ABC kicked off last fall with a promising lineup, promoting Shonda Thursdays (TGIT) with one of TV’s best-performing new dramas, How to Get Away with Murder. But the broadcaster still found itself toward the bottom of the Big Four, falling behind networks largely because it lacked big sports ratings.
But, as TheWrap found, when one looks at Nielsen ratings without sports, specials or reality series on broadcast television, ABC goes from third place to first.
TheWrap looked at ratings from the 2014-15 season to determine where broadcasters really stand when it comes to scripted TV - and more importantly, who really has the most popular drama and comedy on television right now?
The study only includes primetime scripted shows through this month, which means that NBC fell to third place without ratings for The Voice, football or Peter Pan Live.
The much-maligned ABC actually comes out on top of the Big Four, with CBS at a close second and Fox coming in last. Of the 15 highest-rated scripted series, ABC can claim six of them - the most of all four networks - with Modern Family, Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, How to Get Away with Murder and Black-ish. CBS still holds the top spot, with The Big Bang Theory ranking first among all scripted series, but ABC’s Scandal is broadcast’s top drama.
Read more at TheWrap.
Brief Take: Normally falling in line as NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, it’s clear how important sports and specials are to ratings results, especially as those programs also tend to top social media ratings charts.
[Image courtesy of ABC]
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