The "Every Episode, Every Rating" series takes a look at the highs and lows of a program during its full run. Praise or criticism is in reference to the show's performance in the Nielsen ratings.
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| Photo Credit: NBC |
More often than not, networks will decide against ordering musicals to air as part of their regular lineup. Whether it be due to the cost of licensing fees or the risky nature of the concept, it's quite a gamble to order a series of this nature. That gamble has paid off in some cases (Glee) but has also backfired spectacularly in others (Galavant). One-off showings like Hairspray Live! and The Little Mermaid Live! have had massive success in the Nielsen ratings, but the genre usually struggles in a weekly format. Enter Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, an NBC dramedy with several song-and-dance performances per episode. Premiering in the first week of the new decade, the series was left to fend for itself on Sunday nights for the majority of its run.
Winter/Spring 2020: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist debuted on January 7, 2020 with a special preview episode that aired on a Tuesday night at 10 o'clock. The series began with a serviceable 0.60 rating in the Adults 18-49 demographic and just under 2.7 million in terms of viewership. Though retention from Ellen's Game of Games (1.1) was pretty lackluster, this served as a perfectly fine launching point for a series with such an unconventional concept. The problem here is that most of that initial audience disappeared by the time the show finally returned to air in its proper, 9 p.m. timeslot on Sunday nights. The February 16th installment of the program managed just a 0.38 rating and barely cleared the two-million mark in total viewership. The Jane Levy vehicle enjoyed a solid rebound one week later (0.46) but eventually dropped down to even lower levels (0.35 on March 8th).
Though the series often had the misfortune of airing after random reruns, The Wall, or the deflated final days of Little Big Shots, it rarely built on the show that came before it. The dramedy stabilized in the 0.42-0.43 range during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, but it never grew enough to signal that the pandemic had helped it find an audience. A drop to another 0.35 on April 26 seemed to spell doom for the future of Zoey, but a rebound on finale night (0.43) brought it back to semi-decent territory. It could only scrape together a 0.42 Adults 18-49 average, but NBC was willing to give the series another chance. Thus, season two was given the green light.
Winter 2021: After spending most of its first season in a Sunday-night wasteland, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist made the move to the 8 p.m. timeslot on Tuesday evenings. Airing right before the final season of This Is Us, Zoey began season two with a healthy 0.52 in the Adults 18-49 demographic. This was a higher Nielsen rating than anything the series ever posted on Sunday nights and marked the first (and only time) that Zoey crossed the three-million mark in total viewership. Zoey dipped a bit for episode two (0.46) and a touch more for three (0.44) but managed to climb all the way back to a 0.48 for a late-January outing. And while the last two Tuesday episodes seemed to descend closer to season 1 levels (0.41/0.43), the series never dipped below a 0.4 rating in this slot. In fact, the first six episodes of season two (0.46) actually had a higher average than the first six of the first season (0.43), an impressive feat for a series that seemed to be on the wrong side of the bubble in spring 2020. Unfortunately for Zoey, this momentum would completely evaporate soon after.
Spring 2021: Following a hiatus that lasted nearly two months, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist was moved back to its 9 p.m. timeslot on Sunday nights. From the jump, it was clear that this was a fatal move. The series came back on March 28 with a putrid 0.24 rating, a number that was well over 50% below its January return and far lower than anything posted in season one. The dramedy dipped a bit lower for its April 4th installment (0.23) but then lifted itself all the way up to a 0.32 on April 11. From there, the series consistently stayed in the 0.26-0.29 range until the end, a far cry from the 0.4s and 0.5s it was putting up just a few months earlier on Tuesdays. Having reality flameout Ellen's Game of Games as a lead-in did not help matters one bit. The irony here is that the Ellen series that boosted its premiere just a year prior was now a dud that nearly lost to Zoey itself on most nights. Thanks to the awful stint on Sundays, Zoey was down nearly 17% on a year-to-year basis.
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| Photo Credit: NBC |
Post-Mortem: Though a Christmas special entitled Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas was released on The Roku Channel streaming service in late 2021, it's safe to say that the broadcast run of Zoey has come to a permanent close. The series was ultimately canceled by NBC after two seasons in June 2021. Zoey was nowhere near a solid performer in season one, but the first-half of season two made it clear that the show had the ability to succeed if provided the right circumstances. We'll never know how Zoey would have held up if it was not placed on a pointless hiatus and shipped back to Sundays. Perhaps it was only leeching off eager This Is Us viewers who tuned in a bit too early. Or, perhaps it was truly growing a following before a meaningless break and timeslot change caused it to collapse.
