Oh Grow Up Ratings

Episode 111 aired December 7, 1999

overall rating / overall share / 18-49 year-olds rating

December 8, 1999

There they are. The numbers. The arbiters of our fate. Look at all those numbers. What do they mean? Or, more importantly, what do they mean to ABC?

Where do you start? How about the good news? 18-49 year-old retention: 100%. Huge. That's the best news we've had all year. The bad news? We retained 100% of a low number. The 3.9 planted both Spin City and Oh Grow Up in 3rd place in each of their time slots. 3.9 is a pretty low 18-49 year-old ranking. Even 60 Minutes II pulled off a 3.9 in its second half-hour. But, c'mon, can you fault us and not be a little suspect of Spin City's performance? I'm sure ABC can.

Dharma & Greg is quite the powerhouse after all, virtually neck-n-neck with Will & Grace on NBC. That's impressive and quite a strong lead-in to Sports Night. And why should I care? Well, the latest development in this sitcom infighting is that Regis Philbin is taking over some of the sitcom real estate and building a game show on the site, specifically Tuesday 8-9pm. That has fueled reports in the papers and industry trades that we have already been cancelled. Millionaire starts in January in our time slot so the reasoning seems pretty sound. ABC assures us otherwise. They profess that the one remaining timeslot available will go to one of three shows: Sports Night, It's Like You Know, or Oh Grow Up. A week from today, 2 of those 3 shows will be canceled. So no more rooting for the network and all its shows to do well. The team spirit thing is gone. Right now it's every show for itself.

So let's look at Sports Night's performance. Their overall retention was 88% vs. our 89% and their 18-49 retention was 85% vs. our whopping 100%. That would seem to indicate that we have the better show. But looking at their actual ratings, they scored a 4.5 in the 18-49 demo, dwarfing our measly 3.9. So looking at that, you'd have to say that they have the better show. It's all about spin here. My belief is that they did a poor job of retaining Dharma & Greg's audience. The show has never generated exciting numbers. It's been getting rave reviews for two seasons now but no one wants to watch it. It's as simple as that. No one wants to watch it. It's going to drag down Wednesday's entire line-up if it gets plugged in there.

But is that how ABC sees it? Oh, hardly. The real kicker here is that ABC has already picked up Sports Night for the entire season. They made that decision a while ago. So we would not just have to outperform their show, but have to be so much better than them that they would 'un-order' the rest of the Sports Night episodes and order ours in their stead. It just doesn't seem like the kind of decision ABC is willing to make these days. They are the masters of the easy decision. No one is going to be bold for Oh Grow Up any time soon.

And so 100% retention will most likely just be a footnote to the story of Oh Grow Up, an interesting bit of trivia from the demise of the show. "What ABC sitcom in its first year, after airing only 8 episodes, and after being moved to a completely different time slot, retained 100% of its lead-in 18-49 demographic, but was still canceled a week later?" Give up?

Me too.

Industry interpretation...

December 15, 1999

"ABC got a good first Tuesday try from Oh Grow Up which retained 100% of its Spin City 18-49 lead-in, up from the 85% average for predecessor It's Like You Know. The half-hour was made a lot easier when FOX moved out That 70s Show, which averaged a far-out 57% 18-49 build vs. its lead-in, and tried Ally, which dropped vs. lead-in by 40%. CBS took the night in homes, as a pair of Frosty specs danced to their highest ratings in three years. UPN got season highs from Shasta McNasty and Dilbert."

--Variety