| Scoreboard |  |
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| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 3.5/10 | 3.5/10 | 2.8/8 | 2.3/6 | 1.7/5 | 0.9/2 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 2.6/8 | 2.5/8 | 3.2/10 | 1.8/5 | 1.8/6 | 1.1/3 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 11.858 | 12.504 | 6.112 | 7.678 | 4.174 | 1.965 |
ABC’s Modern Family and Cougar Town both premiered strongly on Wednesday night with 4.3 adults 18-49 ratings, as ABC and CBS were neck and neck in the nightly ratings. NBC’s Wednesday night of Mercy and Law & Order: SVU started with a whimper.
Details:
Any journey starts with just a single step, and that first step was a good one for ABC’s all new Wednesday night line up as their premieres tied CBS, the presumptive (by me, at least) leader, in the important adults 18-49 ratings. ABC’s 9pm hour of Modern Family and Cougartown was surprisingly strong, topping CBS’s Criminal Minds in the 18-49 demo. One potential problem in the otherwise rosy results for ABC was the half hour drop off for Eastwick in the 10pm hour. It lost 15% of its demo (3.3 to 2.8) while CSI:NY lost just a tick 4.0 to 3.9), and Leno was up a tick (1.9 to 2.0). The Dancing With The Stars special at 8pm was down from its results Monday and Tuesday, but I’m not sure anything should be read into that.
For CBS, The New Adventures of Old Christine was up from last year’s premiere (2.3 rating vs. 2.1) and Gary Unmarried was level with a 2.4. Both positives in today’s broadcasting world. Criminal Minds was down 11% in the demo from its premiere last fall (4.2 vs. 4.8 demo rating). While CSI:NY returned with the same rating as last fall’s premiere (4.0 18-49 demo rating).
While ABC and CBS battled it out at the top, it was all woe for NBC’s Wednesday. The series premiere of Mercy could only tie CBS weakling Old Christine with a 2.3 demo rating. Not a good start. It did worse than the Knight Rider premiere last year (2.5 rating). The 11th season premiere of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit came in fourth for the hour in the 18-49 demo, falling 34% in the 18-49 demo from its 10pm premiere last season (2.5 vs. 3.8). For a presumably flagship drama that is humbling. Against two premieres, The Jay Leno Show did a 2.0 rating, better than I would have expected. Ironically for the Leno doubters, he might be shaping up as a bright spot for NBC’s Fall, no others are currently in evidence.
Fox’s strategy for the night clearly isn’t to compete for the top, just do better than last season, and they look to be doing that. Their shows both substantially held their ratings from last week against the new premieres; So You Think You Can Dance? keeping a 2.5 demo rating and Glee dropping just a tenth to a 3.0 demo rating. As Robert wrote in an earlier post, Fox is targeting Adults 18-34 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and they were the clear winner in that demo last night.
CW’s America’s Next Top Model held on, down a tenth in adults 18-49 to a 1.3 rating, but flat in CW’s target women 18-34 with a 2.3 rating. The Beautiful Life: TBL is getting uglier by the week. It fell 0.2 points to a 0.5 adults 18-49 rating, down to a 0.6 rating for adults 18-34 and just a 0.9 rating for women 18-34
In Late-Night Local People Meters Wednesday night:
- Conan O’Brien (1.1/5 in 18-49 in local people meters) out-rated CBS’s LATE SHOW (0.9/4) in Nielsen’s 24 local markets with People Meters. Conan also beat LATE SHOW in adults 18-34 (0.7/4 vs. 0.6/3).
- At 12:35 a.m., Jimmy Fallon (0.7/5 in 18-49 in local people meters) topped CBS’s LATE LATE SHOW (0.4/3). Jimmy also defeated Ferguson in 18-34 (0.5/4 vs. 0.4/3).
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating | 18-49 Share | Viewers Live+SD (million) |
| 8:00 | ABC | Dancing With the Stars | 3.2 | 10 | 14.961 |
| FOX | So You Think You Can Dance? (premiere) | 2.5 | 8 | 5.600 | |
| NBC | Mercy (series premiere) | 2.3 | 7 | 8.248 | |
| CBS | The New Adventures of Old Christine (premiere) | 2.3 | 7 | 7.683 | |
| CW | America’s Next Top Model | 1.3 | 4 | 2.844 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | Gary Unmarried (premiere) | 2.4 | 7 | 7.373 |
| 9:00 | ABC | Modern Family (series premiere) | 4.3 | 12 | 12.736 |
| CBS | Criminal Minds (premiere) | 4.2 | 11 | 15.417 | |
| FOX | Glee | 3.0 | 8 | 6.624 | |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU (premiere) | 2.5 | 7 | 8.358 | |
| CW | The Beautiful Life: TBL | 0.5 | 1 | 1.086 | |
| 9:30 | ABC | Cougar Town (series premiere) | 4.3 | 11 | 11.438 |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI:NY (premiere) | 4.0 | 11 | 14.568 |
| ABC | Eastwick (series premiere) | 3.0 | 8 | 8.526 | |
| NBC | The Jay Leno Show | 2.0 | 5 | 6.430 |
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
For more information see Numbers 101.
wow, good for abc, maybe they’ll finally have some luck with new comedies…
Congratulations to Modern Family and Cougar Town! I hope they will not drop hard next week for ABC’s effort to do an all new sitcom line up, I hope they could find a hit
According to Travis Yanan, Modern Family actually built on its DWTS lead-in in the demo, so maybe this will hold up next week?
Julia, DWTS=3.5 @8:30-9p, so yeah.
Show data table now added ^
I didn’t get a laugh from either one so not hopeful although I always try to give shows at least 4 episodes before I take a position.
Wow, Mercy did decently. Nothing mind-blowing, but it didn’t crash and burn.
Was last night really the SYTYCD premiere? Wasn’t it on the past two weeks? Or were those still the summer version?
ABC well done, Eastwick didn’t do to bad as well, a 3.0 isn’t compared to Mercy’s 2.3….
wow huge increase of 18-49 for Modern and Cougar, esp if ABC only averaged a 3.5 for the night. DWTS must have been in the low to mid 3s
Although I thought Courtney Cox could tone it down a little bit, I found Cougar Town entertaining.
tbl numbers was just horible!!!!
abc was really strong!thats good cause they need some new hits!
Modern Family and Cougar Town did great. Eastwick did much better than I had expected it to. Glee took a bit of a hit this week though and I did expect that. And I don’t see anyway the CW can justify keeping TBL with these kind of numbers.
Glee appears to be holding its own on Wednesdays, even with So You Think You Can Dance as leadin.
How’d SYTYCD compare to previous outings for it’s premiere? Seems like it’s lost this night to ABC, which isn’t surprising. But that seems like a pretty poor showing for a premiere on a weeknight. Granted, it’s not as low as NBC or ABC for the same time slot.
i’ve gotta say i’m pretty impressed with ABC’s new line up
hope it holds up
and Glee held on to its 18-49 numbers, but i wonder what its 18-34 numbers are
ha emily…
Modern Family and Couger Town did pretty darn well in there debuts especially for the 18-49 year olds. It looks like “Mercy” got a fair sampling, but L&O was disappointing for a season premier. Leno, down a bit from last night–but as long as he does better than a 1.5 18-49 year old rating (and he got a 2.0 last night compared to 2.3 on Tuesday), then I guess NBC is happy.
Modern Family is really good, so I’m glad it did well – should retain a good % of the audience in future weeks
Glee still did good in the demo with the intense competition. Wow @ Criminal Minds’ ratings as well. Good news again for CBS, they’re owning the week so far.
Mercy didn’t do as terrible as I thought. And oh-oh for TBL, less than million next week?
I enjoyed Mercy…..hope it gets to stay on…
Congrats to ABC. Nice numbers for new shows that critics seem to like, they have to pretty happy.
Great numbers for the new ABC shows. Mercy had a fair sampling. But L&O wasn’t too great compared to previous season premiers. Leno was down a bit from last night but still had almost 6.5 million viewers and a 2.0 18-49 rating, and NBC said it would be happy with 1.5 or above and 1.8 would be a “homerun” so I guess they must be happy.
keep in mind no DWTS lead in next week so will be interesting to see how the ABC shows hold up at 9, especially since there’s not much buzz for Hank at 8:00
Great night for ABC. The comedies premiered really well and Eastwick did significantly better than I expected.
CBS has to be pleased as well. The comedies are never going to be hits, but they’re very steady. Everyone, including me, was expecting a battle between CM and SVU, but CM just blew them out of the water. SVU doesn’t appear to have hurt it at all. CSI: NY performed as expected.
NBC is probably happy with the Mercy premiere, but they have to be pissed about SVU.
Having actual competition doesn’t seemed to have hurt Glee.
also i liked eastwick and its numbers r great for this timeslot!!!
18-34 #s for GLEE from Travis Yanan:
3.4/10 A18-34, 4.5/13 Women 18-34
I liked both ABC comidies, but I loved Cougar town more! I really hope it does well in the future. Watched Eastwick as well,liked it better than I thought.
LOL the CW got DEMOLISHED last night….ouch!
And W18-34 for ABC comedies, also from Travis Yanan:
Modern Family: 3.9/11, Cougar Town: 4.2/11
Great night for Modern Family, Cougar town and good for Eastwick.
Good results for Old Christine built vs last year almost 10%…
Mercy was a really suprise..
Wow SVU was down quite a bit from last season. Hopefully it’ll be ok admist the competition it’s got now after NBC foolishly moved it do a different night and time for the sake of Jay Leno.
