After the dramatic entrance of V last week, there were no similar big splash stories to lead things off this week. Then, as I was perusing the year-ago numbers, something occurred to me. It’s quite possible that FOX could improve both Monday and Thursday at 9:00 if they swapped Fringe and Lie To Me. If you look back to the initial Fringe run, it had a lot of success following House. In fact, while the House numbers are virtually unchanged from Tuesday to Monday, Fringe was holding much more of the House audience on Tuesday than Lie To Me currently is on Monday.

Example:
11/18/08: House (13.03m/5.5), Fringe (9.36m/4.2)
11/09/09: House (13.31m/5.3), Lie To Me (7.41m/3)

And that was against very similar competition. Both faced DWTS on ABC, which was pretty much a wash. NBC was greatly improved against Fringe with Biggest Loser (7.84m/3.3), as opposed to Trauma (5.35m/1.8). And CBS was mixed, with The Mentalist (15.83m/3.5) trailing the Men/Big Bang hour (13.62m/4.6) in the demo.

Now we look at where we are this season. Fringe did manage something of a rebound this week, finishing with (5.91m/2.2) on Thursday. That’s still a distant fourth place, and should find the show on the hot seat at the end of the season. It would, obviously, do better on Monday following House. The question is, would it do better than the (7.41m/3) that Lie To Me is currently offering? I think it would.

On the other side of that coin, while I’m not quite as confident about the move of Lie To Me to Thursday, I do still see the potential for it to outperform the current Fringe numbers. That bar has been set, after all, rather low. It would likely take a  hit in the move, but the end result would be that Thursday at 9:00 is stronger as well. Just something to think about. The usual numbers junk is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Oxygen

8:00p/7:00 Central

• While ABC Family deals with Johnny’s accident on Lincoln Heights, Dr. House and team tackle a man with accidental blackouts and time lapses over on FOX. Meanwhile, is Cuddy ready to adopt?
• Over on CBS, a killer plays a game of cyber cat and mouse on NCIS, because killers always think that makes them look cool. Alternately, Rita demands respect of her own on Lifetime’s Rita Rocks when she starts to feel her kids are taking her for granted. That one’s on at 8:30p/7:30 Central.
• It was only a matter of time, but it looks like our first 90210 kid is checking into rehab on The CW tonight. Also, Ryan learns more about Kimberly than he could have ever suspected.
• One of the contestants sets a new record on The Biggest Loser on NBC at the weigh in. Nessa and Smithy see the first scans of their baby, while Stacey is less than thrilled with Essex life on BBC America’s Gavin & Stacey at 8:40p/7:40 Central.

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