The Charts: Agents of SHIELD Returns to the Top 25, Plus a Look at the Rankings with Live+3 Data

ABC’s Agents of SHIELD was a regular entry in the broadcast network Top 25 based on the ratings in the 18-49 demographic during its first season, but this year it has been mostly MIA from those rankings.  For last week, though, the show managed to sneak in at the Number 24 slot.  I can’t say it was because its ratings are all that good, though, seeing as it only had a 1.6 score.  It’s appearance on the charts is more a factor of how low the numbers for the broadcast nets in general have sunk and the fact that we have an inordinate amount of repeats and preemptions this time of year as they try and pad out the schedule to last until May.  I’m not certain how much this will help the show, especially considering that its rating score slipped this week.  But that’s at least one notable accomplishment for it as it wraps up its second season with a third looking somewhat tenuous.

I noticed that TV by the Numbers posted the Top 25 shows on the broadcast nets and cable channels based on their Live+3 numbers this last week (the data itself was for the week of March 9th thru 15th).  They had these numbers–which look at delayed viewing up to three days past the live broadcast–briefly at the beginning of the season but I hadn’t seen them since then on that site or any others (which means that Nielsen may not have been releasing them regularly).  I will go ahead and include those in this column as long as they keep posting them.  The cable charts look basically the same as those based on the overnights, The Walking Dead and The Talking Dead are at the top.  But genre entries on the other cable channels like 12 Monkeys, Dig, The Returned, etc. did not manage to make it to the list once their Live+3 stats were tallied.  On the broadcast net charts, The Last Man on Earth managed to make it into the Top 25 based on ratings whereas that one had fallen out of the overnights chart for that week.  And Agents of SHIELD was not able to muster up enough of a Live+3 score to get to that chart that week.  These should be some interesting numbers to follow if we can get them on an ongoing bases as the season wraps up, though I can’t say yet how much weight they have vs. the overnights when it comes to the networks’ cancellation / renewal decisions.

Here is the full look at chart activity for genre shows for the week of March 16th thru 22nd (Live+3 is for the week of March 9th thru 15th):

Nielsen Twitter Ratings ranked based on the Unique Audience – The total number of distinct Twitter accounts accruing at least one impression of one or more different Tweets ascribed to a TV episode.  More info at this link.

General Sentiment tracks activity across the social networks for shows airing new episodes in Prime Time (start times between 8:00 PM and 10:55 PM EST Monday – Saturday and 7:00 PM and 10:55 PM EST on Sunday).  This data collected on seven (7) major broadcast networks and 43 cable television networks.  More info at this link.