NBC - And really, that’s saying something. The bar for success has been set incredibly low for Thursdays on NBC. Have a look at Community (3.17m/1.4). Newly renewed, and barely topping 3 million viewers. For perspective, Better With You and Mad Love, which are almost certainly being canceled on ABC and CBS, have never been close to that number. Even worse? Running Wilde, already booted by FOX, averaged 3.71m/1.6. Still, somehow, even with those ridiculous standards, The Paul Reiser Show (2.38m/.9) wasn’t up to the task, sinking like a stone in week two. The network has now pulled the show and will be replacing it with repeats of The Office.
If you’re a Reiser fan looking for straws to grasp at, the timing for the premiere of the show was terrible. With spring taking over (everywhere but Seattle anyway), ratings are dropping for everything. Even The Office (6.85m/3.3), despite the hubbub surrounding the exit of Michael Scott, was off the pace. That brought another drop for Parks & Rec (4.88m/2.4). If there was good news in the week, it was that the 100th 30 Rock (4.6m/2.2) bucked the trend, and was one of the few shows up for the week.
Earlier, the week got off to a slow start with Next Great Restaurant (3.83m/1.2) and Celebrity Apprentice (7.66m/2.6). Things didn’t improve Monday with Chuck (4.22m/1.3), The Event (3.85m/1.1), and Law & Order LA (5.12m/1.1). Those L&O numbers are really something. We must be getting close to a world with no new L&O episodes being made. Tuesday, The Biggest Loser (6.62m/2.3) also suffered a bit of the spring fade. There was positive news for Parenthood (6.32m/2.5) though, as the show just edged Body Of Proof for #1 in the demo. The week wrapped with another installment of the kind-of-new Friday Night Lights (3.75m/1).
ABC - Like NBC, Sunday did not bring a good start to the week. Despite a turn to the regular lineup of Extreme Makeover (7.64m/2), Desperate Housewives (9.11m/2.7), and Brothers & Sisters (6.32m/1.7), the entire night was well off the season average. Things looked a little better Monday, thanks to Dancing With The Stars (20.1m/4). Unfortunately, being the only non-Idol show to hit the 4s didn’t do a lot for a special Monday Cougar Town (7.88m/2).
Tuesday, Food Revolution (4.72m/1.1) continued to struggle, while the DWTS Results (16.31m/3) were ok, and Body Of Proof (11.37m/2.4) held up surprisingly well compared to the rest of the ABC 10PM offerings. Wednesday’s comedy night also felt the brunt of spring, with The Middle (6.82m/1.9), Better With You (4.85m/1.6), Modern Family (9.95m/3.8), Cougar Town (6.18m/2.3), and Happy Endings (4.59m/1.8 – 3.88m/1.6). It is worth noting that Cougar Town was up in the demo following Modern Family, as opposed to DWTS.
FOX - There was a small bonus to start the week as American Dad (4.74m/2.2) was an improvement over Bob’s Burgers at 8:30, but Family Guy (5.98m/3) and Cleveland (4.61m/2.3) were both down. Monday, House (8.8m/3.2) was down just a bit in viewers, but Chicago Code (6.38m/1.8) managed a small gain. Glee (9.8m/3.8) held up better than most after a month off, as Raising Hope (5.31m/2.1) and Traffic Light (3.09m/1.3) both struggled.
Business picked up Wednesday with American Idol (22.54m/7.1). Also good news, week three of Breaking In (7.46m/2.5) retained 96% of the week two audience. A softer Idol on Thursday (20.32m/5.8) led to another good Bones (10.96m/3.2) outing. And the week finished with Fringe (3.51m/1.2) finding another series low.
CBS - The dark Sunday hit CBS as well, with Amazing Race (8.78m/2.4), Undercover Boss (8.95m/2), and CSI Miami (9.97m/2.2) all down for the week. The struggles continued Monday, where How I Met Your Mother (6.49m/2.5) was at a series low level while Mad Love (5.62m/2) again showed that it’s not long for the Monday block. The news was better later in the night. Mike & Molly (9.98m/2.6) is holding up well without Men, and Hawaii Five-O (11.44m/2.8) took advantage of facing 20/20 instead of Castle. The rest of the week was made up of Survivor (11.02m/3.1) and the Women Of Country (8.48m/1.6) special.
CW - Finally, the little network had a full week of programming. Unfortunately, whether it was spring or the bizarre way the CW chooses to schedule the breaks in shows, almost everything was down. 90210 (1.72m/.8), Gossip Girl (1.43m/.7), One Tree Hill (1.41m/.7), Hellcats (1.19m/.5), Next Top Model (1.58m/.7), Vampire Diaries (2.7m/1.2), Nikita (2.01m/.8), Smallville (2.23m/.9), and Supernatural (1.97m/.9) all could have done better. If there was a silver lining, it was Vampire Diaries moving up to fourth in the demo, ahead of NBC.
CABLE – The big premiere for the week was HBO’s Game of Thrones (2.22m/.9). As I said in the comments for last week’s post, “If your glass is half empty, that’s just over half of what the Boardwalk Empire premiere brought in. If you would prefer your glass half full, it’s also much higher than the series premiere for True Blood, which we know has grown to be HBO’s best series since then.” If not for one little piece of information, there could be all kinds of fun to be had in speculating what that number means. It’s pretty low, after all. But that one little piece of information is that HBO has already renewed the show. So, the numbers aren’t really going to doom anything. It will still be interesting to see where they go from here. If you’re wondering about Sanctuary, the premiere from April 15th scored 1.22m/.4.
Basic:
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Apr 25, 2011 @ 08:00 EST5EDT
Were the Sanctuary numbers good enough, or bad enough, that Syfy immediately moved it to Monday and shipped the new show Urban Legends off to fill the Friday slot, or were those numbers so bad that Friday was the only place Syfy could put it?
According to @Syfy on twitter, they moved Sanctuary to Monday because Being Human did so well there. They are hoping to pick up some new viewers with that time slot.
Odd then that they didn’t put it on at 9:00 in BH’s time slot instead of following the already cancelled SGU.
I wonder would CBS move BBT back to Mondays to replace 2 1/2 and pick the ratings back up for Monday since they’ve been falling