-Yesterday’s Losers (excluding repeats): ‘Til Death (Fox), Celebrity Duets (Fox), Six Degrees (ABC)
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-Ratings Breakdown: In a major turn of events, regularly scheduled programming on ABC and CBS shared Thursday leadership, with ABC first in the overnights and adults 18-49, and CBS No. 1 in total viewers. NBC remained in the distant third-place spot, followed by a night of lackluster season-premieres on the CW and Fox’s dead-in-the-water ‘Til Death and Celebrity Duets.
Beginning with the show everyone was talking about, let’s just say the results for ABC’s Ugly Betty were anything but ugly. The critically acclaimed one-hour comedy roared out of the gate with a 12.2/19 in the overnights (#1), 16.09 million viewers (#2) and a 4.9/14 among adults 18-49 (#2) at 8 p.m. Comparatively, that was an improvement over the year-ago season-premiere of former occupant Alias (Overnights: 6.4/10; Viewers: 8.21 million; A18-49: 2.5/ 7 on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005) of a whopping 91 percent in the overnights, 7.88 million viewers and 96 percent among adults 18-49. Survivor: Cook Islands, meanwhile, was down but not out with a 9.6/15 in the overnights (#2), 16.60 million viewers (#1) and a 5.8/16 among adults 18-49 (#1). While that is still worthy of a winner’s listing, am I the only one who feels ripped off that Survivor merged the teams already? (www.pifeedback.com).
As a reminder, total viewers and adults 18-49 from last night are based on the fast nationals. Any prior results are based on the final nationals.
The arrival of Ugly Betty also had a detrimental effect on NBC’s My Name Is Earl (Overnights: 5.6/ 9; Viewers: 8.25 million; A18-49: 3.4/10) and The Office (Overnights: 5.3/ 8; Viewers: 7.68 million; A18-49: 3.7/10), which fell into a deeper No. 3.
Also at 8 p.m. was the season-premiere of the CW’s Smallville (Overnights: #4, 3.8/ 6; Viewers: #5, 5.04 million; A18-49: #5, 2.2/ 6), followed by two episodes (original and repeat) of Fox sitcom ‘Til Death (8 p.m. - Overnights: #4, 3.7/ 6; Viewers: #4, 5.75 million; A18-49: #4, 2.4/ 7 // 8:30 p.m. – Overnights: #5, 3.4/ 5; Viewers: #4, 5.44 million; A18-49: #4t, 2.3/ 6). Like the CW’s 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls, Smallville was down from its year-ago season-premiere on the WB (Overnights: 4.4/ 7; Viewers: 5.90 million; A18-49: 2.6/ 7 on Sept. 29, 2005).
At 9 p.m., the winning ratings ball was shared between ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and old CBS faithful CSI. Grey’s Anatomy scored a 16.1/24 in the overnights (#1), 23.31 million viewers (#2) and a 9.4/22 among adults 18-49 (#1). CSI averaged a 15.3/22 in the overnights (#2), 23.49 million viewers (#1) and a 7.9/19 among adults 18-49 (#2). Although the lead-in support from Survivor decreased last night, CSI is back in action.
In search of the leftovers on NBC was Deal or No Deal at a distant third-place 5.8/ 8 in the overnights, 9.31 million viewers and a 3.2/ 8 among adults 18-49. Although the second-season premiere of the CW’s Supernatural also came down quite a bit from one year earlier, retention out of lead-in Smallville of 79 percent in the overnights, 76 percent in total viewers and 73 percent among adults 18-49 was not too bad given that the competition was Grey’s Anatomy and CSI. Take a look:
Also at 9 p.m. was Fox’s Celebrity Duets at a 2.7/ 4 in the overnights (#5), 4.02 million viewers (#4) and a 1.5/ 4 among adults 18-49 (#5).
In week two 10 p.m. news CBS’ Shark held up, beating NBC’s competing ER in total viewers, while ABC’s Six Degrees took a considerable tumble. Take a look:
-Shark (CBS) Overnights: 10.9/17 to 10.2/17 (- 6 percent) Total Viewers: 15.26 to 14.18 million (-1.08 million) Adults 18-49: 4.4/11 to 3.9/11 (-11)
-Six Degrees (ABC) Overnights: 8.7/13 to 6.4/11 (-26) Total Viewers: 12.61 to 9.00 million (-3.61 million) Adults 18-49: 5.1/13 to 3.6/10 (-29)
And here is the retention percentage for Shark out of CSI and Six Degrees out of Grey’s Anatomy. Although Shark could be better, Six Degrees is considerable worse.
