quote:

Yet more crime-fighting, this time by a team of wacky mutants with powerfully stupid abilities. For example:

One guy is seven feet tall. That isn't his power, but it is cooler than his actual power, which is the ability to become seven inches tall.

One guy has the ability to channel electricity after an accident with some guitar amplifiers. But water causes him to short circuit.

One guy's power was-we're not kidding here-being very cold. This sounds great, except that he would melt and die if it got too warm out. He-and again, we're not fucking kidding here-spent most of his time in an ice cream truck.

One girl's power was being a young Courtney Cox, which wasn't terribly useful at the time, but opened up a lot of doors for her in later years.

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Prime-Time Metered Market Monday Ratings:
ABC Dances to Victory; Steep Year-to-Year Network Losses

Monday 3/17/08

Household Rating/Share
ABC: 9.4/15, CBS: 6.8/11, NBC: 5.1/ 8, Fox: 4.4/ 7, CW: 1.1/ 2

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-Percent Change From the Year-Ago Evening (Monday, March 18, 2007)
CBS: -17 each, ABC: -21, NBC: -28, Fox: -32, CW: -42

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Note: The fast affiliate results for Monday will be posted at PIFeedback by 12 p.m. ET. Go to the website, click on Ratings Box (the first category), then Last Night’s Results, and Monday, March 17, 2008.

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-Yesterday’s Winners:
Dancing with the Stars (ABC), Two and a Half Men (CBS), The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS)

-Yesterday’s Losers (Excluding Repeats):
My Dad is Better Than Your Dad (CBS), Canterbury’s Law (Fox), Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious (CW), The Bachelor (ABC)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
Considering that the majority of last night’s programming was original (new episodes of CBS’ two-hour comedy block returned; ABC kicked-off new seasons of Dancing with the Stars and The Bachelor), the double-digit year-to-year network losses are concerning. Did the recent writers strike cause permanent damage?

The sixth-season premiere of Dancing with the Stars (time flies!) led ABC to overnight Monday victory, with a 38 percent advantage over second-place CBS. Next was NBC, followed by Fox and lowly the CW. A 90-minute edition of Dancing with the Stars was well above any other show on the evening, with an average 13.4 rating/21 share in the overnights from 8-9:30 p.m. Here is the half-hour breakdown:

Dancing With the Stars (ABC)
8:00 p.m. 12.9/21
8:30 p.m. 13.9/21
9:00 p.m. 13.5/20

Comparatively, season four of Dancing with the Stars opened with a 15.1/22 on the year-ago evening. Do the math and this is a loss of 11 percent -- no cause for any concern. My pick for the first male contestant to depart: Penn Gillette.

The news was disappointing on CBS, meanwhile, with the return of laugh-out-loud The Big Bang Theory at a distant second-place 5.4/ 9 in its new 8 p.m. home. If you are not watching The Big Bang Theory you are missing the funniest new sitcom in years. Emmy voters, have you noticed Jim Parsons?

The Big Bang Theory led into the relocated How I Met Your Mother, with a 5.7/ 9 in the overnights at 8:30 p.m. Next in the 8 p.m. hour was week two of Fox’s Canterbury’s Law (4.0/ 6), followed by NBC’s non-scripted My Dad is Better Than Your Dad (series low 2.7/ 4), and a repeat of the CW’s Gossip Girl (1.0/ 2). Comparably, Canterbury’s Law dropped by a hefty 32 percent from it’s week-ago launch (5.9/ 7 in the overnights on March 10). Ouch!

CBS’ Two and a Half Men held up well opposite the final half-hour of Dancing with the Stars, with a solid 8.7/13 in the overnights at 9 p.m. Comparably, that built by 53 percent from lead-in How I Met Your Mother. Good episode, Jon Cryer! Minus Dancing With the Stars in the competitive mix, lead-out The New Adventures of Old Christine won the 9:30 p.m. time period, with a 7.7/12. That put retention out of Two and a Half Men of a solid 89 percent.

