You probably think we’re making a point of being fashionably late with posting these this month and you might be right. Part of the reason is Sketch is a lazy bum and the other reason is we like to catch our readers when they are expecting to see new ratings. We’re crafty like that. As always please leave your comments and suggestions for the column.

Ambient Virus’ Assessment:

Ok, it is the week after an amazing week and it’s basically back to the norm. Not much really happened so not much to talk about this week. Given that last week was more fluke than reality, I’m not surprised by the results of this week. While it’d be nice to see what last week gave us I expect this to be the new norm, expect perhaps a little more for the 1:30 slot.

Per Slot:
Not bad overall. Most shows lost something over the night apart from InuYasha but it’s within the norm for Toonami. The break between 12:30 to 1 and 1 to 1:30 saw the drops but given Bleach started near 1.1 mill these are relatively fine. I wish we could have kept more people for Soul Eater but given that was a filler episode it may have had a factor in the second drop though I know Excalibur trended or something similar to it so I’m wondering why that would have been as high.

Per Week: Ya. This wasn’t surprising really. Given the massive results we saw last week, there was no way we were going to maintain it without a lot of push so the hard drops of over 300k aren’t that surprising. Would have been nice to see the week to week loss all under 300k but I stress again that last week was more of a fluke than anything. It’ll probably level out by next week.

Per Year: Baring Bleach, it all went up from last year despite the hard drop from last week. Ranging from 152k to 67k it’s a nice sight to see 11 out of 12 time slots improved . Not sure where this will go from here but again, this week was relatively plain.

Overall: Back to the norm after the fanfare from last week. While it doesn’t look great by comparison it’s something that is constant when you look at it from a larger POV. Hopefully it’ll go up a bit this week but I’m not too worried if it doesn’t. As long as Bleach can maintain at least a 1.1 mil or around there, everything will be just fine.

Sketch’s Assessment:

It’s a pity last week’s impressive ratings did not last but I’m confident that the audience will continue to grow over time. We see the evidence in the year to year comparison but that’s almost unfair given how much more Toonami has going for it now than it did last Summer.

Bleach started the night a bit lower than usual but it turns out all of Saturday was down quite a bit and Man of Steel hitting theaters that weekend might have had something to do with it. Cleveland Show only got around 1.68 million rather than its usual 1.8+ and The Boondocks dropped to 1.15 million so Bleach coming in just under 1.1 million is great. Naruto holding on to almost all of it is even better and the gap between Naruto and One Piece was less than usual as well. Soul Eater is where things turned a bit ugly, gratification to the people who dislike the Excalibur episode I suppose. At least IGPX kept most of what Soul Eater brought in but it would have been nice to see more shows above 600,000 even though I’m sure the 18+ ratings were adequate. It seems my source for those has disappeared. If I were a conspiracy theorist I’d say the guy was told not to post demographic numbers anymore but it’s more likely the case he’s just too busy to bother with such trivialities.

Compared to other nights of Adult Swim, Toonami had a few more victories. Soul Eater did actually manage to beat the 1:30AM airing of Cleveland on Sunday along with the Metalocalypse and Loiter Squad reruns at 1:00AM and 1:15AM on Sunday. One Piece beat all of those and the 12:45AM airing of Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell and Naruto beat all those and while it barely lost to Superjail at 12:30AM on Sunday if you average Superjail and YPFISTH then Naruto won the 12:30AM slot. Likewise, Naruto beat the average of the 12:30 Aqua Teen and 12:45 Squidbillies on Wednesday and One Piece beat that 12:45AM episode of Squidbillies on Wednesday as well as the Squidbillies and Aqua Teen in the 1:00AM and 1:15AM slots that same night. Bleach and Naruto beat those as well of course which is no small feat for 3 shows airing late on a Saturday night.

We are also have some 18+ ratings information Turner mentioned in their weekly press release. Bleach and One Piece won all their demos and Naruto and Soul Eater won most of theirs as well. That’s right, that below 800,000 episode of Soul Eater still won the key adult and male demos so maybe it was mostly teenagers who were put off by Excalibur’s antics, they should lighten up.

Overall: I think this is a bit lower than what the norm for Summer will be due to the whole night being weaker than usual, at least for total viewership. I couldn’t be much more pleased with the demographic wins for the first four shows though and I hope that carried over to IGPX and the other series as well. Toonami doesn’t look like the weakest link of Adult Swim anymore and that’s very good to see.