I guess it didn't occur to Seven that the only people who would follow the show to that late a timeslot are also the people who probably had already downloaded the episodes two weeks earlier? Sigh.

[blackwing]

I agree, I'd like to see TAR back on Sundays.  I can't see them splitting up Madam Secretary and The Good Wife, both are about strong women in positions of power so seem like a natural fit together.  I like Rabbi's suggestion of putting TAR back at 8 pm on Sunday, and moving the Secretary/Wife combo back an hour.  Wife seems to be fading, so smart programming would shove it into the 10 pm slot.  But you're probably right, they'll shove something like Person of Interest there.

 

TAR seems to be floundering on Fridays, as is Hawaii Five 0.  I'd like to see Hawaii Five 0 moved back to Mondays.

[Lingo]

Personally, I really like Fridays! My Sundays are full of other things like grocery-shopping and The Walking Dead. I don't have to wait for football or any other live sports to finish, and since it's on Friday night I can wait until the show posts on the website and just watch it and all the bonus videos back to back, all night, without worrying about waking up in the morning.

[auntlada]

I like Fridays, too, because we never get to watch live because that's reading books time and bedtime for the boy. When it's on Friday, we have Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon to catch up. When it was on Sunday night, it was hard to catch up quickly because it's just hard to watch and stay awake after 8:30 p.m. (Yeah, we're old -- and we have a toddler. We're tired.)

 

We also discovered after the storms last Friday that we can get the episode from Amazon Instant Video. It costs, so it's not something I want to do all the time, but it's good quality video.

Edited May 13, 2015 by auntlada

[Thog]

Can't you also watch the full episodes for free on the CBS website after they air?

 

I also like Fridays, because this show has become our traditional family night. Our 8-year-old's bedtime is 8:30 on school nights, but we'll let him stay up late for the Race if it's on a Friday. If it's on Sunday we have to record it, and then it's hard to keep from being spoiled (because I can't seem to stay off the internet).

[TheRabbi]

After all the speculation and worry, the schedule is out and the entire Friday lineup is intact. We'll be ready I September! They didn't mention specifics, but most likely we'll share the slot with Undercover Boss again.

Sundays stayed intact except for shipping CSI Cyber to the 10 pm dead zone. Have fun with another year of those ratings CBS. Person of Interest was the odd show out, getting held for a later premiere.

[auntlada]

Can't you also watch the full episodes for free on the CBS website after they air?.

Possibly, but on the computer, which is difficult to do with my husband. We like to watch together. Also, I've always hated CBS' video on the website. It has never worked well for me. CBS does have a Roku channel, but it's like $5 or $6 a month, and we aren't willing to pay that for the occasional storm outage for one show.

[kakiphony]

The videos are available on the CBS website via my laptop the next day, but they are NOT available via iPad (either in the app or in Safari) for a full week. I'm assuming that's because the network knows that watching on a laptop is so much of a pain that people will pay for either the amazon streaming or their own CBS unlimited thing. Of course, I refuse and just watch on the laptop... 

Edited May 13, 2015 by kakiphony

[blackwing]

On the CBS site you have to pay for some kind of "All Access" streaming.  Or you get like one episode free or something like that.

[Lantern7]

I'm relieved. Friday nights work out well for me. Let's hope we get two seasons, and the show isn't on the bubble anymore.

[Lingo]

On the CBS site you have to pay for some kind of "All Access" streaming.  Or you get like one episode free or something like that.

 

No, as of right now you get 10 free (i.e. the entirety of the current season, I think).

 

The player really sucks though.  Sometimes when I try to rewind back, it won't let me, or it will oddly skip several minutes ahead. If that skip takes me into or through the next commercial break, then I have to watch all the commercials before being able to get back to the show and try again to rewind.  The other night I was watching Survivor, and tried to rewind during tribal council.  It instead skipped all the way to the end. I had to watch the end commercials, restart the video, watch the starting commercials, make several attempts to fast forward back to the tribal council (it resisted going so far forward), and then of course watching some of the commercials I skipped before finally getting back to the good stuff.

 

And I have to rewind often because the video often slows down to the point that the picture is no longer moving, and I have to press pause, wait for the audio to come to a stop, then rewind again to catch the parts I missed. I don't know if that's entirely due to a slow internet and wonky wifi connection on my end, or partly endemic to CBS's player.

 

And I hate that before every single bonus video I have to watch a commercial (of comparable length to the clip itself -- and usually it's the same one over and over again).

Edited May 15, 2015 by Lingo

[Christina]

Lingo, I have the exact same problem. I hate CBS's video player and don't have the problem with anything else on the web.

[vousviou]

Lingo, I have the exact same problem. I hate CBS's video player and don't have the problem with anything else on the web.

I also find the CBS player to be awful.  PBS, Fox, Hulu work just fine for me.  I don't mind watching commercials on web rebroadcasts, but watching on CBS, instead of natural commercial breaks, someone will be in the middle of a sentence when a set of commercials suddenly interrupts.  Other weird glitches happen too.

[aemom]

The videos are available on the CBS website via my laptop the next day, but they are NOT available via iPad (either in the app or in Safari) for a full week. I'm assuming that's because the network knows that watching on a laptop is so much of a pain that people will pay for either the amazon streaming or their own CBS unlimited thing. Of course, I refuse and just watch on the laptop...

When I miss a show and watch it on my laptop, I just connect it to my TV to watch it with an HDMI cable. Works quite well, maybe an idea for others.

[cherrypj]

I have the All Access pass from CBS. It's working OK with some judders. My peeve is the lack of captioning for the older TAR seasons (1-10 have no captions; haven't looked at 11 and up yet). We connect my laptop via HDMI, so it's really nice--full HD for the later season, which I wouldn't otherwise get on my basic standard cable subscription.