ABC’s ’20/20′ was the #1 program on Saturday in the U.S.
Saturday, 03.15.14
NBC At 8P brought out a two-hour ‘Dateline: Saturday Night Mystery’ and it had 5.355 million viewers. At 10P, a rerun of this week’s premiere of ‘Believe’ pulled in 4.08 million viewers with 3.99 million in the last half hour leading into the local news.
ABC at 8P had a rerun of ‘Resurrection’ which brought in 3.89 million viewers. At 9P, a new program, ‘Nightline Prime’ brought in 3.07 million viewers. At 10P, ’20/20′ had 5.51 million viewers for The Alphabet Network’s top program of the evening and finished with 6 million viewers in the last half hour leading into the local 11P newscasts.
CBS at 8P had a new program, ‘Summer Dreams’ which pulled in 1.375 million viewers. It is a good bet it will never air again. In modern times, no one can remember a CBS program pulling these kind of numbers without complete banished forever of the show runner of this program. At 10P, with a lead in like that, ’48 Hours’ never had a chance and drew 2.37 million viewers. It was one of the poorest performances of The Tiffany Network in a very long time…we’re talking Westinghouse ownership days.
FOX at 8P presented a rerun of last Sunday’s ‘Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey’ which had 1.81 million viewers. At 9P, a rerun of this week’s ‘The Following’ proved that no one follows it. Just 1.11 million viewers bothered to tune into it on the Animal Network of Broadcast. If The CW had a Saturday night schedule, it is a good bet that an ‘I Heart’ would have beaten it.
For The Record
NBC finished #1 on Saturday night with 4.93 million viewers. ABC was #2 with 4.16 million viewers. CBS had a horrible Saturday night by only bringing in 1.67 million viewers. And FOX finished with 1.46 million viewers on Saturday night.
Today In TV History
On this day in 1980, television history was made for the hearing impaired. The first closed captioned television series were broadcast. The shows were ‘The ABC Sunday Night Movie’ on ABC, ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ on NBC and ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ on PBS.
Broadcast TV News
CBS head, Les Moonves, earlier in the week stated that he felt there could be only three hours to fill on next season’s lineup for The Tiffany Network. And sure enough, later in the week, Black Rock renewed everything in the lineup except ‘Intelligence’ the on again, off again Monday night rookie drama that can’t quite get its writing up to speed consistently; the veteran, ‘The Mentalist’ which has taken a fresh approach after the horribly long ‘Red John’ arc that bored nearly everyone except for the family and friends of the characters; the new comedy, ‘The Crazy Ones’ starring Robin Williams that was only on occasion funny (again a writing issue) and the soon to be retired, ‘How I Met Your Mother’ after being on the air for 100 years. The real surprise in this bunch is probably ‘The Mentalist’ because it still is #1 in its time slot and actually beats ‘The Good Wife’ which airs an hour earlier on Sunday, but it is an expensive show AND it is not owned by CBS. Ahh. ‘The Mentalist’ is really finding new legs and it should be placed on next year’s schedule. But then again, that is only one opinion.
The Big Screen
‘Mr. Peabody & Sherman’ is the #1 domestic movie this weekend.
This St. Patrick’s Day weekend has a new leader. In its second weekend, ‘Mr. Peabody & Sherman’ should win the weekend with $21.2 million. To date, ‘Mr. Peabody’ has earned $63.2 million and it should reach $100 million (domestic only) by the end of the month. It cost an estimate $145 to produce.
#2 is ‘300: Rise of an Empire’, last week’s #1, and it will finish with $19.1 million. So far it has earned $78.3 million at the domestic box office in 2 weeks.
#3 is ‘Need for Speed’ with an estimated $17.8 million in its first weekend. ‘Need for Speed’ is the latest in a long line of video game adaptations that underperformed at the domestic box office. It’s was audience was overwhelmingly male (70%), and skewed a bit older (55% over 25+). It is likely that ‘Need for Speed’ will come up short of $50 million.
#4 is ‘Non-Stop’ has earned an impressive $68.8 million in just 3 weeks.
#5. Tyler Perry’s ‘Single Mom’s Clube’ which will pull in $8.3 million for its opening weekend.
#6. ‘The Lego Movie’ is still going strong with a weekend take of $7.705 million. It has earned $236,932,000 in its first 6 weeks.