Robert,
Glee’s numbers especially with young women are very good. I would assume Fox considers this show a success? plus it’s critically acclaimed too.
mercy was pretty good … seemed like greys anatomy in a way .. only better. greys was better back in the first and second season.
modern family was funny in two places … when they scheduled the time to shoot the kid and when he shot the girls boyfriend
is it just me or do the networks spy on each other and make sure they come out with the same shows as the other networks on purpose …
example … modern family reminded me alot of the parenthood movie .. and from what I understand they are doing the parenthood tv series on another network?
CBS still had a good night. Criminal Minds and CSI:NY around 15 million is pretty good. CM was #2 at 9pm in 18-49 and NY was #1 at 10pm.
The gap between Modern Family/Cougar and SVU both on viewers and demo is a bit large so I hope the ABC comedy combo could maintain their placing next week.
Mercy’s performance is really a surprise as it matched the CBS comedies, next week there will be no DWTS so let’s see how would Hank/Middle will fare, I hope not that bad so as not affect Modern Family/Cougar Town.
How did Mercy do with the 18-34 group?
I would expect SVU to increase in the coming weeks after viewers sample new shows and decide they like SVU better. That is the somewhat typical trend. Unless SVU has somply ran iots course and people feel they have seen enough of it
Jim, Mercy A18-34= 1.6/5, W18-34: 2.1/7
Remember, next week, Modern Family and Cougar Town will be without any Dancing with the Stars lead-in.
Ron, considering they grew out of DWTS, I don’t think that will be too big a problem. They’ll drop a bit, but I don’t foresee a huge collapse. At least not yet.
Well Glee was awesome! great episode, i missed coogar town and eastwick, which i downloaded, gonna get into thoes, but thoes were great ratings, i hope Glee continues to hold strong! id feel better if it were around 8 mil and i hope eastwick maintains, seem like wednesday is the new thursday, and WTF is with TBL its barely pulling in a million, that will be replaces asap, after the 13 episodes are up its on to the CW’s midseason replacement.
For CSI:NY to beat CSI:Miami is nothing short of great and I think with a stronger 8pm show, CBS could have a solid Wednesday. Clearly it was L&O that kept it in the 12-13m range. I bet CBS are praying that CSI bows strong and The Mentalist too.
The (premiere) for SYTYCD was a mistake. I had premiere on the brain. Fixed.
as much as i love Patrica Heaton, i have a bad feeling about her new show, the middle as well as Hank…
Modern Family and Cougar Town look like keepers to me, but only time will tell
“You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.”
– link isn’t working
Actually I guess I thought that “Mercy” wasn’t too bad considering it was up against an additional night of “Dancing.” It came in second in total viewers during its time period and seems to have some appeal among younger women. Next week we won’t have “Dancing” at that time so it will be interesting to see where the “Dancing” viewers go.
Hmm,Heroes did better than both Mercy and SVU in the demo. Maybe it’ll be on longer than we thought.
Jay did HORRIBLY.
It’s not really that surprising that SVU fell. Last season it was up against Without a Trace (near the bottom of CBS performance) and whatever random show ABC aired there. This year its competition is a top CBS show and potentially top ABC comedies.
Wow I was expecting less than a 3.0 for ABC comedies, and a 2.2 or 2.3 for Eastwick. I guess ABC shows it can still deliver a kick. Also NBC must not be happy, L&0: SVU showed it was only big as it was behind Biggest Looser and I also heard thats its expensive, so I’m sure that now Heroes is close to its budget (as it is in its 12th season). So I’m happy that Mercy & L&O: SVU make Heroes look better
Andrea, link fixed.
Will the CW finally admit it was stupid to cancel Reaper, The Game and Girlfriends.
The ABC comedies at 4.3 prove that people will still show up for new shows.. and Mercy’s 2.3 indicates that it isn’t all the time. Tired premise? Lack of promotion? Lack of cast recognition? Critical reviews?
(Do we have half hour breakdowns to see if people left Mercy in droves, or never checked in to begin with?)
ABC:
Strong sampling of all their new shows. I’ll see how they hold up over the next few weeks before declaring victory though. Eastwick will probably see all their episodes air.
CBS:
Even if they are committed to building a second comedy block, doing it with those shows was a mistake. Sub 2.0 numbers next week vs. other traditional comedies? Procedurals still as solid as ever. Surprise, surprise, another CBS show with no noticeable Leno boost.
Fox:
About what we thought SYTYCD would do. Glee did pretty well vs. full competition, all things considered.
NBC:
That 2.3 for Mercy premiere is dreadful. I can’t imagine NBC keeping this until the Olympics. Question is, what do they replace it with? Again, you can’t just say Chuck – what do they fill Mondays with instead? (Parenthood would get wrecked vs. Dancing.)
SVU’s 2.5 is also weak. NBC has to hope it is people sampling ABC’s wares and swapping back. Not sure this gets back above 3.0 though, with another procedural as competition.
Leno’s 2.0 is better than Monday, WITH a weaker leadin AND less competition. I continue to think Leno’s ratings are solely dependent on people’s DVR backlog for the night.
CW:
Congrats CW, your W18-34 focus has led to the few non W18-34 that watched your network to drop shows like ANTM.
TBL is dead, dead, dead. Only question is what CW replaces it with for November sweeps.
No way those numbers at 8pm and 9pm are anything but terrible for NBC, particularly 9pm. A 2.5 rating and 4th place for L&O:SVU is devastating. It’s supposed to be their leading drama.
0.5! for TBL is awful, its lower than repeats of cable and half of a really bad rating for a reapeat on the Big 4. A new low for The CW. I think CW will replace TBL with Blonde Charity Mafia (which won’t do better but I’m sure is cheaper) and Melrose Place with LifeUnXpected.
What were Old Christine and Gary Unmarried’s numbers last year for premieres, and for average?
Modern Family and Cougartown each had moments that made me laugh out loud. Both have lots of potential staying power; however, given the distance that Courtney Cox’s character traveled just last night, I see Cougartown running out of new things to say if it isn’t handled carefully.
Next week, as Ron pointed out, no DWTS, which not only means that these shows will have to stand on their own, but other shows, such as NBC’s “Mercy,” will air in a less competitive environment.
Bill do you know the half hour numbers of Eastwick? Please
Wow, ABC did quite well, good to see a good premiere for them. Now where is the girl saying Cougar town would fail die explode… 4.3 is really impressive. I only watched Cougar town and Eastwick, quite funny, I’ll probably stick around even if it’s not my kind of show!
Eastwick did well, 3.0 if it stick around is good what’s the women demos for it?
Glee is spilling a little but Fox knows that soon its gonna feel the AI effect, and I believe Glee can really take advantage of it, like House did back in the time.
SYTYCD did really bad… 5 millions 2.5… but I guess this is a cheap show. Still, quite bad numbers.
Seems to me not much people want to listen to new serialized series anymore… sitcom, reality or CBS
I’m scratching my head over the scheduling decisions for most of these networks. There’s little to no real competition on Wednesdays. The way Mondays and Thursdays are looking, I’m really wonder why networks like to shoot themselves in the foot. Same thing with Tuesday, only CBS has stong shows there.
Scotty, I think that despite the lack of DWTS, that Mercy next week will not go up in the 18-49 just because the amount of people leaving the show will outnumber the few will go to it.
In case you need a lesson in history…
NEVER MESS WITH AL BUNDY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m actually shocked Ed O’neill hasn’t landed another decent gig before this one. The guy plays this type of character better than anyone.
Chuck might not do much better than Mercy. It got only a 2.4 in its finale.
SVU will probably bounce around a bit this year, but yeah, that 2.5 is pretty bad. Leno’s numbers continue to be younger than I expected, however. I figured that he’d do that much in viewers, but his demo is about 0.5 higher than I thought it would be. I can’t see him going down much from here.
Eastwick half hours were 3.3 rating, to a 2.8 rating. 9.26m to 7.79 million. While CSI:NY in that hour was flat. I hadn’t noticed that and will include in the post.
What happened to the days when it matter how many people overall watched a show and not a certain predefined demographic that marketing folks love?
Sorry, but a little over 8M and 2nd in number of viewers for the hour and people say Mercy did poorly? The pilot had a few scene changes from the screener I saw which I felt was to remove some of the dark clouds but I still find it to be an excellent show. Seems it will go the way of so many other excellent shows that have been yanked because 18-34 year olds don’t watch. These folks don’t watch ANYTHING!
Good for the ABC comedies, I really enjoyed both, and thought they were quite funny for pilots. I hope they continue to do well. I think Eastwick did surprisingly well considering how little promotion it got. I think between The Forgotten tues and Eastwick Wed ABC should be happy how well both shows did, considering that there marketing efforts were clearly on other shows this year.
Leno may be doing better than expected, but I think in the process NBC may be killing what was left of its scripted shows. People may have the impression that NBC is throwing in the towel on traditional network tv and simply ignoring their shows. At this point, NBC is really just a glorified cable channel.
Btw, Conan’s numbers have to sting as well. His demo numbers stink, and last night Dave didn’t have anything all that special going on. Jay Zucker, the man who killed NBC.
Jack, how can they be happy with The Forgotten? Show wasn’t good, and the ratings weren’t good… so, really don’t see what you’re seeing there.
I was impressed with Eastwick…surprising a decent show…so much better than that other female skewed show Cashmere Mafia two years ago. I hope this one sticks around. I like the characters..lol
I expect MERCY to drop to 1.9 next week followed by a 1.7 and then a 1.4. 2.3 in a premiere is not good news for a show.
