ChuckTV.net The CHUCK archive
I’ll admit it, I was bracing myself for bad news this morning. Chuck aired against two major sporting events last night – Favre on Monday Night Football and the Giants clenching the NLCS – plus pre-emptions in several markets for local election debates, so I expected to see a significant drop. Guess what? In the face of such strong competition, pretty much everything except Chuck lost viewers.
According to the fast overnight ratings, “Chuck vs. the Coup d’Etat” held steady with last week’s numbers, pulling a 1.9 in the 18-49 demo and watched by approximately 5.5 million viewers. In comparison, House fell another 10% over last week to a possible series low (ouch!). CBS saw HIMYM drop 3% while Rules of Engagement was the only other show to hold steady from last week. Dancing With The Stars also fell to a 3.75 during the Chuck timeslot, and will likely adjust down in the finals.
Additional good news/bad news from NBC’s other Monday night offerings as The Event dropped 8% to a 2.2 in the demo and Chase tumbled another 12% to a 1.5. With Outlaw already canceled, Undercovers underperforming, and these two new Monday night shows free-falling, Chuck‘s stability with little promotion has to be looking better and better. That’s good news for us, bad news for those sites that have been sounding the death knell for Chuck with such certainty.
Updated: Final ratings are in and the numbers stand for NBC, meaning even after all the adjustments were made for pre-emptions, Chuck holds to a 1.9.
Yes!! What a victory for Chuck! NBC has to give it a back 9 now!!
Chuck rating for the whole hour is 5.35
Overall viewers don’t matter that much, it’s almost all about the 18-49 demos.
Damn I was expecting around 2-2.1 atleast.man episode was awesome and 1.9 is not enough 🙁 .still comparing to other NBC shows it is good news for chuck.I was hoping The Ev3nt to be a flop and yeah go to hell down under 😛
Big sigh of relief… It’s hard for any show to hold steady against huge sporting events, but if any show could do it, I knew it would be Chuck. All hail the loyal Chuck fans!
Though I’m disappointed it wasn’t in the twos I have to be grateful we’re still going steady. Wish NBC would stop being a thorn in our side and start promoting the heck out of this show, and more viewers to come in. Color me a happy camper then. 🙂
Keep in mind, these are only the fast overnight ratings; when the whole country gets factored in, it could very well trend up. Even if it doesn’t trend up, the fact that Chuck didn’t drop in the fast overnights in the face of all this competition–especially with little to no ads–has got to speak volumes to NBC. In addition to that, there was that post Mel made a few days ago about the other viewing numbers (online?) that NBC said they look at.
LONG LIVE TEAM BARTOWSKI!!! LONG LIVE CHUCK!!!
NBC are not a thorn, they have renewed the show twice now when most shows would have been cancelled. Its also understandable that having spent bucket loads of money on new shows AND sold expensive ad slots for them they would heavily promote the new shows. When a new show tanks like that NBC will have to make good with other ad spots to give the advertisers the ‘viewer demos’ they promised them when they sold the spots for the new shows. NBC have promoted the show heavily twice when it was new and for S3 so we can’t complain really.
Take that, b_tches! Best episode this season!
Ditto Jeremy! Let’s go back 6/9! 🙂
Don’t F### with Chuck :D. This makes me even happier than I already am after last nights episode :D.
/me returns back to NBC.com to re-watch Chuck again.
Holding steady last night vs some big drops in it’s time slot and some smaller (but more important) drops vs other NBC shows is huge. Especially since this week Chuck was above the NBC Monday average share (2% above, compared to 5% below last week).
As for the full picture after last week, Chuck stayed steady in it’s position on NBC prime time (9th of 15) but no longer tied with Parenthood (8th), and drew closer to the NBC prime time average 18-49 share at 7% behind for the full week (12% the week before) and 12% for Mon-Thurs (18% the week before). Expect NBC’s average share for the full week to drop slightly less this week, thanks to Outlaw being cancelled.
I’d be surprised if Undercovers and Chase survive for the rest of the fall. The Event is likely to finish out the fall, but I don’t see more episodes being ordered for the winter unless it hit bottom this week. Community already has a full season order, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that cut back or the back half held for the summer if it’s numbers keep dropping – though a single half hour comedy flopping doesn’t help Chuck much. Law & Order: LA was in free fall in its 2nd week, so may have a long way to drop yet. The Apprentice is getting crap numbers, but we already know it’s being replaced by the Celebrity Apprentice in the winter. The competition looks sickly.