Shark out of CSI: Overnights: 74 percent, Viewers: 63, A18-49: 53
Six Degrees out of Grey’s Anatomy: Overnights: 54 percent, Viewers: 46, A18-49: 47
I would say Six Degrees is a loser, wouldn’t you? (www.pifeedback.com).
NBC’s ER capped off the 10 p.m. hour at a 10.6/17 in the overnights (#1), 14.27 million viewers (#2) and a 6.1/16 among adults 18-49 (#1), building from the second half hour of lead-in Deal or No Deal (Overnights: 6.1/ 9; Viewers: 9.87 million; A18-49: 3.4/ 8 at 9:30 p.m.) by 74 percent in the overnights, 4.40 million viewers and 79 percent among adults 18-49. That’s still worthy of a winner’s listing, don’t you think? (www.pifeedback.com).
Cross-posting from the other Thursday thread (which can be deleted?)
Marc, in your analysis, you mentioned the softer starts for CW series compared to last fall. While there's the issue of people needing to be educated on where to find these shows, isn't there also the issue of strong competition? You Supernatural series premiere numbers from last season are from early in September (after Gilmore Girls, right?) Wouldn't there be less competition for both shows at that pre-season date?
Posts: 4459 | Location: Los Angeles | Registered: 21 September 2006
Yes, Travis, that's true. Both faced less competition. But the bigger issue (based on a lot of posts) is that viewers still don't know where to find these shows.
So, if that's the case, do you think that Top Model's numbers were also suppressed by the "we don't know where to find the show" issue? That, perhaps, the numbers would've been higher for that as well (even though its launch was certainly successful compared to the other launches thus far).
Posts: 4459 | Location: Los Angeles | Registered: 21 September 2006
We should consider that the last Smallville season finale drew just an audience of 4,85 million viewers so we had an improvement of 200.000 viewers over the last episode. As a matter of fact Supernatural was down by nearly 200.000 viewers compared to its 1st season finale (4 million viewers) but this shoul be a result of the strong competition
Yes, Travis. Top Model could have ultimately been higher. And I agree with with you also Starbase. Considering the competition, Smallville and Supernatural were fine.
BTW, could it be that the rerun of Grey's Anatomy on Friday harms the ratings on Thursday because many people say: "Let's watch CSI instead because we can catch the rerun of the new Grey`s episode tomorrow night."
Stop The Presses!! CW beats Fox in last night ratings. Say it ain't so?? You know what, the programs on Fox Thursday night sucked. CW deserved to win over Fox.
If Fox was wise they would ship Til Death to Sundays, cancel Happy Hour and give the OC its 8pm thursday slot back. This would help keep the OC from getting completely dominated. Then the network could use a cheap reality show or repeats of other shows in the 9pm hour. Give up on Thursdays already Fox.
While The OC truly lost it's way last season, I still find it to be the best of the teen-oriented television shows, and I hope it goes out on a strong note. I still think FOX is being stingy in only ordering 16 episodes, too.
Posts: 7 | Location: Seattle, WA | Registered: 19 September 2006
The OC gets Josh Schwartz back this season as head writer. This should help the series at least creatively. I think that the 8pm hour would also help the OC ratings wise too.
I'm confused... I know that a good portion of the people here liked Ugly Betty but I'm really surprised at how many viewers tuned in versus Survivor and the season premiere of Smallville.
I got to hand it to Mr. Berman's 14-million viewer prediction - I thought he was way overestimating the number but as a result, he underestimated it!
Anyone, especially Marc, I must ask you: I've read so many top-notch reviews of primetime shows in past seasons but most of these shows attracted far from a huge audience. What was different here? What were the factors for this particular show to get such a huge audience this past Thursday? I have to admit - outside of this forum and Mediaweek, I hadn't heard much about this show.
I'm not hating on the show - I give my props to ABC and to where they've come since the post-Millionaire days. If it continues to be a hit, it'll be the most-watched scripted ABC series in the Thursday 8pm timeslot, by far, since Mork & Mindy.
