>
The last dull night of network TV for 4 weeks.
ABC: With MODERN FAMILY airing a repeat (as well as THE MIDDLE and SUBURGATORY), DON’T TRUST THE B– IN APT 23 crashed to a 2.0 rating. That was a bit higher than Happy Endings had done after Family reruns, but those reruns had rated lower than last night’s 2.2 repeat, so it’s essentially a wash. REVENGE, which one might think would be more of a self-starter because of its serialized nature, also slumped to a series low 2.0.
FOX: Last night there was AMERICAN IDOL, and then there was everything else. Even at a season low 4.6, Idol more than doubled the rating of everything else on network TV except Survivor, and gave the night to FOX in an avalanche.
NBC: When the bright news of your night is that ROCK CENTER increased its rating by 50%… to a 0.9, it must be NBC Wednesday. OFF THEIR ROCKERS, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER (which has in just a few weeks reached the dire, painfully unfunny point of an episode where the central joke is a couple constantly being interrupted when about to have sex) and SVU all tied their lows, with respective 1.6, 0.8 and 1.6 numbers.
CBS: Only SURVIVOR was new, and even with a new low 2.6 (at least in preliminary numbers), it had the 2d best number of the night. CRIMINAL MINDS and CSI were both in the range of recent reruns.
CW: THE LA COMPLEX got the extra eyeballs it wanted with a rerun of the series pilot–it scored the same 0.3 as the actual premiere, and even slightly higher with older “total viewer” audiences. We’ll see next week if any of that translates into a better rating on Tuesday. AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL was down slightly from last week.
New episodes! Of everything! May Sweeps begins tonight, with all the networks operating in full gear. The major event is 30 ROCK‘s 2d live episode–the show’s first live effort was a marvel of cleverness and ingenuity, and NBC will hope it can kick-start the series’ moribund ratings.
About the Author
More articles by Mitch Salem »
