(for Friday, October 15, 2010) Celebrating an impressive 200 episodes, The CW’s ‘Smallville’ was the number one show in the 8 PM hour in the advertiser’s Adults 18-49 demographic. With ‘Outlaw’ banished to Saturdays, NBC can now start worrying about the horrible premiere of ‘School Pride’ at the top of the night. Nothing is working for that network this year.
CBS (1.5/5, 8.66 million) easily took the night, despite all three shows continuing to decline. The CW (1.3/4, 2.99 million) rose to second in the demo thanks to ‘Smallville’s gains helping ‘Supernatural’ as well. NBC (1.1/4, 4.26 million) has to be considering three hours of ‘Dateline’ at this point, while ABC (1.1/4, 4.22 million) is doing well enough with repeats and ’20/20.’ Poor FOX (0.8/3, 2.5 million) is just failing miserably on Fridays.
8:00
With its 200th episode, ‘Smallville’ (1.3/5, 3.18 million), The CW claimed the top spot for the 8 PM hour in the demo, and came in third overall. The anniversary gave it a 23% boost in the demo and a gain of 810,000 viewers. This marked the show’s highest ratings since May 7, 2009. By a tenth in the demo it surpassed the usual hour’s winner, CBS’s ‘Medium’ (1.2/4, 6.14 million), which sat atop the total viewership for the hour. In fact, CBS came in 1-2-3 in total viewers for the night.
Gaining 10% in the demo, ABC’s repeat of ‘No Ordinary Family’ (1.0/4, 4.11 million) recovered the total viewers it lost last week. NBC had another disappointing premiere with ‘School Pride’ (0.9/3, 2.9 million) coming in below 3 million viewers and a 1.0. FOX is sticking with repeats of ‘House’ (0.8/3, 2.67 million), which managed to barely avoid last place in both categories, coming in behind The CW and everything else except another FOX show, but more on that in a minute.
9:00
CBS reclaimed its usual top spot each hour on Fridays with ‘CSI: New York’ (1.7/6, 9.54 million), which lost the 11% in the demo it had gained last week, and slipped 330,000 to a new season, and likely series, low. ‘Dateline NBC’ (1.2/4, 4.65 million) shifted back an hour and immediately dropped 19% in the demo and 1.6 million viewers, based on its two-hour average of 1.3 in the demo and 4.93 million viewers.
‘Supernatural’ (1.2/4, 2.81 million) tied NBC in the demo, gaining 17% in the demo and a half million viewers to a new season high. ‘Smallville’ needs to have anniversaries more often.
ABC went with a repeat of ’20/20′ (1.1/4, 3.86 million), while ‘The Good Guys’ (0.8/3, 2.34 million) finally appears to have hit rock bottom, coming in last on the night in both categories. It was even with last week in the demo, though it has been a tenth lower, but it did slip to a new series low in viewers.
10:00
With NBC banishing ‘Outlaw’ to Saturdays, CBS’s ‘Blue Bloods’ (1.7/6, 10.29 million) had only newsmagazines to contend with. The drama slipped for its fourth straight episode, down a tenth in the demo and 800,000 total viewers.
ABC was off even more, as ’20/20′ (1.3/4, 4.69 million) dropped 28% in the demo and 740,000 viewers. The series has been up and down since its season premiere. NBC, on the other hand, improved their hour with the back half of ‘Dateline NBC’ (1.3/4, 5.21 million). It was up 23% in the demo and nearly a million viewers from ‘Outlaw’s level last week.
For more on the numbers and what it all means, check out the “About the Numbers” section on the predecessor to this column, my “Ratings Race” reports for TV Squad.
