NETWORK UPDATE: Now that the preseason football preemptions have been scrubbed out of the network ratings, we can see that it was an ugly night for ABC, where a 2-hour episode of THE QUEST dropped 0.2 from last week to a horrific 0.3. It was followed by 0.6 for WORLD’S WILDEST COMMERCIALS. The only new show on CBS was BIG BROTHER, which dropped 0.3 but still easily topped the night at 2.0. The back-to-back season finale WELCOME TO SWEDEN episodes on NBC fell sharply by more than half, to 0.4/0.3. On a night like this, FOX and CW may have been better off with reruns, respectively at 0.5/0.6 and 0.2/0.3.
Below are the ratings for the night’s Top 25 cable originals in key demos, along with a few lower-rated shows of interest. If there are any series you’d like added to the latter list, please let us know. Some analysis and context follow the chart.
Real NFL games are still a week away, but COLLEGE FOOTBALL has returned, and ESPN’s game took the night with 0.98. (An NFL preseason game on NFL Network trailed at 0.41.) PROJECT RUNWAY (Lifetime) continued to be strong, up 0.2 from last week to 0.77. BLACK JESUS (Adult Swim), tumbled two-tenths to 0.65. BRAXTON FAMILY VALUES was steady at 0.52. RIDICULOUSNESS (MTV) lost almost a tenth to 0.45. The 2-hour season finale of DEFIANCE (Syfy) was just about equal with last week’s pair at 0.44/0.40. On USA, SATISFACTION and RUSH were also stable at 0.40/0.33. On FX, YOU’RE THE WORST (down 0.03 to 0.28) held up better than MARRIED (down 0.09 to 0.30). On VH1, DATING NAKED was steady at 0.24, CANDIDLY NICOLE fell by 0.07 to 0.12, and LEEANN & EDDIE was down 0.04 to 0.11. GARFUNKEL & OATES (IFC) took an odd leap in Men 50+, which doubled its total viewers while only nudging its 18-49 rating by 0.01. (This kind of surge could merely be the result of a tiny sample size.) THE HONORABLE WOMAN (Sundance) sadly remains the smallest of niche plays, although technically it doubled its 18-49 rating by getting to 0.02.
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