Also airing from 9-10 p.m. was NBC’s Deal or No Deal (5.8/ 9 -- 115 percent above lead-in My Dad is Better Than Your Dad), Fox’s New Amsterdam (4.8/ 8), and the CW’s Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious (1.2/ 2). Worth noting for New Amsterdam was growth of 20 percent out of Canterbury’s Law.

Over at ABC, a new season of The Bachelor (will this nonsense ever end?) opened with a 5.4/ 8 from 9:30-11 p.m. Here is the half-hour breakdown:

The Bachelor (ABC)
9:30 p.m. 6.2/ 9 (#3)
10:00 p.m. 5.1/ 8 (#3)
10:30 p.m. 4.8/ 8 (#3)

Retention for The Bachelor out of the last half-hour of lead-in Dancing with the Stars (13.5/20) was just 40 percent. While I understand that the strength of The Bachelor falls within the female demographics, based on the overnights this is clearly a “loser.”

Tied for first in the 10 p.m. hour was NBC’s Medium and a repeat of CBS’ CSI: Miami at a 6.7/11 each.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

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Originally posted by Chimera:
DWTS did about where I expected it to be, and after the slew of clutsy guys last night, I'm actually surprised it held up this well. Tonight's 1-hr head-to-head with American Idol should be very interesting.

The british Bachelor is a dork. Granted, I'm a guy, but there's nothing remotely remarkable about this guy other than his british accent. The producers are doing their best to kill this franchise, which frankly deserves to be killed after those numbers. This is proof that Private Practice would be a much better 10pm show following Dancing than this mess. And actually, the much fresher Here Come the Newlyweds would be a better choice as well.

Start Here

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Originally posted by Zedman2:

quote:

Originally posted by Chimera:
DWTS did about where I expected it to be, and after the slew of clutsy guys last night, I'm actually surprised it held up this well. Tonight's 1-hr head-to-head with American Idol should be very interesting.

The british Bachelor is a dork. Granted, I'm a guy, but there's nothing remotely remarkable about this guy other than his british accent. The producers are doing their best to kill this franchise, which frankly deserves to be killed after those numbers. This is proof that Private Practice would be a much better 10pm show following Dancing than this mess. And actually, the much fresher Here Come the Newlyweds would be a better choice as well.

This is exactly were ABC has steered wrong since moving DWTS to Monday's. ABC should have tried to find a non-reality show to work with DWTS rather than continually teaming it with The Bachelor. The way the shows are scheduled now, ABC has 2.5 to 3 hours of programming to replace on Monday's once the current edition ends (this is felt between Nov-March for the past two seasons). If they were able to launch WMC, Private Practice, or any non-reality show out of DWTS they would have less gaps to fill. And if The Bachelor is that strong in the demo, it could be used between DWTS cycles instead.

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In Total Agreement Zedman! Both Private Practice and Women's Murder Club would be much better choices for the 10pm slot, and as you pointed out, they wouldn't need to find 3 hours of replacement programming for the 4 months of Dec - Mar that both DWTS and The Bachelor are out. I agree, at best, The Bachelor should be de-coupled from DWTS and slotted in Winter when DWTS is off, or moved to a different night where its moderate numbers would actually help the network.

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Comparatively, season four of Dancing with the Stars opened with a 15.1/22 on the year-ago evening. Do the math and this is a loss of 11 percent -- no cause for any concern. My pick for the first male contestant to depart: Penn Gillette.

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Originally posted by robert:
CBS is managing to ruin their only new show that used to do good: BBT.

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Originally posted by raes:
Audiences can't stand defense attorneys. Fox keeps greenlighting shows about them. Justice last season, Canterbury' Law this season. CBS learned years ago to concentrate on district attorneys.

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Originally posted by robert:
ABC is poised to cancel WMC, no doubt about that