FIN, melrose was just givin another 6 episodes, it isnt getting cancelled anytime soon, i think its becuause they wanna see what it can do with Heather Locklier back she appears in a few episodes from now i think 5 or 6
Cougar town was great and The middle seems to be great, but Modern Family wasn’t funny at all. It was dump. That’s why this comedy block doesn’t have future
Wow…NBC is, as always, hurting. They got creamed. SVU was down alst season, and this is even worse. How can they afford Meloni’s and Hargitay’s salaries now? Mercy will not make it…but what else can NBC replace it with? They cancelled “Medium”, which will no doubt flourish on CBS and cream the 9 pm competition, and bringing back ‘Chuck’ early won’t solve anything as ‘Chuck’ has poor ratings itself.
ABC’s new comedies are doing well and actually were good! I have yet to see Eastwick but did DVR it….
CBS is solid with the shows that are solid, however the comedies are middling. Not much to do there.
CW…wow…bad!
Lots’s more historical comparisons added to the post. Look above ^
I’d give Modern Family a hilarious 4/5, and Cougar Town a cliched but sexy 2/5.
CW should move Melrose Place to Wednesday, Smallville to Tuesdays and TBL to Fridays
Has CSI:NY beaten CSI:Miami before in new episodes? I’m sure it has but the fact it has declined at a slower rate compared to the other two must be encouraging.
Dawn Ostroff should really worried right now with three underperforming nights in a row.
BJ, I’m saying that for a show with very little promotion, it still got 9+ million viewers and a 2.5 in the demo. That is similar to what Boston Legal was getting there, but I’m sure is much cheaper. I’m not saying that they are great numbers or even good, but it wasn’t a bomb right out the gate. In fact it did better than the premier of Castle, despite commercials for that show being all over the place, and the Dancing with the Stars lead in being bigger on Monday. I didn’t watch The Forgotten, so I can’t comment on it’s quality.
I’m rooting for ABC’s scripted shows to take out all 31 flavors of whodunits on CBS. I’m really looking forward to Flash Forward and V. ABC’s Modern Family seems very similar to NBC’s Parenthood.
Reading the above comments, I’m struck by the level of expectations towards NBC. A 2.3 for Mercy–the only other premiere show of the time period–and that’s a relief? A 2.5 for the kinky-version of L&O. Yeek! That’s NBC’s top drama. A 2.0 for Jay Leno. Wow! Why bother paying the L&O cast the big bucks.
Blonde Chairty Mafia is only 6, 30 minute episodes so it could only hold up for 3 weeks if they ran them in 2 blocks per week. CW has no other 30 minute show. They could extend ANTM to an hour and 30 mins though.
Hmm, I’m most surprised about “Eastwick” I was thinking low 2.0s and 6 million viwers but did did much better than that clearly. It will be interesting to see what happens next week, it was a decent show, lightweight but knows it and fun. ABC must be pretty pleased all around, especially since all their Wednesday programming was obviously DOA this time last year.
Ouch to TBL, that probably won’t get the back 9, even if it is the CW.
Do we have half hour breakdowns for Mercy? What about SVU?
I’m just trying to get an accurate view of what level of disaster they’re in.
things are looking pretty disasterous for nbc and cw
Good news for ABC. I love the addition of new good quality single-camera sitcoms. Hopefully they will kill the multi-camera format once and for all. Sorry, that’s just a personal issue of mine…But I digress…..
Modern Family and Cougartown weren’t as laugh-out-loud funny as the reviews and previews had me hoping, but you really can’t judge a show by its pilot. Pilots are just introductions really, so I will defiantely give them more time before I judge.
Thank god for PVR (Tivo) because otherwise I’d have a FOX-ABC viewing dilemma at 9:00 to deal with.
Conan’s really in trouble now. Letterman almost tied him in 18-34s.
I think Eastwick’s #’s were solid, if not spectacular, thanks to NBC’s dumb Leno move. NBC deserves the pitiful ratings they’re getting. As for ABC, while they won’t beat CBS at 10pm during the workweek, I predict they’ll have a 2.5 to 3.0 average for Castle, The Forgotten and Eastwick, which is better than last season. As for Private Practice, I’m predicting between a 3.5 and 4.0. I think it even has a shot to beat The Mentalist in the demo.
Btw, Modern Family and Cougar Town were actually funny, so ABC may have finally broken their comedy curse. If they remain above a 3.5 next week, which won’t surprise me cause I plan to watch again, they will be considered hits.
Michael says:
September 24, 2009 at 9:14 am
Chuck might not do much better than Mercy. It got only a 2.4 in its finale.
Yeah, but that was in the 8PM Monday slot, which was one of the most competitive, if not THE most competitive slot last season. Chuck might pull close numbers to Mercy in the same 8PM Wednesday spot, but the point is moot now. NBC won’t move Mercy if they can pull those same numbers (or better) next week when the DWTS crowd doesn’t watch Hank or The Middle.
I could’ve sworn that Mercy debuted last week, but nevertheless the fact that KNIGHT RIDER had a better premier makes me smile. They never should’ve canceled it. I like the ABC lineup as well.
I am readying my “Surprise, Leno is NBC’s Bright Spot for The Fall” post.
Missed ABC last night, saw DWTS was on, changed the channel and forgot about the comedy block. Guess I’ll catch it online…good numbers though, that’s great.
And…everytime I can LOL at CW I’m going to do it. Nice job there CW, you’re now one step closer to oblivion. Grats.
CP, NBC certainly should have cancelled Knight Rider. It did terribly. The fact that its replacement may do worse is a non-sequiter.
I am readying my “Surprise, Leno is NBC’s Bright Spot for The Fall” post.
Unfortunately for NBC, that fact is less a ringing endorsement of Leno and more a commentary on the very, very sad state of NBC overall.
Samantha Who had big numbers too behind DWTS, and then fell apart after seeing a time slot change.
Glee is finally finding its voice, pardon the pun. It now feels like the show I always thought it was destined to become after the disappointing pilot. The only problem is that voice is more satirical then what was on display in the pilot. I think it keeps the show sharp, but it might turn off some viewers who are looking for the softer show on display in the pilot.
I wonder what type of leash the CBS comedies have. I’d hate for them to give up on the second night of comedy plan. 2.4 is just not good enough for CBS, but I would still expect one of these shows to stick around anyways. Maybe get paired with a mid-season replacement. Why they don’t move one of their Monday night veterans and give the night a real shot is beyond me.
NBC has to be upset by SVU. Nobody really expected Mercy to premiere well, but SVU is television royalty. Ouch. At least Jay Leno can pull a 2.0 against a new CSI:NY and Eastwick.
Holly, indeed.
I think Modern Family only did as well as it did from a good lead in. I don’t see that show lasting. It just wasn’t that good. Despite the fact that there’s at least two actors in it that I love. And I have to give points in that it’s the only show I’ve seen in which the gay guys are actually funny.
Although next week is going to be a much better indicator since their Wednesday lineup is going to hit full side with Kelsey Grammar’s show and Patricia Heatons leading the first hour.
Intriguingly, Grammar, Heaton, and the younger husband in Modern Family were all in Back To You Together on FOX two years ago, and now take up an hour and a half of primetime on ABC.
Still though, ABC Wednesday might see a few winners — not counting Eastwick but I don’t see it lasting, I Certainly don’t see it rivaling CBS Monday or even coming close.
dave, after CBS kept Christine/Gary with last year’s poor ratings I think they’re locked in for the entire 2009-10 season. At the end of the season both may go, Christine will have 89 episodes and in today’s market that is syndicate-able.
jocor, “I think Modern Family only did as well as it did from a good lead in. ”
Huh? Modern Family went *up* from its lead in. If anything the argument that Cougartown benefited from Modern Family makes more sense.
Both are likely to drop next week in the after the premiere hangover, but your statement makes no sense vs. last night’s results.
NBC is doing even worse this fall season than last. It is a bit frightening to those who work for or with the network. Leno is not a bright spot as much as he is not the dark spot and that is only because the show is so cheap to make.
Oh no, what happened to SVU? I just started watching it last season’s finale. Now, I’m planning to watch its premiere this saturday. I watched Criminal Minds and CSI: NY last night and they had awesome premieres!
Hiya Bill,
“Glee” dropped again in demo…did NOT build audience…and bombed out against “Modern Family” !!
FOX development had “Modern Family” under contract but didn’t get behind it and so offended the creators that they took their new hit show to ABC !!
1- “Modern Family”: 12,736,000 viewers / 4.3 demo***(WOW)
2- “Glee”: 6,600,000 viewers / 3.0 demo***(Dropped Again!)
FOX’s Peter Rice must be asking himself today…”why did my FOX development team that I INHERITED from Peter Ligouri’s regime let “Modern Family” slip out of our hands and instead got behind “Glee” and “Brothers” and renewed the mega-ratings failure “Dollhouse”?
Sorry TVphiles but the big boss at FOX expects his overpaid development execs to be giving him new shows with “glorious numbers” like “NCIS:LA” and “Modern Family”.
Someone…please stick a fork in Law & Order: SVU…can anyone tell me how many shades darker in skin tone…Marishka is…from season one to the present?
Love,
Emily
PS- “Cougartown” and “Eastwick” are the new “Samantha Who?”…strong opening…slaps on the back all around at ABC…and then the big slide downwards.
PSS- If it’s me… I back a sitcom starring Ed O’Neill over a sitcom starring Michael Strahan…but that’s just me. Who’s next at FOX…a sitcom starring Plaxico Burress? I hear Plaxico “was” hysterical in the huddle and has great comedic chops…with good behavior he should be out of prison by June 2011…in time for FOX’s 2011 Fall Slate.
Nice demo for Eastwick. As to the abc comedies, I expect cougar town to survive but not modern family whose numbers I predict to erode over the coming weeks.