At this point, the only scripted shows on NBC I would say that Chuck won’t catch are Law & Order: SVU and The Office (also unlikely to catch the unscripted Biggest Loser). Parenthood and 30 Rock are possible to catch but tough to predict right now, as they’ve both had one big drop and one week of holding steady (or a slight gain in Parenthood’s case). Won’t know until next week if it was the holding or the drop that was the exception.
Jack, a knowledgeable poster on tvbythenumbers.com says a back order is all but a done deal
Yeah, I’ve had the post in draft mode since August. They were waiting on ratings, but my intel said it’s been at least a 75% chance of an additional episode order since TPTB at NBC saw the first couple of episodes for season 4.
I hope Undercovers will make it along with Chuck. These are my favorite shows on TV right now.
Undercovers is in bad, bad shape. NBC’s 2nd worst scripted show last week ahead of Outlaw, which has already been cancelled.
Based on Mel’s article here a while back and some other reviews I tried to give Undercovers an honest chance, just so I could say I wasn’t being Chuck-biased against it. But with most of the plot lines I found myself literally saying out loud: “hey-they did this on Chuck but is was way funnier”. And I couldn’t really seem to connect with the characters, couldn’t convince myself to care about Steve and Samantha’s marital problems the same way I care about Chuck and Sarah’s communication issues.
Unfortunately I have to agree, panda. I thought the pilot showed promise, as noted in my review, but 3 episodes into the season, I’m still waiting for that potential to be realized. The show is now on my “DVR, watch later” list.
Not because I’m a fan but honestly Chuck is the best show on at 8:00pm. It has everything you could want and NBC needs to start promoting it so many more can experience the awesomeness that is Chuck.
Political debates and Brett Favre playing and behaving badly are hardly “Must See TV”. Chuck is still an oasis in the otherwise desert-like land of TV.
Monday nights CAN be a bit of a wasteland.
Tee Hee…Good one, Eowyn. Thanks to all of Mel’s educational ratings analysis of late, we can all help with the ratings every week. I just watched it for a second time on the DVR and also “watched” it on nbc.com earlier this evening while making dinner. Whatever it takes. It really speaks volumes that our show has such steady viewership. Hooray Chucksters!
Finals are in. All NBC shows held steady. While DWTS was down 0.1, HIMYM and 90210 were up 0.1.
Correction: 90210 was up in 18-34 females (which only the CW measures), but steady for 18-49 adults.
Mel I shared your concerns for the very same reasons second week in a row a MNF game of big interest. Overall NFL viewership is at a all time high this season. Mixed that with MLB playoffs (which had a big effect on all Thursday night shows) and with some area local channels showing political debates instead it was looking like a series low for demos. Than a miracle happened the MNF delayed an hour due to sever weather God must be a Chuck fan at heart.
Where is the article by Mel Matt refers to that NBC looks at other viewing #’s (online?) as well as the regular ratings. Would love to read it but I can’t find it.
Mel, can you or anybody help me out on this? Matt says it was written a few days ago.
Thanks.
Man, this is great news. I’m going to check out that article on tvbythenumbers. It’s pretty funny. NBC isn’t getting a very good return for its investment promoting The Event. The show they’re promoting to high heck is free falling and the show they’re not promoting at all is holding steady. Quite funny. Mel, if you have some connection to NBC or for that matter if anyone on this site has some kind of connection to NBC, they should go to the NBC offices and tell them a few things since by this point NBC will probably never realize them: 1. if they want Chuck to get better ratings, air it on a different night at a time when there’s not much else on that’s good. Example: less than an hour before I wrote this I was watching the cooking show Chopped with my dad. I generally don’t like cooking shows. I told my dad “it’s still prime time and you’re not going to see what the networks have on?” Then he showed me, and with the exception of 1 or 2 shows, there was nothing good on. NBC, this is the kind of time slot that Chuck should air in. 2. Chuck is nearly getting 2.0’s with pretty much no promotion. So, NBC, I wonder what would happen if you started promoting it a little bit. Hm. Combine that with a better time slot and Chuck’s ratings could go way up.
Anyway, definitely the best episode of the season so far. I was surprised to see how they had the nuclear system lead into the operation Beacon thing.
Oh if you have on demand every time a break happens while watching chuck Nbc promotes either the event, chase(which I kinda like) and undercovers (which is horrible)
Never mind on above request. I found it, thanks.
Alright, so is it better for me to simply leave NBC running after Chuck and have The Even play while I’m doing something else or is it better to just turn of the tele after The Event?