#7. ‘Son of God’ drew $5.4 million for the weekend. It has earned $50.875 million in its three weeks of release.
#8. ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ with Bill Murray and the Wes Anderson gang, pulled in $3.640 million. It is in its first week of wide release.
#9. ‘Frozen’ with $2.117 million It has now earned $396,356,000 in 17 weeks.
#10.’Veronica Mars’ finished its first weekend with $2.021 million. It was its first weekend in theaters.
#11.’The Monument Men’ which was the only other film to top the $2 million mark with $2 million. It now has over $73.819 million in its sixth week.
Welcome to new visitors from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Australia. Chile and Brazil.
Across The Pond
Louis Walsh turned his hand to announcing as ITV’s Ant & Dec’s ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ was #1 in the UK on Saturday. (Picture: ITV)
ITV at 7P began the evening with Ant & Dec’s ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ and a wild St. Patty’s Day weekend celebration, bringing in The Commitments from the West End to open the Takeaway Tavern for business, with the help of Louis Walsh, B*Witched, Kian Egan, Nicky Byrne, Jedward, Diarmuid Gavin, Shane Lynch and Christine Bleakley continued to be the #1 Saturday night show, averaging 7.04 million viewers and 31.0% share of the available audience. To see the episode, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vewQqQsQCLE
BBC One had the #2 program on Saturday with ‘The Voice UK’ which drew 6.70 million viewers (29.3%). The exciting ‘6 Nations’ rugby matches brought an amazing Saturday with Ireland’s victory over France, 22-20, for the first victory in Paris for the Irish in 42 years. The peak audience of the match was 6.48 million fans with 33.0% share. England’s dominating victory over Italy, 52-11 brought in 4.44 million fans and an amazing 42.4% share of the available audience. Iain Morrison, writing in The Scotsman on Sunday probably said it best; ‘I Always go for the second cheapest wine in any restaurant on the basis that I don’t want to look mean…even if I am. At least I have an excuse, but what theory could possibly explain Scotland’s perennial second from bottom standing in the Six Nations?’ Needless to say, Scotland lost to Wales, 51-3 but it did pull in 3.59 million viewers and a 29.8% share of the available audience.
Down Under
ABC1’s ‘Doc Martin’ was the #1 program in Australia on Saturday.
Seven won again on Saturday with 29.6% share of the available audience in Australia but ABC1 had the top program.
ABC1, with 19.7% share of the available audience, had #1 ‘Doc Martin’ which pulled in the first million plus audience for a program in two days. It had 1,063,000 viewers, with 288,000 in Sydney; a whopping 353,000 in Melbourne; 221,000 in Brisbane; 67,000 in Adelaide and 134,000 in Perth. Dr. Martin Ellingham, a smart physician with a foul disposition, moves to Portwenn to replace the Cornish hamlet’s deceased doctor, and promptly sets about alienating everyone. Not online Dr. House of the long running FOX program ‘House’, people flock to see them work their wonders in spite of their bad bedside manners. ABC1 also had the #4 program as well. ‘ABC News Saturday’ pulled in 832,000 viewers, 40,000 less than ‘Nine News Saturday’. The #5 program was ‘Midsomer Murders’ which drew 826,000 viewers, this time with Sydney leading the way with 256,000 viewers.
But it was Seven that took top honors with the top news program in the nation, #2 ‘Seven News’ which drew 980,000 viewers with Melbourne leading the way with 258,000 viewers. The #10 program was the movie, ‘The Pacifier’ which drew 398,000 viewers.
Nine, with 24.3% share of the available audience had the #3 program, ‘Nine News Saturday’ with 872,000 viewers, with again Melbourne leading the way with 309,000 viewers. The #7 program on Saturday was ‘Getaway’ with 464,000 viewers. #9 was ‘Nine News: First At Five’ which drew 402,000 viewers.
Ten, with 10.3% share of the available audience, had the ‘2014 Australian FIA Formula One World Championship’ Qualifying and drew a solid 567,000 viewers. The big race is on Sunday on Ten. The ‘Pre-Qualifying’ telecast drew 408,000 for the #8 program in the nation on Saturday≥
There were lots of choices on Saturday and as you can see, no matter where you are in the world, people were…
Switching Channels.
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