UPDATE: Per expectations, the WINTER OLYMPICS adjusted to a 5.6 rating on Monday (Nielsen is still behind, recovering from the horror of dealing with a regular national holiday). ALMOST HUMAN gained 0.1 to hit 1.7, tying the much more high-profile THE FOLLOWING (which for its part seems hell-bent on topping its own idiocy with each new episode–and so far, it’s succeeding).
MONDAY CABLE: With no LOVE & HIP-HOP airing, WWE (USA) took the cable lead at 1.3-1.4 over its 3 hours, which was still down 0.2 from last week. VH1 was left with BASKETBALL WIVES and SINGLE LADIES, both at 1.0 (LADIES was down 0.2). SWAMP PEOPLE (History) dropped for the second week in a row, down 0.2 to 0.9. TEEN WOLF (MTV) stayed at 0.9. On ABCFamily, SWITCHED AT BIRTH and THE FOSTERS continued sliding, down 0.1 each to 0.7/0.6. (Those shows, however, like TEEN WOLF, overperform with their target younger demos.)
The 2d Monday of the Olympics trampled on the competition again, but not much worse than it had last week. It also did its job in launching The Tonight Show with new host Jimmy Fallon.
NBC: See Mitch Metcalf’s Skedball post for detailed WINTER OLYMPICS ratings analysis and charts. Last night’s edition rose 0.6 from Sunday, and because the 2d Monday of Vancouver’s games were its second-lowest, that allowed the network to claim a win vs the parallel evening. However, Monday’s number was a big 1.2 behind Turin, and Sochi is 0.3 behind the last European games as a whole. In late night, THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON launched with a 3.8 rating in 18-49s and had 11.3M total viewers. Those are huge numbers, of course, but late-night programming is susceptible to “event” stunting, and that was especially true last night where NBC Olympics coverage dominated primetime. (In addition, the Tonight Show started at midnight rather than its usual 11:35PM.) Relying on these numbers for very much is foolhardy–naturally Fallon swamped Letterman and Kimmel last night–but it appears that Fallon is, in the very short-term, drawing a younger crowd than Leno, as the total viewer rating last night was below Leno’s final show (14.6M), but the 18-49 rating tied Leno’s finale. However, that 18-49 figure was below the 4.4 for Conan O’Brien’s final Tonight Show.
FOX: Both ALMOST HUMAN (1.6) and THE FOLLOWING (1.7) matched last week’s ratings, although since both were series lows, that’s not much to boast about.
ABC: THE BACHELOR slipped 0.1 from last week to tie its series low 2.2. CASTLE, which didn’t air last week, was down 0.4 from its last new episode to tie its series low 1.7.
CBS: INTELLIGENCE dropped 0.1 from last week to 1.2, following a quartet of sitcom reruns highlighted by 1.4 for HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.
CW: It was an odd decision to premiere STAR-CROSSED against the Olympics, and it didn’t pay off, as the show launched with a weak 0.4, just barely higher than Hart of Dixie‘s rating last week. BEAUTY & THE BEAST got no lift from the new lead-in, staying at 0.3.
FOX is tripling down on AMERICAN IDOL this week, with a special Tuesday installment airing tonight. The only other fresh programming airing against the Winter Games is a burn-off episode of KILLER WOMEN on ABC.
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