How A Lead-In and Lead-Out Can Affect An Age Skew

I did some ratings research, and I wanted to take a quick, very broad little look into how age skew can be affected by the lead-in of a show. Take the following examples:

60 Minutes
Here is a comparison of 60 Minutes from one week to the next one. The first week, it had local news as a lead-in, and the next, post-game coverage of an NFL Playoff game (which had a 9.7 A18-49 rating.

January 10, 2016 January 17, 2016
A18-49
0.8
4.8
M18-34
0.4
3.7
W18-34
0.4
2.5
M18-49
0.7
5.4
W18-49
0.8
4.1
All of a sudden, 60 Minutes has boosted up to being a show where the 18-34 crowd was 50% of the 18-49, to being almost 80% of the 18-49 number. Why? Because it came on right after a huge football game, which also tends to reach a younger demographic.

Rosewood
Rosewood typically airs before Empire, which skews more towards the W18-34 demographic than any other, and hence has also seen a favorable W18-34 skew. That is, until its spring premiere without Empire pre-tune...

December 2, 2015 Lead-Out March 2, 2016
A18-49
1.5
4.5
0.9
M18-34
0.7
3.1
0.5
W18-34
1.5
5.0
0.7
M18-49
1.0
3.5
0.8
W18-49
1.9
5.6
1.1
As is seen, in general Rosewood's ratings have collapsed without Empire as a lead-out, but even more showing is the fact that it no longer ties the A18-49 number with the W18-34 number; in fact, the W18-34 demo is now just 78% of the A18-49 number, compared to the 100% from the past episode. 

Brooklyn 9-9
Brooklyn 9-9 recently moved from the cushy "post-Simpsons post-football", as I like to call it, time slot, to Tuesdays, where it is surrounded by Grandfathered and The Grinder. Take a look at how the numbers changed:



December 13, 2015 Lead-In February 23, 2016 Lead-In
A18-49
1.7
2.4
0.9
0.8
M18-34
1.5
2.3
0.6
0.4
W18-34
1.4
1.4
0.7
0.7
M18-49
1.9
3.0
0.9
0.6
W18-49
1.4
1.8
0.9
0.9
Between these two dates, Brooklyn 9-9 went from a M18-34 demo 88% of the A18-49 demo, to just 66%. This is partially due to the fact that it lost its more male-skewing Simpsons lead-in and ended
up with Grandfathered as a lead-in, which has a solid W18-34 following.

Side note: The Simpsons has a younger-skewing M18-34:A18-49 ratio when aired after football than on its own, and Grandfathered has a younger-skewing W18-34:A18-49 ratio when aired after New Girl as opposed to on its own. Those are two more examples of my point. 

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