'Rules Of Engagement' Television's Most Stable Show
'Person of Interest' also doing well, despite being a new show
The television show with the most stable audience from week to week is not "NCIS" (but almost) or even "Dancing With the Stars."
Instead, the one show that audiences come back for each episode is "Rules of Engagement" on CBS. The comedy, starring Patrick Warburton and Bianca Kajlich, has an Audience Loyalty Index rating of 94.5. That means of all the households that have tuned in to see at least one episode of "Rules of Engagement," nearly 95 percent of them have come back each and every week.
This is not a statistic readily kept by the networks. However, it is a factor that plays into decision-making of shows, even if actual statistics like this are not kept.
GenreNexus, which includes Inside Blip, compares a show's average overnight rating to its highest overnight rating. The resulting number shows how many ratings spikes and valleys a particular show may have had, which can create havoc on a network's advertising schedule if it's too erratic.
Before the start of a season, a network pre-sells ad slots for a show, based on a projected rating. If the show goes over that rating, then advertisers are reaching more people, but the networks aren't able to capitalize financially on that right away. If the show falls below that rating, however, then the network has to give away time elsewhere on its schedule to help make up for the money the advertisers already spent.
The ability to give realistic audience estimates is important to a network, and audience stability does just that. Of course, it doesn't necessarily mean a show with high stability will get a renewal, but it could be a key factor determining the survival of a program.
Typically, anything above an 85.0 ALI is considered stable, which is good news for the networks, because more than half of the schedule in the first half of the 2011-12 season has achieved that. But once you get past No. 40, stability really falters, especially on CBS' schedule.
"Two and a Half Men" has an ALI of 61.8, meaning that of everyone who has tuned in to see at least one episode of "Men," only 62 percent have come back each week to see more. A lot of that is based on its unusually high season premiere -- one of the best ratings for a scripted show in years -- before it fell back to normal audience numbers. However, "Men" also is averaging a 10.0 household rating, and is television's No. 3-rated show, so it's not going anywhere despite its audience stability issues.
Typically, new shows -- especially those that were heavily hyped -- have stability issues, mostly because a lot of people tune in to the premiere, but may not come back for more. "2 Broke Girls" on CBS had a huge premiere, but then settled into a strong, but more realistic audience. Thus, it has an ALI of 64.5. "Pan Am" on ABC is also struggling with stability -- a 60.3 ALI -- but that is more from a continuing erosion of audience more than an oversized premiere.
But not all new shows suffer from that sort of stability problem. "Persons of Interest" on CBS, which just moved into the top 10 in December overall, has an ALI of 91.1, putting it in the top 20 most stable shows.
Another CBS show, "A Gifted Man," is second among new shows with an 89.2, and an overall ranking of No. 29.
The rankings only include shows that have aired at least six episodes in the first half of the season. Although more episodes (and moving them on to different nights, like "Survivor") could have some effect on ALI, not all shows have those issues. "Dancing With the Stars" had 33 episodes air in the first half of the season, but it has an ALI of 80.8, ranking it No. 48.
"The X Factor" on Fox, however, has aired 48 episodes this season, and has a slightly better ALI of 84.5, good for No. 41 overall.
Most Stable Network Shows, through Dec. 31 -- [Average Rating]
| 1. | Rules of Engagement (CBS) | 94.9 | [6.6/11] |
| 2. | NCIS (CBS) | 94.5 | [11.9/19] |
| 3. | CSI: New York (CBS) | 94.4 | [6.4/11] |
| 4. | Big Bang Theory (CBS) | 94.0 | [8.7/14] |
| 5. | The Mentalist (CBS) | 93.3 | [8.1/13] |
| 6. | Fringe (Fox) | 93.2 | [2.0/3] |
| 7. | Bones (Fox) | 93.0 | [5.6/8] |
| 8. | Good Wife (CBS) | 92.9 | [6.4/9] |
| 9. | Modern Family (ABC) | 92.7 | [7.9/12] |
| 10. | Blue Bloods (CBS) | 92.5 | [7.2/13] |
| 11. | 90210 (CW) | 92.4 | [1.0/2] |
| 12. | Body of Proof (ABC) | 92.3 | [6.4/10] |
| 13. | NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS) | 91.9 | [9.7/14] |
| 14. | Criminal Minds (CBS) | 91.6 | [8.0/12] |
| 14. | Desperate Housewives (ABC) | 91.6 | [5.7/8] |
| 16. | Nikita (CW) | 91.5 | [1.2/2] |
| 17. | CSI: Miami (CBS) | 91.3 | [6.6/11] |
| 18. | Private Practice (ABC) | 91.2 | [4.9/8] |
| 19. | Person of Interest (CBS) | 91.1 | [7.7/12] |
| 20. | CSI (CBS) | 90.8 | [7.1/11] |
| 20. | Supernatural (CW) | 90.8 | [1.1/2] |
Least Stable Network Shows, through Dec. 31 -- [Average Rating]
| 1. | You Deserve It (ABC) | 45.6 | [2.9/4] |
| 2. | Pan Am (ABC) | 60.3 | [4.3/7] |
| 3. | Two and a Half Men (CBS) | 61.8 | [10.0/14] |
| 4. | 2 Broke Girls (CBS) | 64.5 | [7.4/11] |
| 5. | Sing-Off (NBC) | 65.5 | [2.8/4] |
| 6. | Extreme Makeover (ABC) | 65.9 | [3.5/6] |
| 7. | Mike & Molly (CBS) | 70.6 | [7.9/12] |
| 8. | Survivor (CBS) | 70.7 | [6.7/11] |
| 9. | Biggest Loser (NBC) | 71.5 | [3.8/6] |
| 10. | Cleveland Show (Fox) | 71.7 | [2.9/4] |
Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that include both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.
Data collected from The Nielsen Co., as distributed by Zap2it. GenreNexus tracks non-news, non-event programming, and figures for this story reflect airing of new episodes only. For more information on the Audience Loyalty Index, click here.
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