Ratings: ‘Madam Secretary,’ ‘Elementary’ season 5 see big gains; ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ slides

In many ways, trying to figure out primetime ratings on a Sunday night is a very tricky beast, largely because there are such a wide array of different factors that go into trying to figure out why some shows end up getting enormous ratings, and some others end up falling off the map almost entirely. It’s an imperfect science since you have everything from the NFL to assorted specials to think about in terms of competition.

One other thing to consider when looking at the (limited) ratings that we have for Sunday night is that this is the first time that we haven’t had a new episode of “The Walking Dead” on the air since early October. Therefore, this may be playing a part in some of the ratings for the night as well.

CBS – “NCIS: Los Angeles” is the only show that slipped slightly, dropped to a 1.4 rating following its last new episode many weeks ago. There was a little bit of good news elsewhere, though, as “Madam Secretary‘ (1.1) rose significantly from one of its worst outings ever last time around and “Elementary” (0.9) also a much larger audience. This also shows the value of having a great lead-in; last week, the two shows were airing after a “Dick Van Dyke Show” special that didn’t exactly deliver big numbers.

None of these shows are officially renewed yet for another season, but for the time being we’re optimistic about both “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “Madam Secretary.” In terms of “Elementary,” we’re a little bit more on the fence.

NBC – “Sunday Night Football” in primetime drew a preliminary 7.0 rating, and that is really all we got for the day. Like we mentioned earlier, there really wasn’t a whole lot going on. Even Fox was airing repeats for all of its animated comedies.

You can read our review of last night’s “Madam Secretary” episode by heading over to the link here right now. (Photo: CBS.)