>
AKA the season’s final pre-American Idol Wednesday.
NBC: In the absence of the 600-pound gorilla that’s arriving in a week, the new 8-9PM hour did respectably. WHITNEY‘s 2.1 was slightly higher than where Up All Night had settled in last fall, and ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA built a bit on that to a 2.3, which is more than anything else at 8:30PM has been able to do for the network all season. On a night when 3 networks were in repeats, that was good enough for 2d place in the hour. However, as Mitch Metcalf notes, that’s partly because NBC spent a lot of money and effort marketing the shows. And did we mention American Idol arrives next week? HARRY’S LAW was up fractionally, while SVU couldn’t capitalize much on the absence of CSI in its hour, up only 0.1 from its season low. (And apart from Idol, next week features the start of Marg Helgenberger’s departure from CSI, which can be expected to stunt that show’s ratings.)ABC: An easy night-long win. Everything was stable except MODERN FAMILY, which was down a not-insubstantial half a ratings point… but if you’re Modern Family, you can afford to go down half a point. Notably, even with presumably more female-skewing competition on CBS than usual, REVENGE still won its hour.
CBS: The PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS were down 0.2 from last year, still enough for 2d place over its 2 hours.
FOX: Basically bowed out for the night, with repeat and new episodes of MOBBED that didn’t top a 1.3.
CW: ONE TREE HILL‘s 0.9 season premere was excellent by CW standards.
Plenty of activity tonight, as NBC launches its midseason Thursday with the season premiere of 30 ROCK, and time-slot premieres of UP ALL NIGHT and THE FIRM. FOX also kicks off the short run of THE FINDER to cover Emily Deschanel’s pregnancy, which curtailed this season’s order of BONES, and CBS debuts the Rob Schneider comedy ROB after Big Bang Theory.
About the Author
More articles by Mitch Salem »