Considering how hyped it was, Mercy did pretty badly and I expected Christine to do a little better than it did.
The ABC comedies actually did well, thanks to the dancing lead in but wait until Hank and The Middle lead in. Im very surprised SVU premiered weak but it was likely due to its weak lead in of Mercy. SYTYCD did pretty badly in total viewers but it was only because of competing with Dancing. Old Christine and Gary performed as expected and held up well against DWTS. They should do better when DWTS is gone. Eastwick did as expected, dropped severely from its lead in.
MERCY is what happened to SVU.
I’m glad to see Modern Family did so well, it was a good show (despite the fact that the younger dad is a really, really reminiscent of Michael Scott).
As far as NBC is concerned, I think the Leno experiment is destroying their other shows. Wasn’t SVU pulling like mid-3’s in the demos last year?
MERCY is what happened to SVU.
Mercy did as well as anyone could have reasonably expected and SVU has been around far too long to be that lead-in dependent.
I find Wednesdays one of the more “stacked” nights of programming, something I’m not exactly happy about. While I watch NOTHING on Tuesdays, Wednesdays is full of new shows. So now its “which one do I get rid of”. For me, its SVU. I like it, but NBC plays repeats all the time, so I would rather watch Modern Family and Glee instead.
I didn’t catch Modern Family last night, but I heard some great things about it this morning and then saw those numbers, so decided to check it out. It was hilarious!
I think it will be able to keep those numbers up if it stays this good!
Was emily24 bullied by Peter Rice like Bryon was picked on by Marc Berman?
Holly, everything is lead-in dependent to a good degree. If you know anything about ratings then you know that.
emily24,
Interesting. You’re up on Modern Family, but down on Cougartown, with similar results. Courtney Cox envy? I have no opinion on the shows, as I don’t watch ABC, but I will let the future numbers tell the tale.
We’ll see how Eastwick does next week. Samantha Who? did fine when the DWTS audience was delvered to it, and bombed on its own. Eastwick may not even manage that.
As always, a pleasure,
Bill
Jack, it’s 2009, not 1999. Focus.
Any consideration of how Leno is doing has to take into account the effect he is having across the NBC lineup.
So far: Heroes -50%, SVU -30%, Mercy DOA, Tonight Show down and slipping fast.
This could get really ugly very quickly.
@Jack,
To some degree, yes, but for a veteran hit to loosing 1.3 in the demo for a premiere is far more than can be explained by a difference of 0.7 in the lead-in.
Sam, how can you blame Leno for shows on *earlier* in the evening? Sure, there might be some schedule shuffling loss for SVU vs. 10pm Tuesday last season, but it just got crushed.
wilma, you too with the Leno blame on NBC’s *other* results? Is Jay also to blame for global warming?
@Robert,
I think lead-in does make a difference, though more-so for 1/2 hour comedies and new shows than returning hits. Even House gains when it gets an AI lead-in.
SVU has been losing audience for several seasons now. There was an episode near the very end of last season (a new episode) that had only 6 million and a low 2 in the demos. That shocked me.
Yes, MF and CT did get a boost from DWTS, BUT (and this is a big one), MF increased substantially from DWTS in demos, and CT held all of that demo audience. That’s an excellent sign – viewers stuck around for the whole hour. They could drop 50% and still be higher rated than any of ABC’s comedies from last season, so there’s much room for movement. ABC will announce a full season for both in a few weeks.
Holly:
Et tu? Please “lose” not “loose”! Don’t become infected!
Bill,
Mostly the schedule shuffling. As some other comments have stated, SVU shouldn’t be lead-in dependent at this point, so even if it was a lead-in that wouldn’t be my argument. Mostly just that it got shuffled out of its usual timeslot, and that the lack of any scripted fare at 10 on NBC may turn people off from the network in general. If I’m an average viewer flipping around to see the new fall programming at 10:00 and I see that every night NBC has this talkshow on, I might start thinking that I shouldn’t take NBC seriously – hence the drop off in virtually all of their shows (the Office, thankfully, seems to still be doing ok!).
It may all be coincidental, but even though you guys always say that dropping numbers from year to year is to be expected these days, I think we’d all agree that NBC is dropping way more than normal.
The positive side of The Beautiful Life’s dismal ratings is that now Mischa Barton can go to rehab. Real rehab and she won’t have to rush it.
Et tu? Please “lose” not “loose”! Don’t become infected!
LOL. I didn’t even use the right tense. My high school English teacher would be so disappointed!
@Sam B, it will be interesting to see The Mentalist results tonight. Will there be schedule shuffling loss there as well?
As for “It may all be coincidental, but even though you guys always say that dropping numbers from year to year is to be expected these days, I think we’d all agree that NBC is dropping way more than normal.”
NBC got absolutely hammered from 8-10 on Monday and Wedneday this week. Tuesday wasn’t great, but I’d expect Biggest Loser to recover, but those Monday and Wednesday dramas may be DOA.
Modern Family and Cougar Town were hilarious. I’m very excited that they did so well in the ratings. Let’s hope this means it won’t be a repeat of my most recent beloved ABC show Pushing Daisies.
I actually don’t see Jay Leno quite as badly as most others. yes, five nights a week may be a bit too much. I could see three. But in some ways I see Leno as an updated version of the old variety shows which used to flourish on TV from the 50’s thru 70’s. Instead of “skits” you have Jay-Walk and ten at ten. We get a monolouge like Jack Benny used to do on his show. We get ocassional musical guests. And Jay is working better than any recent attempt at variety TV (recall the train wreck that was the Rosie variety show last year?) Of course NBC isn’t calling it a variety show because that would be the kiss of death in this day and age.
Leno is getting killed, his ratings dropping more each passing night. He can’t go much lower, can he? NBC spindoctors may fool some of the wags, but the numbers don’t lie. They may have to do something sooner than later.
Chuck, the season’s 3 days old, but I am all about the quick calls. Because of the relative performance of the other NBC shows, Leno’s stay at 10pm looks to be assured for a very long time.
emily24….
Angry, much? Geez!
Ummmm, sounds like emily24 has been burned by someone at Fox, maybe? Or is a “Modern Family” shiller?
Anyway, congrats to ABC! Finally, no? And I actually think “Glee” is doing quite well….I mean, it was picked up for the back 9, no?
Take care!
Bill,
I tend to view almost all of NBC’s shows as all walking on a tight rope – it seems any little “bump” can send them plummeting in the ratings. CBS shows are mostly such ratings monsters that they probably won’t feel it too much. My original point was more a musing on whether or not Jay’s seeming success (since he does seem to be exceeding expectations up to this point) will make up for the “hammering” of the rest of NBC’s schedule =)
SVU is also set to rerun every Saturday, so maybe people decided to watch something else last night, and catch SVU later. Mercy will rerun this Saturday, but is then replaced with Trauma repeats the following weeks.
Glad Modern Family and Cougartown did well. My DVR has to new shows to record (and not on a Thursday!!).
I meant two new shows
Bruce says:
September 24, 2009 at 10:19 am
Leno is getting killed, his ratings dropping more each passing night. He can’t go much lower, can he? NBC spindoctors may fool some of the wags, but the numbers don’t lie. They may have to do something sooner than later.
Actually Bruce his ratings don’t drop each passing night. He is obviously down from his premier week. But Monday was low, but he was up Tuesday, he was down Wednesday, but not as low as Monday. And his 18-49 rating (particularly 25-49) is pretty good. NBC wanted at least 1.5 18-49, with 1.8 being a “home run”. On most nights Leno has exceeded that.
Modern Family was pretty funny and has potential. Ed O’Neil back on TV is great. Cougar Town was just awful. I doubt Courtney Cox can save this mess. Everyone was trying to hard and it did not work. I will give it two more viewings to see if it improves.
I think the time slot change might be hurting SVU. There’s more competition at that hour, since Fox is in the mix at 9 p.m. and not at 10. More adult subject matter might not play well in the earlier time slot, either. So, though Jay’s ratings were decent last night, the fact that it took SVU’s time slot may be the reason for SVU’s disappointing performance. Weakening the flagship drama could be one detrimental impact of the Leno addition to the lineup. That has to be taken into consideration when weighing the overall impact that Leno is having on the network’s performance.
emily24, your uber-witchy posts are getting boring. Is this how you have conversations with people in real life?
Drop the snark and rage and maybe we’ll care what you have to say, but unfortunately you’re so agressive, most of us skim past your posts without reading it. A shame because you may have some good opinions.
hmmm… anyone remember Samantha Who?. it did wonderful because of the lead in.. and look how long it last… but i’m sure CougarTown will stick around for a long time, that show is hilarious!!
Samantha Who? never shot up from its lead-in, xiluzer.
The CW will be around for one more season. I say again that they need a revamp. One Tree Hill, that Supernatural & Smallville need to wrap up by this season. Gossip Girl, M.P., TBL:TBL, also need to get gone.
They could have kept the Friday Night Comedies after Smallville this season. The CW dying.
The CW will be around for one more season. I say again that they need a revamp. One Tree Hill, that Supernatural & Smallville need to wrap up by this season. Gossip Girl, M.P., TBL:TBL, also need to get gone.
They could have kept the Friday Night Comedies after Smallville this season. The CW dying.
I enjoyed L&O:SVU. They had the prison break guy as a police detective. He should stay on. The New ADA is boring, however. Bring back Diane Neal!
Pffft, and everyone was saying how the comedy block would fail from the start.
Modern Family and Cougar Town may not do so well on their own especially with Hank and The Middle as their lead in. With those 2 not doing so well Eastwick probably wont do well either. SVU may do better without that competition. Dancing basically screwed up how numbers would regularly look on wednesdays.
