Ratings: ‘Once Upon a Time’ and ‘Revenge’ season 2 sink deeper
What in the world is going on with ABC’s Sunday-night lineup at the moment? We’ve tried to figure this out all year long, but it may be time to just admit to one thing: this is not an easy night for broadcast programming right now. Since it is the February sweeps, the network obviously feels some sort of obligation to air as many new episodes as it can during the month so long as they are not up against the Super Bowl. However, in doing so you’re causing such confusion that your ratings sink into the ground.
Let’s put it in these terms: ABC ran three episodes of each show in January, and then shuffled them off the air for a couple of weeks. They returned last night against the Grammys, and there will be another new episode next week before going off the air again against the Academy Awards. This is not a good look for any show, especially programs like “Once Upon a Time” and “Revenge” that are so serialized.
While we were at first a proponent of ABC trying to make this programming work during the sweeps, we’re now at a little bit of a different mind after seeing each series sink to respective series-low ratings of 2.2 and an anemic 1.4: the network should just keep each one of them off the air until early March, and then run them straight through every week until May. What would you rather have, your shows killed off thanks to competition, or solid enough to succeed for years to come?
It’s pretty clear that viewers of both shows left in order to watch the Grammys last night, and while they may have recorded them to watch later, this doesn’t do advertisers any good at all. The only other explanation you can give here is that neither show has been particular impressive this season, even though “Revenge” did improve last night. If you are going to have a committed audience, you need to justify yourself as being worthy against football, awards shows, or even “The Walking Dead.”
What do you think: would ABC be better off next year holding these two shows (if they are still around) until March when all of the awards shows have calmed down? If you want to see what is next on “Once Upon a Time” this season, you can do so over here.
Photo: ABC