Ratings Review: CBS Sundays - November Sweeps

Sundays, at least during the fall, seem to be the one night CBS doesn't quite know how to run. It still tries to run the night like it is the 1980's, where shifting everything back until the NFL game is done, will still produce the same ratings. It doesnt. Only 60 MINUTES gets a boost from an overrun NFL game, but that is of set by the losses THE MENTALIST endures by a late start.

During this November sweeps, CBS had the first two week of the NFL national doubleheader and had the late game overrun into prime time. In week #1, the starting times for the four regular series was over a full hour. THE MENTALIST aired completely outside of the Primetime wind and received horrid numbers. Week #2, the delay was just 45 minutes, but once again, THE MENTALIST was negatively affected. In the age of the DVR, viewers don't want to stay up to midnight to watch a show. They can go to bed and watch it another day. However, THE GOOD WIFE did benefit with the later start time, getting its best numbers of the season. But I'll get to that later.

The last two weeks of the sweeps month had the entire line up airing in their normal time slots. With two consecutive weeks of a 10 p.m. start time, dramatically helped THE MENTALIST in the ratings. That us a huge gain from week #3 to week #4, especially since everything else was down because of the AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS, on ABC.

CBS needs to finally address how to properly schedule Sundays when football will affect the starting times.

Back to THE GOOD WIFE. It does OK at 9 p.m., but the increase numbers of the first two weeks, during the10 p.m. hour, may indicate viewers that watch ABC from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., migrated over to watch THE GOOD WIFE live, at 10 p.m. Perhaps a flip of TGW and THE MENTALIST is in order for 2014?

Series	Category	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	AVG
60 Minutes	Viewers*	15.81	15.26	11.86	11.31	13.56
	A18-49	3.2	3.1	1.7	1.6	2.4
The Amazing Race	Viewers*	9.38	9.12	9.12	7.97	8.90
	A18-49	2.1	2.2	2.0	1.6	2.0
The Good Wife	Viewers*	10.22	10.26	9.72	9.70	9.98
	A18-49	1.6	1.7	1.4	1.3	1.5
The Mentalist	Viewers*	7.01	8.46	9.72	10.94	9.03
	A18-49	N/A	1.4	1.4	1.6	1.5

* - in millions