I’m not quite understanding why some are attributing Modern Family’s success to its lead-in. It not only improved on it by over 30% but did so while facing better competition.
And that SVU drop is definitely way more than I expected. My best guess would be that most of those viewers sampled Modern Family and Cougar Town instead so SVU should be up at least a few tenths next week.
Most of the viewers sampled Modern and Cougar after dancing but it doesnt mean they will stick around. Ratings will likely go down after a few weeks.
LOVED Modern Family. Reminds me of Arrested Development.
Dan, “Dancing basically screwed up how numbers would regularly look on wednesdays.”
That, I am certain, was ABC’s objective. It worked.
Cougar Town could be a legitimate hit on ABC. Sort of reminds me of an early Two and a Half Men in the humor department.
As far as the rest of the night, Mercy was terrible in its first twenty minutes which could kill it. If you stayed on for the full hour it actually got much better, but it may be a little to late for most viewers. This was the best Glee episode so far and of course that has already been committed to for a full season.
The big surprise was Eastwick. It was actually pretty good. Much better than the critics said. We’ll see if it can keep its audience based on a good premiere. Not bad numbers for ABC if they are able to hold. Personally I think it was the best one hour premiere of the new one hour shows on TV this season.
Thanks,
Lizard
CSI NY was good – but not as good as I hoped…but still the best thing to watch on Wed’s especially in that time slot…the other choices are Local News, Witches or Leno…Hmmmm CSI NY – will winn everytime…
I’m interested to see when the actual competition starts on “So You Think…” and how well it will improve against the “Dancing with the Pretend Stars”….My wife and I found ourselves checking it out (So You Think…) for the first time again this season only b/c we don’t want to get caught up in more tv dramas – when the ones we like go away – we’ll then decide to watch new stuff…
I’m very interested though in tonites Flash Forward and of coarse my fav (show next to 24) – the Original CSI –
welcome bach Sarah Sidel – even if it’s for a limited time.
I’m not quite understanding why some are attributing Modern Family’s success to its lead-in. It not only improved on it by over 30% but did so while facing better competition.
And they’ll all claim victory next week when Dancing isn’t the lead-in and the numbers for Modern Family go down. Of course, Family would drop either way because this week was a very heavily promoted premiere and at least some of the people who sampled it this week won’t be back.
I am frankly amazed at ABC’s #’s. I thought the comedies would maybe retain most of Dancing’s #’s. And Modern Family even beat ‘hey, it’s Monica Gellar’ Cougar Town.
I mean, maybe people just heard how good MF’s supposed to be (the highest-rated on Metacritic now, even slightly beating 30 Rock & Mad Men; the only other B+’s are 5 cable dramas). But, well…Pushing Daisies. And Arrested Development. So we’ll see what happens next week.
Ouch for CW as always and also NBC. I’m surprised at how low SVU is. Don’t some of the reruns get those #’s? Yeah, Jay Leno is definitely the winner for that network last night.
Again, Leno with a 1.5 was considered the standard for a success. For him to be doing 2.0s against not just new competition, but premieres, would have NBC jumping for joy… if the rest of their schedule wasn’t in the toilet.
Now, we can argue how much of Heroes & SVU is the natural continuation of long term trends (both shows saw numbers similar to this at points last year), short term decays vs. premieres/specials (Heroes could regain some ground when House returns to usual ratings), or the natural result when up against harsher competition (SVU only had WAT to deal with, not CM and 4.0+ ABC shows). But the idea that people are punishing the shows because NBC airs Leno is simply silly.
Let’s see how the NBC shows, especially Community, do against normal Thursday competition tonight before drawing any conclusions about whether the NBC “brand” is completely ruined – or if stagnant/bad shows simply won’t hold up vs. new/fresh ones.
Now, we can argue how much of Heroes & SVU is the natural continuation of long term trends (both shows saw numbers similar to this at points last year),
The lowest SVU went all season for a new episode was a 3.2 on Thanksgiving week, all but 4 outings got at least 3.5.
I don’t trust ABC at all. They KILLED Samantha Who by putting it on hiatus and then moving it around the schedule. I’m still bitter. (They did the same thing to My So Called Life but that was a long time ago but the rage still burns)
So they could the same thing to these comedies. Don’t trust ABC.
On another ABC note, is Wipeout now officially over for the summer?
i’m not surprised that Modern Family did so well. I taped it because I was told it was the funniest sitcom ever. After watching I don’t agree though I still like it alot. When Lost comes back though, it will be watch CM and tape Lost so Modern Family will have to go unless my taping situation changes. I do sort of get a sick little thrill to think that CBS will be toppled. After they cancelled WAT and The Unit so unceremoniously… I had a feeling things would change. With Grissom gone on CSI it doesn’t help. CM is a flag ship show. They should hire back the old writers they fired and also keep publicity strong for this great show
“started with a whimper”??
Haven’t you heard – MERCY is TV’s Number
oh wait, sorry, LOL Modern Family and Lost are both on ABC. heh. I forgot about Glee. I might toss Modern Family over for Glee. Not sure.
“started with a whimper”??
Haven’t you heard? – MERCY is TV’s Number 1 New Drama*
God, I love working for the NBC PR Dept!
*For Drama’s at 8PM on Wednesdays.
I totally missed L&O SVU last night. Forgot all about it. It’s been a 10:00 PM Tuesday habit (actually 9:00 in AZ) for many years. I will get back to it next week. I’m wondering how many people had the same reaction? Since I hardly ever watch NBC anymore I guess I didn’t see any of the promos for the day/time change.
Possibly a rebound next week for SVU if more people realize they missed it this week. Any comparison numbers for series that move day & time?
AZTop, watch The Mentalist numbers for tonight for a timeslot move comparison.
Eastwick might stumble into ratings…
CSI trends old….. Tonight show trends old….. Fox has news…
What else are you going to watch on network?
Surprised the ABC shows like Modern Family and Cougar Town did well despite their really bad reviews I’ve been hearing about the two.
Modern Family was kind of like the family version of the “The Office” to me, which is why I kind of enjoyed the show. Cougar Town was just so-so, but it’s those kinds of shows I wouldn’t watch regularly.
Now as for Glee, I had a feeling that show is going down in the dumps, heck much of the humor Glee is what you’d see on “The Office”, “Scrubs”, “Modern Family”, and “Parks and Recreation”. It even looks like as if someone hired a 15 year old to write the episodes.
Bill: Good idea, but of course a stronger network, I actually watch stuff on CBS so I’ve seen the promos. Also the time slot is the same. Moving earlier always seems to me to be a problem for a drama. I’m not sure if that is true statistically.
Surprised the ABC shows like Modern Family and Cougar Town did well despite their really bad reviews I’ve been hearing about the two.
Modern Family is the best reviewed new show this season. Cougar Town has mostly been positive as well.
@RG “Now as for Glee, I had a feeling that show is going down in the dumps, heck much of the humor Glee is what you’d see on “The Office”, “Scrubs”, “Modern Family”, and “Parks and Recreation”. It even looks like as if someone hired a 15 year old to write the episodes.”
Glee slipped a tenth of a ratings point against premieres on 3 broadcast networks, hardly down in the dumps (look at SVU or Beautiful Life for down in the dumps). If it maintains a 3+ demo, there may be lots of shows hiring 15 year old screenwriters!
I’m very happy to see Criminal Minds and CSI:NY debut to really strong numbers. I recall pre-writer’s strike both shows were really gaining alot of momentum ratings-wise. I think Minds even came close to 17M at one point and CSI: NY hovered at almost 15M. Then the strike happened and both shows took significant hits. Glad to see viewers are coming back.
I guess I can go ahead and delete my 2 TBL recordings.
Haven’t watched Mercy yet, but pleasantly surprised to see it get those numbers. I’m curious to see how Trauma performs on Monday now.
when someone is pleasantly surprised that Mercy premiered to worse numbers than Knight Rider, you know NBC PR has done a good job of managing expectations down!
At least one wing of the NBC empire is firing on all cylinders!
The tune in for Modern and Cougar is impressive since it’s likely so many of the viewers did NOT watch DWTS. DWTS has a very different appeal (aka “older”). ABC promotion was clearly effective and was successful to bring new viewers to the comedies.
Modern is terrfic. Very sharp and funny. Lots of well-written characters and stories. (I re-watched and laughed even louder the second time.) Look for it to hold and perhaps even build over the coming weeks. Love Courtney, but as someone mentioned previously, she needs to take it down a notch. Her angst is understandable, but it’ll grate. The show has potential but will likely decline in viewers without some tweaking.
SVU seems to have maxed out. Regretably, the cost of this show will further validate the Jay Leno decision
Very difficult to judge a new show’s quality or numbers by the pilot alone. Too many people are making snap judgements.
Pilots are like a first date: Polite get-to-know-you introductions, but you don’t really know their personality deeply enough yet to make a full judgement.
As for ratings, pilots can have high ratings (from curious people) and then tank once people get find a regular TV schedule. Or pilots can debut to so-so ratings and then grow.
Examples: Remember Geena Davis’s show Commander in Chief a few years back? Great reviews, good pilot, good early ratings and then it quickly tanked and was cancelled after 18 episodes. On the other hand, The Office premiered to low ratings and iffy reviews and grew once it found its footing.
IMO.
CK, indeed. It’s unlikely we will be seeing a post from Nikki Finke comparing the SVU 2.5 rating and cost with the Leno 2.0 rating and cost.
The Mentalist should hold a large amount of its CSI lead in. Will it be as much as its NCIS lead in, not sure but theres not much other competition. Im very interested to see how Flashforward does.
Cougartown had some potential. Workable premise, likeable actors, some funny at least. Modern Family was just painful. It’s the Castle of comedies.
