AFTERNOON UPDATE: MODERN FAMILY and ARROW both rose 0.1 in final numbers, particularly good news for ARROW, now at 1.2. Their respective teammates, however, fell by the same amount, as both SUPER FUN NIGHT and THE TOMORROW PEOPLE slipped 0.1.
WEDNESDAY CABLE: Frank Darabont won’t be duplicating his THE WALKING DEAD success with MOB CITY (TNT). The heavily-hyped limited series debuted with a very sluggish 2.3M total viewers and 0.6 in 18-49s–by way of comparison, that was equal to the demo number and 1M below the viewer number of the premiere of the canceled KING & MAXWELL. A regular series order looks doubtful at this point. The cable winner of the night was AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN (FX) with a 2.2 demo rating, followed by SOUTH PARK (Comedy) at 1.4, and then both AMERICAN PICKERS (History) and KEY & PEELE (Comedy) at 0.9.
It was a very merry Wednesday for NBC.
NBC: The year’s CHRISTMAS IN ROCKEFELLER CENTER was up 0.2 from the last installment to 2.3, and then a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE CHRISTMAS clip-show special scored a very healthy 2.6, up a full point from last week’s SNL Thanksgiving special.
CBS: With two weeks left in the current cycle, SURVIVOR leaped 0.4 to 2.6. The rest of the night was reruns, although 1.7/1.4 wasn’t at all bad for retreads of CRIMINAL MINDS and CSI.
ABC: It’s not yet time to panic about MODERN FAMILY, but ABC can’t be happy that its critically important sitcom fell 0.3 from its last original episode to a season low 3.1–just barely above the 2.9 that a rerun of the show rated in the same slot a year ago. The rest of the night was ugly as well, with new or tied lows for THE MIDDLE (down 0.4 to 1.9), BACK IN THE GAME (down 0.2 to 1.4) and SUPER FUN NIGHT (down 0.1 to 1.7). NASHVILLE looked comparatively good by holding even at 1.6.
FOX: THE X FACTOR was up 0.2 from last week, but considering that the comparison was to the night before Thanksgiving and it was still just at 1.4 (half the rating for the parallel night last year)–there wasn’t much to celebrate.
CW: ARROW began its fall finale 2-parter by introducing The Flash, and rose 0.1 to 1.1. THE TOMORROW PEOPLE was also up 0.1 to 0.7.
There’s no mistaking tonight’s big network event: NBC’s audacious live telecast of THE SOUND OF MUSIC starring that noted non-thespian Carrie Underwood. The decks are full on all the other networks with fresh episodes to compete with it.
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