The Six Pack: The Halloween edition
Boo! Scared already? Then you will be as T Dog Media presents a Six Pack full of treats and tricks this Halloween:
Treats
The World Series. After a slow ratings start, the World Series matchup between the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals dominated the ratings Thursday with an epic Game 6 people will be talking about for years to come. The seventh and deciding game of the World Series drew 23.25 million viewers and a 6.8/20 in the adult demo (18-49). The entire series in 2011 averaged 16.6 million viewers, up 19 percent from the 2010 Texas Rangers-San Francisco Giants matchup.
WLS-TV. No Oprah? No All My Children? No problem as ABC’s WLS-TV continues its domination of the local ratings scene (though among demos, WGN-TV’s morning newscast won its time period among adults 18-49 and 25-54.) As for the Oprah and AMC replacements? Even though Windy City Live and The Chew are nowhere near the ratings of its previous occupants, both programs are winning their time periods locally.
It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. A classic 1966 CBS special – which you could find anywhere (on DVD, on demand, etc.) – still drew 7.5 million viewers and 2.3 adult demo rating on ABC Thursday, up 92 percent from last week’s now-canceled Charlie’s Angels in the time slot. Classic cartoon characters or airheaded cops? We’ll take Snoopy anytime.
EXTRA TREAT: Beavis and Butthead. Okay, y’all have been so good – I decided to give out an extra treat. The return of the 1993-97 cult classic with fresh installments on Thursday drew 3.3 million viewers and a 1.8 rating in the adult demo, outdrawing NBC’s awful Prime Suspect head-to-head, tied Parks & Recreation, and beat Community. Heh, heh, heh, heh…
Tricks.
The radio industry. Radio conglomerates did last week what they do best – cut, layoff, cut, layoff, more cut and more layoff. You’d wish they would put that much effort into providing better programming.
DirecTV subscribers. A trick television viewers are used to hearing -if (fill in programming provider) and (cable or satellite provider) doesn’t come to agreements by November 1, you will lose their programming… how many times have we heard this over the years? And sadly, you will keep hearing it.
WMAQ and NBC. How’s that Comcast and NBC merger working out? Sports anchor Paula Faris became the fourth person to exit the NBC-owned station in the last few months while NBC’s prime-time ratings continue to sink. Meanwhile, WMAQ’s 10 p.m. newscast dropped to third place in households this month.
Instead of being sold to the bunch of goblins at Comcrap, NBC should have been bought by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban instead.