Shem, Why would the CW axe there highest rated scripted show Smallville? and even suspernatural? thats like getting fox to cancell house and american idol,
Robert: I guess so. Considering how bad NBC’s show have been doing under Silverman’s reign and now, I was really expecting alot worse than slightly above 8M viewers for Mercy. Plus, it’s got a pretty much no-name cast with the exception of Michelle Trachtenberg and Delroy Lindo and they are only supporting characters.
That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to see what was essentially a B-list Medical drama do that well (if you can call it that)
I think Old Christine and Gary Unmarried performed pretty well. Old Christine increased on last season’s premiere and stood up well against its competition. Here’s hoping for a good season number-wise!
Well once, Hank and The Middle premiere, I believe Mercy will have a better chance. I’m surprised, SYTYCD didnt do better but I’m pretty sure it will next week.
Modern Family and Cougar Town will get full seasons soon.
That’s a truly disastrous result for NBC although in the case of Mercy its not an unexpected disaster, SVU on the other hand is just terrible and probably panic inducing for them. I suppose the hope will be that ABC’s new comedies will fall next week and that Numbers will fall as well and those viewers (or at least some of them) will switch onto SVU but who knows if that’ll work out.
Of course the problem may just be that people don’t know SVU has moved, nobodies really watching NBC so nobodies watching their trailers for the new schedule which is why we can expect every new show they have to flop.
On another note ABC must be doing back flips right now but you have to wonder how long that’ll last with the other new (and nowhere near as strong) comedies debuting next week at 8 things may not look so good for them. Although a successful hour of comedies is more than they had last year so they’d still have every reason to be happy, assuming Cougar Town and Modern Family hold steady.
Meanwhile at The CW the million dollar question is, how long will Dawn keep The Beautiful Life on the air? Surely she has to pull it now? Maybe now would be a good time to move Smallville (their biggest show) off of Friday and just dump The Beautiful Life there? Obviously I won’t be holding my breath on that it is however more likely than the inevitable pick up Body Politic demands that will come.
And good news for Fox, especially Glee which held steady against its competition. I’m loving Glee right now.
Only planned on picking up two new series this year. Modern Family and Flashforward. Hope Flashforward gets off to as good of a start as Modern Family did. While I dont think it will happen Flashforward could really make a name for itself if it was able to topple Survivor for the hour. I think it will probably fall well short in overall viewers it may give Survivor a run in the 18-49. Having a show like Bones up against it may keep it from making a significant impact in the demo though. Personally I have never missed an episode of Survivor but I will be DVR’ing Bones and Flashforward tonight. I am able to catch Survivor the next day on demand in HD so I wont miss a thing. Survivor isn’t exactly the hot conversation of topic anymore at work like it used to be. Still very entertaining to me and I dont intend on missing it anytime soon.
CW!! Can we just go ahead and swap Smallville and TBL right now instead of waiting til sweeps? Get on reuniting the cast of Reaper and crank out a 13 episode third season of one of the most unappreciated shows in recent memory and pair it with Smallville on Wed and all will be forgiven(I have let go of the Everwood cancellation…finally). I think you can just go ahead and move ANTM to Fridays with TBL since it seems to be on its way down the past few cycles. Used to be one of their big guns…not so much anymore.
Don J,
I dont think I would have ever expected to see the names Michelle Trachtenberg and Delroy Lindo in the same forum let alone the same show. Not sure why, but that cracked me up.
Which flathead put the only well performing show on NBC against Criminal Minds anyway? We know Biggest Loser and SVU are about all you got, but that’s when you do not pitch them against superior shows of the same genre, NBC. FCS!
when someone is pleasantly surprised that Mercy premiered to worse numbers than Knight Rider, you know NBC PR has done a good job of managing expectations down!
At least one wing of the NBC empire is firing on all cylinders!
LOL!
@idizzle,
Where would you have put it?
Mondays? I know the painted themselves in a corner with Leno, but Heroes was going down anyway and with how well NCIS did againt House, I think SVU would have stood a fighting chance (or at least a better one) Mondays 9pm.
So, Mondays with Heroes/SVU/Lenos and Wednesdays with Mercy/Trauma/Leno?
SVU might have done better, but I think NBC would do worse overall.
“Superior shows of the same genre”?!? Really? SVU may have declined in quality to the point where it’s often almost a joke, with the plots often displaying crazier ADD than a glue-sniffing 10-year-old, but it still isn’t a gigantic hunk of absurdly greasy Velveeta like Criminal Minds, a show that’s nearly as laughable as the average MST3K flick (last time I checked anyway). I’m startled that SVU couldn’t hold up better against CM but I guess CM might win because of people wanting to laugh at its lameness and play stupid drinking games where they take a shot every time a character spouts an idiotic cliche or indulges in dopey pop psychology. Or it’s all the Dan Brown fans… his books and CM are about on the same level of intellectual capacity.
Anyway, WOAH, holy Toledo, Modern Family and Cougar Town did about twice the ratings I was expecting. ABC still has some promotional blitz power left in them! Could FlashForward and V premiere really strongly too?
I thought last night’s episode of Glee was ridiculous. The show is becoming overly broad and silly.
I would probably have put Trauma with SVU and Mercy with Heroes. Mercy could not have done all that much worse and I may have held Trauma back enough to premiere against LtM and not House.
TBL to me just looked like America’s Next Top Model, the scripted series. I can’t believe the CW greenlit that over Body Politic which had Minka Kelley, Brian Austin Green and Jason Dohring.
House will be staying at 8, Lie to Me will be at 9, so your scenario would have Trauma against House.
Neither Criminal Minds nor SVU are shows of all that overwhleming quality, I grant you that much, but seriously? One is the embrassing sexcrimes division of a mothership that a gigantic hunk of absurdly greasy Velveeta already and the other is at least trying.
Really, they are putting House ar 8 again? Well, that’s good for Lie to Me at least.
In that case, the definitely could have gotten more out of SVU on Mondays.
Anyway, if their calculation was to sacrifice a ten year old show in order to bet everything they got on Trauma, I’ll take my cricism back and applaud them. That’s what they need to do.
I think they thought SVU would hold up a lot better against CM than it did and they wanted to give the new shows a chance. It worked out horribly, but I don’t think I can really fault them for their choice.
SVU should have held up a lot better. I guess no ones watching NBC in general unless its football. I believe over the course of a few weeks SVU should do better.
idizzle, House was at 8 all of last season.
Wow. Good job CW. The Beautiful Life was a great pick up. Thus continuing Ashton Kutcher’s production of TV hits.
i liked mercy!! I hope it can keep its ratings up!!!
Dear Dawn Ostroff,
Thank god you chose Beautiful Life over critical fave Body Politic.
Now please step down and let someone competent do your job.
Thanks!
the thing about these abc comedies is that neither one of them left me wanting more. i could care less about all of those characters and the acting was just so-so. i bet they are in for a big nose dive in the coming weeks. eastwick may end up looking good after the comedies settle in the 6-7 million range.
Watched a number of the new shows last night; Mercy, Modern Family, Cougartown and Eastwick. I can see continuing to watch the ABC comedies, Eastwick didn’t offend, but then again it didn’t interest that much and I actually missed the end so not a good sign. Mercy was the suprise, I went in thinking it would be weak, but it turned out to be better than expected, I can see watching it again next week, definitely better than Forgotten. Also, take out DWTS (as ABC will next week) and it had the most viewers and it was within 10% of the demos of it’s competition, it may do better than expected. I can see it’s numbers going up next week, can’t say the same about Heroes, so while monday may be DOA for NBC, I think that Wednesday still has a pulse.
Ugly numbers for TBL. The CW didn’t need Reaper
Is the entire Body Politic staff & crew commenting on this post? I mean, the pilot was nothing above standard whatsoever. If anything, a really cliche show.
Glad to see Gary Unmarried grew year over year. Another solid episode and adding Rob Riggle full-time to the cast was a good call.
Modern Family was awesome!
Ron, two comments warrant a complaint that the entire cast and crew is commenting?
It’s been constant over the past weeks.
^It was near constant when it wasn’t picked up, but I haven’t noticed much since then.
Good numbers for Modern, cougar, and Eastwick(which I thought would do bad). I hope these numbers stick when DWTS is not on next week.
SYTYCD should of stay a summer show, these numbers are bad compare to when they are shown in the summer.
Yes to TBL’s 0 digits. They should have put the ensemble soild drama, The Body Politic in that spot with its talented known cast, Brian Austin Green, Jason Dohring, Tim Matheson and Gabrielle Union.
Serves Dawn right. She needs to be axed for somebody who recognizes talented shows.
That’s good for Mercy. I liked it. It had some witty moments mixed in with intense drama. The characters naturally click together.
@KLE
I agree Body Politics looked to be a better show. My sister was actually complaining when they switch it for TBL.
BJ, despite of your mindless hate for The forgotten. Their numbers are NOTHING at all compared to The Beautiful Life, which is in O digits. And if everybody hated it it would be in the O range, so talk what you know.
NBC will put this out Tuesday: “MERCY was Mondays #1 medical drama”.
hmmm, seems abc new (and funny!) comedy shows benifited from dancing with the stars lead in, lets wait for next week for their “real” ratings.
and nbc would be labeled mercy a hit 8.3 milion viewers and 2.3/7 is decent but not on nbc’s book
law and order svu is off to bad start, but i think ratings will improve from time to time, hence it’s the only nbc show right now that im confident to say a “hit”
while gary unmarried is so gonna get cancelled
Jack, I think you have your days mixed up. Mercy is on Wednesday, and House is Monday’s #1 medical drama.
