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Silent Night = America’s TV sets during holiday season…
FOX: Reality competition shows are supposed to build as contestants are eliminated and the show nears its conclusion. THE X FACTOR, though, has been steadily slipping, and as it heads into its final week, it’s now shed 35% of its early ratings. The show is still a success for FOX, but like Dancing With the Stars and The Biggest Loser this season, it may reflect an audience that’s getting a bit tired of the genre. BONES was a repeat.
CBS: PERSON OF INTEREST took some advantage of the fact that for the first time, it didn’t air against any regular competition, with reruns on NBC and FOX, and a weak special on ABC–not that it zoomed upward last night, but holding steady from the prior week and a couple of ticks above a low looks like a win at this point. THE MENTALIST technically faced a new competitor on NBC, but that was a straw foe, and it also held even with last week. A repeat BIG BANG THEORY at 8PM held down RULES OF ENGAGEMENT at 8:30.
ABC: A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS was down 10% from last year, and there was coal in the stocking for Katie Couric, whose Year In Review special could only muster a 1.5.
NBC: Repeats at 8-10PM, with all ratings below a 1 except THE OFFICE‘s 1.1, set things up for a terrible PRIME SUSPECT result, and the show delivered: even with a new episode, it barely breathed a 0.8 on its way to the Island of Misfit Television Shows.
CW: Repeat after me: Repeats!
Tonight, NBC airs new episodes of CHUCK and GRIMM, and ABC is also all-new. FOX goes the holiday special route, with yet more Charlie Brown plus ICE AGE and SIMPSONS repeats, and CBS is in rerun mode.
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