Seriously, what the heck is going on with True Blood? Where do all of these people keep coming from? The show managed to set another series high this week, with 5.3 million viewers. That alone is cause for celebration. Even better, the DVDs continue to sell like hotcakes. In its 13th week of release, the season was still the number one TV show. That set has now racked up over $40 million in sales. It’s crazy. But that was just one of the many stories from cable last week. We also saw huge numbers for the Wizards of Waverly Place movie, records for Warehouse 13 and Burn Notice, and new seasons announced for Leverage and Drop Dead Diva. Over at the networks … well, we’re getting close to the fall premieres.
Cable - We’ve already covered True Blood, but that success is translating to solid numbers for Hung (3.3m) and Entourage (3.2m) as well. Seeing record breaking numbers of their own, we have Wizards of Waverly Place over on Disney. The big special, Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie, brought in an unbelievable 11.4 million viewers. That makes it the number one cable program of the year so far.
If we step back a couple weeks, recent DVR data brings with it a couple of interesting nuggets. The fifth episode of Warehouse 13 ended up with 4.3 million viewers. That means it was the most watched original series telecast in the network’s history. I doubt it’s ever going to approach the legacy of the Stargate universe, but still, impressive. Burn Notice also looked pretty good with DVR added in. The finale grand total was 9.1 million viewers. Good enough to be the most watched scripted episode on cable this year. More good news came in the form of the Royal Pains (5.9m) finale, which is now the most watched first season of an original series for USA. It knocked The 4400 off the top spot.
In other finale news, ABC Family finished off Make It Or Break It (2.4m/1.1) with the second most viewers of the show’s first season, while hitting highs in various demos. BET was also successful, with Tiny & Toya (1.9m). The show averaged 1.8 million viewers for the season, which makes it the number one original in BET history.
Lifetime had another strong week. Drop Dead Diva (2.9m) is doing great in the women’s demos, and has been renewed for a second season. Meanwhile, Project Runway (3.5m) did drop in its second episode, but that’s still a solid number. AMC suffered a similar drop with episode 2 of Mad Men (1.9m). The silver lining is that the show is still ahead of where it was in season two. Going the other way, Bravo’s Top Chef (2.8m) actually gained viewers from the premiere. And finally, Leverage (3.73m) remains steady for TNT, and also received a renewal this week.
ABC - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (7.63m/1.5) ground to a steady, if unimpressive, halt with the finale episode of the summer event. And really, that kind of describes most of the week. The highlight was Wednesday, with Wipeout (7.56m/2.5) and the debut of Crash Course (5.06m/1.9). Shark Tank (5.61m/1.8), is still teetering on that could go either way edge. Dating in the Dark (4.18m/1.7) never really recovered from losing The Bachelorette. Shaq Vs (4.21m/1.7) appears to be, like Millionaire, steady, if not impressive. And then there is Defying Gravity (2.66m/.8), which was shuffled to Fridays in Canada. Those numbers make one wonder if a similar move isn’t in the offing for the show here.
NBC – As expected, America’s Got Talent carried the week with Tuesday (11.19m/3.1) and Wednesday (10.87m/2.9) outings. Unfortunately, the network has nothing else to pair it with. The rest of the original lineup consisted of the finale of Merlin (3.22m/1 – 3.92m/1.1), Miss Universe (5.84m/2), and Great American Road Trip (4.79m/1.4). Not a bad demo number for Miss Universe, but a pretty weak showing for everything else.
CBS - Once again, the most successful night of the week was Monday, as the repeats won in viewers and demo. For original programming, Big Brother on Sunday (7.36m/1.8), Tuesday (7.41m/2.5), and Thursday (8.08m/2.7) was joined by a news special, Ted Kennedy: The Last Brother (4.6m/.9). Big Brother has been solid all summer, and I would expect we’ll see it again next year.
FOX - It would appear that everyone was either out on the Glee campaign trail, or busily prepping for the fall launches. FOX only managed two new hours of programming, with Hell’s Kitchen (7.47m/3.4) and More To Love (4.24m/1.8). If you really want something to chew on, put this one in your back pocket. Repeats of Fifth Grader on Friday averaged 4.43m/1.1. I think we’ll be setting the over/under for Dollhouse right about there.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Aug 31, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