Good to see that remains solid and steady despite new competition
I’m referring to “Glee” last night
Back off of FOX…
SYTYCD 2.5 – its till audiditons number one. Number 2, its not bad at all. FOr fox, 2.4 or better for this show will make it for this network probably. AND its going to improve with the competition when it starts.
For Mrs. Emily the GLEE hater, its an amazing show. Its doing well, because its funny. 18 0 34 is what FOX is targeting here, and they are winning here…. by alot. And GLEE at 3.0 or higher FOX will call a hit…and dont expect it to drop below 2.9 or 3.0 in 18 – 49. It will indeed stay steady here. Take my word. AND, American Idol will have the HOUSE effect on this show. Glees a hit.
Someone hates FOX for doing well….very well for FOX this season.
House, Bones, Glee, Fringe, even SYTYCD is very decent for FOX…
Julia, I meant to say #1 medical drama at 9PM.
Gorman, why do you refuse to acknowledge the Leno effect? There is a growing mountain of evidence! Do you not understand that most TV promos are on-network? Do you not understand how shows feed each other? If Leno stays at a 2 in the demo (he won’t), then 50% less people will be exposed to NBC’s ads for its other shows. You can’t not judge Leno’s success by his ratings.
No reruns
No DVDs
No syndication
Cannibalizing Tonight Show
All returning shows down, most by 30% plus
And not only that, the show actually SUCKS
If it keeps up, I promise you Leno will not stay on 5 nights a week. I actually work in the industry. (I don’t count TV bloggers as ‘the industry)
And I meant to say TRAUMA. I am dumb.
wilma, I completely understand why people in the industry hate the Leno move. It threatens jobs, and invades the 10pm broadcast hour reserved in the past for the edgier dramas, but you may be a bit too close to the forest to see the trees.
Leno did better his first week at 10pm than NBC’s 10pm shows did during their premieres last fall. How exactly did that lower NBC promotional chances?
They don’t need reruns if Leno has new shows 46 weeks a year.
NBC doesn’t get DVD revenue or syndication revenue from shows they don’t produce.
The one thing I do agree on is the unknown potential effect on the Tonight Show. Jury is still out on that.
Those existing shows would have tanked with or without Leno at 10pm. How can it possibly be his fault?
As for the show sucking, I won’t watch it, but I don’t watch Conan, Letterman nor did I watch Leno at 11:30, so what?
As for the dig on our site, whoa there, don’t shoot the messenger.
Back Off Fox, you’re not implying that I (who wrote the post) am down on Fox’s results? I think they did just fine last night, and for the season as a whole they’re off to a good start.
saw both modern family and cougar town last night. modern family looks ok but they need to improve it in order to have a sustained run. i’m optimistic b/c of its potential. as for cougar town-it’s a hit! very funny pilot last night. i think ABC has struck gold.
ryan, Smallville and many other CW shows have jumped the shark. Smallville needs to end decently- its one my best shows!
Modern Family and Cougar Town were hysterical! Even stayed tuned to Eastwick and it was really good. I was scared how these shows would do in ratings but im soo glad they did well!!
For those comparing Samantha Who with Modern Family and Cougar Town, these 2 new shows did air after DWTS but DWTS only had 3.2 demo and 15 million viewers. The demo at the 9 o’clock hour increased to 4.3 and remained the same at both half hours which is very good!
WOW! I honestly was expecting Modern Family and Cougartown to tank…badly. Even though they were both good, they were the last shows this fall I was banking on doing well. Nice to see that they’ve finally got some winning comedies on their hands. Although Flashforward is very different from these 2, I think the awesome ratings of Modern Family and Cougartown seem like a sign of good ratings to come tonight for Flashforward. If these new shows can do it, I’m sure another much buzzed about show like Flashforward can do well too.
Dawn Ostroff should be fired for her grade schools decisions and a huge lack diversity on CW.
It’s odd to get rid of every show featuring more than 2 people of color.
In fact, they discuss her foolishness in USC cinema classes
For the people that think a reality show brings fans to scripted TV, I have never watch any reality TV shows like Dancing with the Stars. Yet I watch Castle and I watched Cougar Town last night. I am sure I am not alone.
Personally I don’t think you’re going to find that many people who do. So I don’t think the numbers for the ABC comedies was based on the lead in of DWTS. So I expect their numbers next week to be the same or close.
Thanks,
Lizard
For the people that think a reality show brings fans to scripted TV….
So those huge boosts House, Lie to Me, and Fringe get when they follow AI are just coincidence?
The ABC comedies will drop next week but not because of Dancing. They’ll drop because they were very heavily promoted premieres and at least some of the people who sampled them because of the hype will not come back.
Holly: We’ll see. I don’t necessarily disagree with your assessment of AI but there have been a bunch of different shows following DWTS and the numbers over that last year for followup shows have been all over the place depending on the show and the time slot.
As I stated before I don’t think you can plan on building off a show like that. In the case of last night it shows it was a different demo that watched the followup shows obviously. The overall numbers went down but the 18-49 went up significantly.
The same has been true with Better Off Ted, Castle, and that other really bad comedy they put on as well. There seems to be no carry over. I don’t think people who watch Castle watch DWTS.
I didn’t watch Modern Family, but Cougar Town will do fine over the whole year. Just my opinion!
Thanks,
Jeffery
Gary Unmarried and Old Christin should have been cancelled last year but they are going to get cancelled next year NCIS LA new spot is Wedensday at 8
You state in the story, “Ironically for the Leno doubters, he might be shaping up as a bright spot for NBC’s Fall, no others are currently in evidence.” But isn’t this the real problem with some of the numbers for NBC’s scripted shows? The network is sacrificing its real bread and butter programs for Jay’s show. “Law & Order SVU” has been a staple in the 10 p.m. slot for years on Tuesday nights. Now, it is on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. against some real ratings competition in “Criminal Minds.” Tuesdays at 10 p.m. is a vulnerable time slot and SVU’s numbers could be better if it was still in its old time slot. Maybe NBC is gearing away from scripted shows altogether and is more worried about profit than ratings. However, if the Jay Leno show was not there, I think SVU and the traditional Law & Order could see better ratings.
Hoping that Modern Family and Cougar Town will not drop hard next week. I’m happy with their performance but Pushing Daisies (*sniff*) premiered to strong ratings too then you know the story. So let’s see but the comedies though have more mass appeal than PD so they could pull it off. Hoping that Hank and The Middle will pull good amount of viewers next week.
And Eastwick was not as bad as TV critics said. Its a decent show that has potential. Desperate Housewives meets Charmed set in Stars Hollow
But I’m lowering my expectations for its survival though.
Modern Family was so funny (i was kinda reminded of the office the whole time just because the whole documentary style) and cougar town was wasn’t too great but it will probably get better
and SVUs ratings will get better when more people find out the new time
and isn’t Mercy the first NBC show to premiere with more than 7 mil in about two years (excluding Leno)
I will be one of the people who won’t be tuning in to Mercy next week (but since I’m not a Nielsen household it doesn’t really matter). It had much more of a Grey’s Anatomy feel to it than an ER one. Had it been the other way around I probably would have continued watching.
It’s a shame that next week abc don’t have DWS at 8pm. one more week could do great things for this two comedies don’t you think?
Great night for ABC and comedy, which is cool. Modern Family and Cougar Town were actually very entertaining, and I’ll be watching again. I didn’t watch Eastwick, but I’ll look into it after the positive reception.
I also laugh every time I see CW numbers lately. Almost every show they’ve got is getting thrashed, which will hopefully signal the end for the network soon. VD is really the only one performing well so far, but we’ll see how Smallville goes tonight.
So far, I can actually see Mercy growing into a hit, as oppose to the forgotten, Eastwick & The Good Wife which may have each got a decent sampling with their premieres but I thoroughly expect to slide as the season progresses. Mercy is in a timeslot where it stands a chance to breakout, considering the varied (and somewhat weak) competition it faces. To me, the main question is can it grow enough by January when Idol in thrown into the mix …
As for Leno, everyone expected it to take a hit this week but, all things considered, it’s still holding up surprisingly well. Now, when the premieres are all out of the way and the ratings start settling, Leno might prove to be even more surprising. I can honestly see Leno challenging Castle & the forgotten in the weeks to come for second place in the time slot. Wednesdays also could still be in play depending on how Eastwick holds up. And there’s always a possibly Leno might make a dent in CBS repeat weeks. It all could prove to be very interesting especially if NBC books A-List stars deliberately on Leno those weeks.
No way to spin anything positive for SVU though. NBC is probably crossing their fingers that its old audience finds it over the next few weeks but I seriously doubt it will ever get back to a 3.5 demo again, sorry.
Hoping Modern Family holds up next week. Good show. And Bye Bye Beautiful Life. You beautiful days are so numbered.
im surprised by eastwick, i really thought it would do worse. im still on the fence about the show, the beginning and ending were strong, midway through it seemed as though the show lost focus… it also forced the sex chatter a bit too hard, even for a 10pm drama.
cougar town tried a bit too hard as well. but overall the new abc Wednesday shows do show signs of life.
Ivy, I’m not shocked about SVU’s low demo ratings – the Leonards have taken over broadcasting, and are grinding our hands into the rock of Mount Rushmore, so we fall helplessly to our deaths – an eternity in hell watching 24/7 of “Sponge Bob Square Pants”, with Ray Jay Johnson playing Sponge Bob…
…ah, well, at least if you and I must die in a cesspool of Philip Vandamm-inspired trash, at least we get to be Cary Grant or Eva Marie Saint for a little while (sigh)…
…the irony, of course, is I want to emulate Cary Grant’s character, who was an advertising executive, who would have worked to corrupt television with the fixiation on demos…
…speaking of demos, there was an 14.5 aggregate demo for the broadcast networks at 9, and an 11.6 at 8 – tough competition for SVU by any measure…
…and the other networks shouldn’t be happy, as fully 85.5 percent of the demo audience did not watch any broadcast network at 9, and fully 88.4 percent did not watch any broadcast network at 8…
…what was the comparable figure – the aggregate demo ratings for broadcast networks ten years ago?
