Only one of last week’s premieres held its number.
CW: What does it say about the broadcast season when the only good news on a fall night came from CW? ARROW is looking like a genuine hit with a steady 1.3, beating hapless NBC in the hour (see our not-so-enthusiastic pilot + 1 review here). SUPERNATURAL also held even at 1.0.
ABC: Alas, NASHVILLE collapsed last night, and with it ABC’s hopes for a new fall hit. The soap fell an ugly 0.8 to a very mediocre 2.0, well below the ancient battlehorse CSI in the hour, but at least ahead of NBC. Our still-hopeful pilot + 1 review is here. Prior to that, SUBURGATORY, with the benefit of a far larger lead-in than it had last season, debuted in its new timeslot with an acceptable 2.8, down about 40% from the 4.6 lead-in it had from MODERN FAMILY (itself down 0.2 from last week), and slightly better than Don’t Trust the B— was averaging in that slot last season. The 8PM hour held around even, with THE MIDDLE up 0.1 to 2.5 and THE NEIGHBORS down 0.1 to 1.9 (the latter being kept on life support by NBC’s even worse sitcom numbers).
NBC: Ah well. NBC would like a calendar that only has Sundays and Mondays, but eventually another Wednesday rolls in. ANIMAL PRACTICE at this point is just playing out its string with a terrible 1.0, down 0.1 from last week and less than half of what Up All Night was doing last season in the slot. GUYS WITH KIDS, while a step up from that horror, is still nowhere with 1.4. SVU‘s freefall continues to 1.6, now just 0.4 ahead of what the canceled Harry’s Law was managing last season. CHICAGO FIRE slumped by 0.4 from its premiere to a painful 1.5 (our unimpressed pilot + 1 review is here), putting NBC in its familiar “can’t cancel everything” mode.
CBS: The night’s winner, but none too impressively. SURVIVOR continued to fall, now at 2.7 and half a rating point behind last fall’s cycle. CRIMINAL MINDS was up a tick to 3.1, but that’s still down 0.7 from where it was last season. The unkillable CSI was down 0.2 for the week to 2.4, which was still enough for a solid win in the hour.
FOX: We’ve already detailed the travails of the rain-sodden broadcast partner for Major League Baseball. Its numbers won’t mean much, under the circumstances, and in any case won’t be clear until final ratings are released later today.
There’s supposed to be another baseball game tonight, and FOX will be casting spells to ward off rain. All the other networks have new programming on tap, and CW will particularly be hoping that BEAUTY & THE BEAST can hold its strong premiere rating and give the network two solid nights in a row.
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