It was an odd week of television. The current sweeps period continues to cough up odd nights of repeats. This time, NBC took Monday off, to disastrous results. In not quite as disastrous news, the mid-season debuts continued, as ABC premiered Better Off Ted and NBC finally gave us all a look at Kings. On the happier end of the scale, the CBS Monday comedies were all up, the Idol reign of terror continued, and it sure looks like we won’t have to put up with The Chopping Block for much longer.
NBC - It’s really not how anyone wants to start their week. You might remember that once upon a time, Kings was set to take over ER‘s Thursday night slot. The fact that it ended up being moved to Sunday suggests that the network lost a little faith in the show after seeing how it turned out. And unfortunately, it looks like they were right. I like the show, but seem to be in the minority. The premiere numbers (6.08m/1.6) were not good. Those are Friday night Dateline (6.07m/1.7) numbers, not big budget Sunday night drama numbers. The only thing worse, is that you could also call that double the Heroes viewership on Monday.
I do generally ignore most repeat numbers, but good grief, the NBC Monday is such a train wreck. Repeats of Chuck (3.95m/1.3), Heroes (3.01m/1.1), and Medium (4.38m/1.4) were destroyed by the competition, and leave me wondering why the network chose to take a week off during sweeps. Repeat or not, it never looks good when your big budget action show, Heroes, finishes fifth in the demo for time slot. And really, that’s being kind, and not pointing out that if you add in Manana Es Para Siempre on Univision, Heroes was 6th. Aye, caramba! That Bryan Fuller episode better be frickin’ amazing.
After a brief respite on Tuesday, with The Biggest Loser (7.99m/3.2) and SVU (10.74m/3.5), Wednesday was also terrible for the peacock. The ratings black hole that is The Chopping Block (3.4m/1.2) now has Life (4.31m/1.5) and Law & Order (7.14m/2.1) in its gravitational field. It all serves to make Thursday look pretty good. Despite the fourth place finish for the night, My Name Is Earl (6.43m/2.5), The Office (8.07m/4), 30 Rock (7.13m/3.2), and ER (9.47m/3.2) are keeping the lights on.
CBS - For the most part, it was business as usual at CBS last week. Sunday brought The Amazing Race (10.33m/3.1), Cold Case (13.03m/2.9) and The Unit (10.87m/2.7). No real surprise, although that is above the season average for The Unit, which could complicate things when decision time comes. Monday was along similar lines. With a drop from the premiere numbers for DWTS, and NBC in the toilet, the comedies were all up from the previous week. Big Bang Theory (9.69m/3.7), How I Met Your Mother (9.29m/3.9), 2 ½ Men (14.12m/4.8), Rules Of Engagement (11.42m/4).
News wasn’t quite as good Tuesday, as NCIS (15.84m/3.1) and The Mentalist (15.49m/3.3) were both off a bit. For lack of a better explanation, I’m going with St. Patrick’s Day, because everything on Tuesday seemed to be off, even Idol. They were followed by another pretty standard Wednesday, featuring Old Christine (7.21m/2.1), Gary Unmarried (7.37m/2.2), Criminal Minds (13.74m/3.3), and CSI:NY (12.79m/3.3). Christine and Gary make one of the most interesting hours on the schedule, from a ratings standpoint. The numbers are decidedly low for the network, and it would be easy to justify cancelling either or both of them, but they are both really consistent, and either one could do similar numbers to Rules if paired with 2 ½ Men.
Finally, Thursday and Friday brought the return of the NCAA tournament, with mixed results. The network took a hit on Thursday, averaging about 8.5 million viewers and a 3.1 in the demo. That’s far below what they could expect with the usual lineup. On the other hand, Friday’s games were just below that, at 8.3 million viewers and a 2.9. That’s again down in viewers from the usual shows, but it did gain quite a bit in the demo.
ABC - After an amazing debut last week, it was pretty likely that DWTS (21.22m/5.3) would drop in the second week, but it didn’t go far. Shows that top 20 million viewers and demos in the 5s are hard to come by. That led into the second episode of Castle (10.97m/2.9), which did quite well. It was up just a bit in viewers, and down a tenth in the demo. That’s outstanding for a second week. Things weren’t as exciting on Tuesday. The DWTS Results (12.74m/2.8)faced off with Idol, and took a pretty big hit. That is still an upgrade from what Private Practice was doing in the same spot at the end of last year.
Wednesday, the powers that be at the network had this crazy idea to try two comedies leading into Lost. How could it not be golden. Remember how well that worked with George Lopez and Freddie?… It wasn’t good. Scrubs continues to struggle (5.62m/2.2) and Better Off Ted (5.51m/2.1) was the lowest rated comedy premiere for the network since Hot Properties. Remember that one? Lost (9.4m/4.3) looked better in that light, but facing Idol is not doing the show any favors, as that is the lowest rated episode of the season. Thankfully, Thursday brought some bona fide good news with the Grey’s Anatomy (14.61m/5) and Private Practice (9.74m/3.5) combination. The move has worked. The DWTS results have improved Wednesday at 9, and Private Practice has improved Thursday at 10.
FOX - As usual, American Idol was the big winner for the week, but the numbers were down on both Tuesday (21.89m/8.1) and Wednesday (23.71m/8.7). Other winners for the network included House (13.13m/4.9), 24 (11.36m/3.7), Bones (10.51m/3), and Hell’s Kitchen (7.54m/3.3). Not quite a winner, Lie To Me (10.26m/3.1) suffered a drop from a week earlier, but I’m chalking that up to the weirdness of Tuesday, where everything was down. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with the next episode.
Also gaining, was Terminator:TSCC (3.65m/1.3). That’s certainly better than losing more viewers, but the bleeding had to stop at some point, right? The news was a little better for Dollhouse (4.13m/1.5). Those numbers are down from the previous week, but not by much. And the show did just have the best episode of the season. If ever there was a time for the ratings to really start to climb, the next episode is it.
CW - Finally, something that looks like a real week of programming from CW. Gossip Girl (2.33m/1.2) and One Tree Hill (2.41m/1.2) returned to the levels they were at before the extended break, but both are well below where they were at the beginning of the season. Reaper (1.96m/.9) remains steady, but that’s steady at a level that probably isn’t going to make for another season. Next Top Model (3.79m/1.7) was the big winner for the week, managing to place 4th in the time slot. Smallville (3.49m/1.5) and Supernatural (3.37m/1.4) managed to wrap things up nicely on Thursday. Nice to see Supernatural rebound nicely from the oddly low demo number last week.
For the week ahead… Heroes brings out the big Bryan Fuller episode on Monday. Conditions are as good as they are probably going to get. 2 ½ Men is a repeat, and 24 will be following a repeat House. President Obama will muck with the schedule on Tuesday, which makes things very bad for Better Off Ted. They were already going to get stuck with facing Survivor, relocated because of NCAA basketball. Now the Idol performance show moves to Wednesday too. Look for a drop for Ted. And the dominos keep falling on Thursday. The Idol results now lands right in the path of In The Motherhood and the returning Samantha Who?.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Mar 23, 2009 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
yeah that was pretty much only because of it being a repeat. but i hope tonights episode is awesome.
Wait, Dollhouse dropping this week is better news than Terminator going up? Is Dollhouse’s 0.48m/0.2 advantage that large?