Category Archives: Ratings

(for Friday, September 24, 2010) CBS had a very good night thanks to the transplanted power of ‘CSI: NY’ and the mustachioed might of Tom Selleck and ‘Blue Bloods.’ Others weren’t so lucky as both ‘Outlaw’ and ‘The Good Guys’ fell flat on their faces with a shift to Friday nights. ‘Supernatural’ held up just fine on its new night, and both it and ‘Smallville’ are keeping The CW competitive with the big boys in the advertiser-coveted Adults 18-49 demographic.

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(for Thursday, September 23, 2010) NBC might be glad that ‘My Generation’ flopped so hard against ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ because it draws attention away from the horrific performance being turned in by ‘The Apprentice’ at 10 o’clock. William Shatner and ‘Outsourced’ both benefited from strong lead-ins, while the rest of the night performed about as expected.

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(for Wednesday, September 22) ‘Modern Family’ came out huge for ABC, who’s comedy lineup improved across the line. Too bad they bombed out at 10 PM again, leaving it wide open for CBS to win the night, thanks to a strong bow from ‘The Defenders’ and continued dominance by ‘Survivor.’ ‘Undercovers’ didn’t score huge for NBC, but ‘SVU’ managed to find year-to-year growth, giving them a good premiere Wednesday.

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(for Tuesday, September 21, 2010) It’s rare that a fall series can beat ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ but ‘Glee’ managed to do so in the all-important Adults 18-49 demographic. After that, though, FOX’s ratings slid through their two new comedy bows, while CBS and three hours of ‘NCIS’ shows proved their staying power. As for NBC, ‘The Biggest Loser’ was a little smaller than in recent seasons.

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(for Monday, September 20, 2010) It was a big night of premieres, as every show was a season or series premiere, except for The CW lineup, which managed to hold up just fine against the stiffer competition. What did we learn? More and more people love ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ CBS had a good night of premiers, and ‘The Event’ was solid for NBC. But something happened at FOX after ‘House’ ended. Something very, very not pretty. Something called ‘Lone Star’s ratings.

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(for Sunday, September 19, 2010) It’s Sunday and that means the NFL dominates everything. And because it’s live, not accounting for time zones, it messes up the ratings on every network, and especially CBS which ALWAYS shifts back every show on Sundays to accommodate late-running afternoon games. Why, oh why can’t you just have a flexible-time post-game show like FOX does so everything else can start on time for at least half of the country? Oh, and ‘The Gates’ ended, but hardly anyone noticed.

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(for Saturday, September 18, 2010) Notre Dame may have lost the game, but they won the night as ‘Saturday Night College Football’ saw huge gains for ABC. In fact, it was a good night, relatively speaking, except for fourth place beleagured NBC, which failed again with an encore of ‘The Apprentice’ premiere. Clearly people don’t care as much about watching other people fight for a job when they can’t find one of their own.

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(for Friday, September 17, 2010) Repeats of episodes that aired their original episodes this week didn’t fare so well. In this era of online streaming and DVR-usage climbing steadily, I have to wonder how much longer this remains a viable programming strategy? ‘Nikita’ and ‘Hellcats’ for The CW and ‘Outlaw’ for NBC all ranked very low, while ’20/20′ came blazing out with a new season premiere hitting four-year highs.

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(for Thursday, August 16, 2010) Even though it was still in repeats, ‘The Big Bang Theory’ moved to its new night and showed that its definitely ready to compete with the big Thursday night competition. ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and ‘Nikita’ were off slightly, while the new iteration of ‘The Apprentice’ laid a big turd on NBC’s schedule with a very disappointing two-hour premiere.

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(for Tuesday, September 14, 2010) It was big goodbyes and soft hellos as NBC began their final two nights of both ‘America’s Got Talent’ and ‘Minute to Win It’ to great success. ABC was solid as well wit back-to-back ‘Wipeout’ finale hours. In premiere news, it was good for ‘Parenthood’ and ‘One Tree Hill,’ but not so much for ‘Life Unexpected’ which needs to find some viewers stat!

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(for Monday, September 13, 2010) The CW continued their early premieres with ‘Gossip Girl’ and ’90210′ coming in with mixed results; one looking better than last year, and one about even, if not slightly down. CBS had a great final Monday of repeats to give them the night for the last Monday of the summer season.

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(for Sunday, September 12, 2010) The NFL came back stronger than ever, giving NBC and ‘Sunday Night Football’ the highest premiere of all time. The game must have put more butts in the seats at home as almost every show showed gains on the night. The exception? The failure that is ‘The Gates.’

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(for Saturday, September 11, 2010) On this 9/11 Anniversary, the broadcast networks showed no special programming to commemorate the event, though I suspect they will for its tenth anniversary next year. Instead, it was a night where NASCAR fans proved there are a lot more of them than there are fans of women’s tennis. FOX celebrated 800 episodes of ‘Cops’ as only they can. With rock-solid consistency in the ratings.

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(for Friday, September 10, 2010) ‘Stand Up to Cancer’ brought in a solid performance on the night, but split across four networks, each of them did rather disappointingly, and the doldrums spread into the 9 PM ET hour as well, bringing down their averages for the whole night. Only The CW had gains, as they aired encore performances of two of their series premieres this week: ‘Nikita’ and ‘Hellcats.’ I’ll bet the network is enjoying being in the middle of the ratings mix, instead of in a distant last place. They’d better enjoy it now, because in a couple weeks it’ll be back to the cellar for them, most likely.

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