The Sked: WEDNESDAY RATINGS January 11

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>ABC won another Wednesday, thanks to a very solid schedule top to bottom.  NBC launched its new Wednesday 8-9 comedy hour to okay results, but remember in week two Whitney and Chelsea will face the venerable American Idol each week. 

             Nightly Adult 18-49 Rating
Wednesday    ABC    CBS    NBC    FOX
01.11.2012   3.2    2.3    1.9    1.1
01.12.2011   3.0    1.5    1.9    0.9

NBC launched its new Wednesday comedy hour last night with Whitney (2.1) and Are You There, Chelsea? (2.3) breaking a 2-rating and coming close to the opening of Up All Night earlier in the year in the time period.  Of course, the most important numbers are around weeks three and four, when ratings settle to sustainable weekly numbers.  Given the pattern of most new comedies, Whitney and Chelsea will probably settle around a 1.7 or 1.8 — remember they will be facing American Idol starting next week.  NBC definitely pulled out all the stops in terms of off-network marketing for the launch of this hour — radio spots for the comedies were all over morning radio in LA (and usually that means also the 40-50% of the country in the largest markets).  (At 7:20 am yesterday morning, I hit the same NBC spot on three different FM stations in a row during a commercial “road block”.)  Harry’s Law did relatively well, tying a season-high 1.4 rating (so don’t get too excited), while SVU was closer to the bottom of its season’s trend.  For the night, NBC finished in third place (1.9 rating from 8-11 pm), up from the 1.6 the night averaged in November and equal to the rating on this night last year (which is not a good comparison because a Presidential speech interrupted one hour of network prime time).         

ABC cruised to a first-place 3.2 rating last night, only one-tenth of a rating point behind last week.  Most of its Wednesday programs were at or near last week’s solid pace, with the key exception of Modern Family (which declined six tenths of a rating point to a still powerful 5.1 rating).   

CBS turned in a second place 2.3 for the night with a repeat Criminal Minds (2.0) and the People’s Choice Awards (2.5) from 9-11 pm.  The awards show was down slightly from a 2.7 last year on Wednesday, January 5, 2010.  

FOX averaged a 1.1 last night with a Mobbed repeat (0.9) and original (1.3).  Of course, the network television world changes next week when American Idol returns January 18 and 19.  

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