Ah, well, I guess I’m off to the Mutton-o-Matic, which is all I am worth to TV and ad executives these days
I just read this on Berman’s blog:
“Last at 10 p.m. was NBC’s The Jay Leno Show with 6.43 million viewers and a 2.0/ 5 among adults 18-49. Comparably, this was only about equal to year-ago failed occupant Lipstick Jungle (Viewers; 6.25 million; A18-49: 2.4/ 6 on Sept. 24, 2008). It’s official: NBC has a big problem on its hands!”
How in the world does NBC have a “big problem” on their hands? Wasn’t the EXACT reason for introducing TJLS to get rid of expensive dramas that produced minimal ratings? Based on that, it seems like NBC *SOLVED* their problems — they’re getting much cheaper programming, and the ratings aren’t even that bad.
I agree if the CW wants to have a chance Smallville needs to be moved to Tue night, pair it with 90210, ATM pair w/ Melrose Place…won’t be great but it helps protect their losses, while Everbody Hates Chris/The Game didn’t do awsome on Fri, they did do better than most of the CW’s premier numbers, so I would do a TGIF type Fri…REBA did well for CW if they hadden’t been peed off at FOX
Anon, that’s Hollywood Leno reality-denial nonsense from Berman.
I loved Mercy last night, I felt that it had a very good Grey’s Anatomy feel (when Grey’s was in the first and second season). Glee was great as usual. Modern Family and Cougar Town were amazingly funny, and I will continue to watch the comedy wednesday next week. Eastwick was strange…I give it another shot next week.
In the Wednesday preview thread I was the only one who thought that MF and CT would have 10 million viewers and I thought I was too optimistic…I just hope both shows retain most of their audiences. Love both shows last night.
I doubt Castle will have trouble with Leno. It creamed Leno on Monday.
GLEE!!! was sooooo soooo soo so Good last night, very entertaining so hilarious, I’m finally connecting with the characters, and gettin into the show, I still dont understand why everyone watches these cop and doctor shows so much, WHy they are all the same. At least glee is interesting and unique. I hope Glee keeps up with there amazingness!!!
I knew Dancing would give Modern Family and Cougar Town the boost, but It wont last. ABC desperately needs comedies, and both of these shows are great.
No not you!
FOX ROCKS
“Eastwick” lost viewers every 15 minutes. I don’t know how that qualifies as “good.” Usually, it qualifies as a good sign of 13 and out. Especially since ABC is going to need the room for “Lost.” Personally, I didn’t think it was all that bad (you know, for a chick show), but it mostly just got by on David Nutter’s magic touch. “Cougar Town,” on the other hand, was gross and disgusting. (To the people who’ve seen future episodes: does Courteney Cox yell all her lines in those as well?) The only actor in the thing who got a chuckle out of me was Brian Van Holt — which is weird, because when I first saw him a decade ago, I didn’t think he could act at all. He’s certainly come a long way. I won’t make any overnight declarations about “Modern Family,” as it was heavily-hyped and Lloyd and Levitan have had a number of shows open big and then sink like bricks. And finally, if NBC was expecting anything more out of “SVU,” they shouldn’t have. They’ve been DOA in that time period for a few years now, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s a major improvement over “Life.” That’s the main thing that matters.
Modern Family is one of my new favorite shows. Very funny. Mercy was disappointing. It has potential but a lot of it was wasted. I’m hoping some of that was just rushing through the set up. I’ll give it one more chance.
I absolutely HATE that NBC put The Jay Leno Show in prime time. Who cares about a celebrity interview show. I am disgusted that the network seems to be giving up by putting a boring talk show in a prime time slot. No wonder NBC’s lineup is suffering.
ABC:
I’m pretty impressed with Modern Family, I thought Cougar Town has more buzz and will get more viewers. I think Modern Family and Cougar Town will get a second season.
Eastwick’s viewer count is pretty low compare to the series premiere of The Forgotten but it has higher demo.
NBC:
Mercy will probably will cancelled or not but its not going to be a hit. Law & Order’s numbers are pretty low especially it was NBC’s top drama last season.
CBS:
CBS should give the ax to old Christine and gary unmarried. Criminal Minds is strong and CSI: Ny is a stronger show now than CSI: Miami
CW:
The Beautiful Life will be cancelled
Obviously quite a few people decided to sample ABC’s new line-up. The big question for me is how many of them will stick around, and for those who depart, will they go to one of the other Networks?
Personally, I found Modern Family to be pretty good but conversely was amazed at how forced and unlikable Cougartown was. My expectations weren’t high, but it still managed to not meet them. It looks like I am in the minority in that opinion though, so congratulations are in order to ABC.
Hi Robert, I loved “Mercy” really enjoyed it. I’m tired of “Criminal Minds” so I didn’t watch it and loved “Modern Family” and “Cougar Town”. Since I’m from Canada, I can watch CSI: NY at 7pm which I did which gives me a chance to see other shows I normally wouldn’t watch. Kind of tired with “So You Think You Can Dance” since I just finished watching last month, I think it’s too soon to start up again. Ditto with DWTS bored of it. “Eastwick” was a yawn for me a quick channel change corrected that problem.
AO – probably not a lot of people will stick around with out the dancing lead in. Look at last years wednesdays, Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money did the worst of the night whilePrivate Practice did a little better. I expect Hank and The Middle to do badly while Modern Family and Cougar Town would do better and Easwick to flop. As for Cougar Town, critics reviewing the series said the show did get better in its second episode, so its possible maybe the pilot wasnt good.
As for Easwick and Mercy, both shows didnt do that great, but dont expect either to be axed too soon. NBC is willing to wait with their new series, especially with a smaller schedule, and ABC usually waits til around November or December to decide about their shows fates.
So, three nights in this season and three overnight winers:Fox, CBS, and ABC respectively! So thursday should belong to NBC but somehow I have doubts about that…
ruudiss – Sundays belong to NBC, Thursdays seem more CBS/ABC. and Fridays are CBS easily.
I think I watched MF and Cougar Town with an open mind. After they were over, and I opted out of the Witches show after ten minutes, I remember thinking, both these new comedies will get only around 3.0 in the demo. Boy was I wrong. But I didn’t see any justification for either show as critical AND popular successes. We’ll see, but that was a big opening salvo by ABC. BTW, I cry no tears for Law and Order:SVU. I hope it stays in fourth all year.
Neither Criminal Minds nor SVU are shows of all that overwhleming quality, I grant you that much, but seriously?
Have you watched Criminal Minds? It’s one of the best written shows on TV which characters that have die-hard fan bases. What’s even better about it is that unlike CSI or Grey’s fans of one character don’t hate the other characters. The team is cohesive and well-loved. It’s the only show on the air that can boast that. I love every character on that show. They have really done a great job with Rossi as well, making him almost like a Father figure to Hotch at times. Rossi has carved out his niche
Jay – I think regularly Modern Family and Cougar Town will average much less do to a bad lead in (Hank & The Middle) but should do ok on average. I expect SVU to do better but both SVU and MF/CT have OK lead ins. Eastwick will likely always drop in viewers.
I expect Eastwick to be the first ABC drama cancelled.
Hank to be the first ABC comedy cancelled.
Mercy to be eventually axed down the line, with all episodes airing.
I think every other Wednesday show is safe.
Dan, before the season started I thought Eastwick would be the first drama canceled. Right now, I can’t say that because it did better than both Castle and The Forgotten. I think it’ll fall hard, but I’m not sure it will fall hard enough to be canceled before The Forgotten.
Modern Family and Cougar Town did great in ratings. Those are some big demos for two comedy’s series’ premieres. I mean it beat DWTS in the demos. Eastwick was a big surprise. A 3.0 in the demo. I thought it would be in the love 2s. Everything will probably go down next week. I’m interested to see next Wednesday brings when ABC goes to their official full Wednesday wihout Dancing.
Julia – do you mean in the demos or in total viewers because in total
Castle – 9.43
The Forgotten – 9.53
Eastwick – 8.53
Castle and The Forgotten both have the Dancing benefits also. I still think Castle will get a full year and The Forgotten may or may not get additional episodes. But remember Eastwick’s lead in will be Modern Family and Cougar Town, who will both probably get low numbers because of their bad lead in. ABC seems to have trouble with Wednesday 10pm series and like how Dirty Sexy MOney got screwed last year, Eastwick will probably get axed too. Most of the episodes will air though.
Dan, the only thing that matters in terms of renewal or cancellation is demo.
Doh – I didn’t know( or forgot)the two ABC comedies will no longer have Dancing as a lead-in. But as some have already pointed out, MF and CT ( can I call it MFCT?) improved on the Dancing demos … still may be an interesting Wed. after all.
Julia – But total viewers play a factor too. I think Eastwick and THe Forgotten will both drop and while Eastwick is liekly to be axed first, both will be gone by midseason. Castle, however I still think ABC may give this one a full year. I dont think ABC would have the same pattern as the fall of last year
10pm Monday series – axed
10pm Tuesday series – axed
10pm Wednesday series – axed
8-9pm Wednesday series – axed
I still think
Renewed: Flashforward, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Castle
Cancelled: Eastwick, Hank
50/50: The Middle, The Forgotten