Why is the woman on the left smiling? Because she’s Dawn Ostroff, head of the CW Network, and you’re not. But we doubt she’ll look so perky this morning when she reads the Nielsen numbers for Gossip Girl. Some have speculated Dawn doesn’t care because she can’t lose her job no matter what, but, I don’t really buy that. People are naturally competitive, have pride and hate to lose.

Sorry, Dawn,I don’t make the numbers up, I just report them.

So with that, Ms. Ostroff, please repeat after me:

1. We can’t blame our lousy ratings on Internet Streaming!
2. We can’t blame our lousy ratings on promotion – we must’ve spent 200 grand on Google ads alone!
3. BUT, we have to blame somebody, besides me, Dawn Ostroff!

I suspect it will come out sounding something like “8pm is a bad timeslot for Gossip Girl, especially during the spring when Daylight Savings Time is in gear.”

In the very early overnight results, Gossip Girl got a 1.8/3 – slightly better than its last original episode on January 9, when it followed the pitiful (and cancelled) Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants it got a 1.7/3 (household rating/share) and 2.27 million viewers. Notably, One Tree Hill which followed Gossip Girl last night got a 2.0/3 with no press, no buzz, and no Google ad spend.

Whatever the final overnight numbers, Gossip Girl will not have eclipsed 3 million viewers. 

Update: GG got 2.44 million viewers.  Here’s the full overnight ratings report.