… and hates Marco White, apparently.

It was a strange week on television. The calendar keeps insisting we are in a sweeps period, but the networks are dropping repeats all over the schedule. Even Lost, which ABC promised would run uninterrupted, went the repeat route. There were still some big events. As usual, Idol dominated, but ABC made some noise of their own with the return of Dancing With The Stars, spinning the loss of Jewel and Nancy O’Dell into ratings gold by signing up jilted bachelorette Melissa Rycroft. At the other extreme we found NBC’s latest disaster, The Chopping Block. There were also interesting numbers, good and bad,  for Chuck, Heroes, Castle, Kath & Kim,  CSI: Miami, Lie To Me, Next Top Model, and Dollhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

It certainly worked for CSI this week. And, really, considering the way the Fox Friday is hemorrhaging viewers, I don’t think they should rule anything out. Once again, both Terminator and Dollhouse were down. They shared bad news with Chuck, Heroes, and Life On Mars. Reaper, Lie To Me, and Jesse Stone found themselves somewhere in the middle. Good news this week went out to Brothers & Sisters, The Bachelor, and CSI. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a bit of a strange week for ratings. The Academy Awards (36.31m/12) sent most of the Sunday lineup into repeats. And the Obama address to Congress mixed things up on Tuesday, shifting Idol to Wednesday and Thursday. That, of course, had a ripple effect throughout the ratings. Elsewhere, the new FOX Friday suffered another drop that now calls into question whether or not we will even see the final episodes of Terminator:TSCC. Read the rest of this entry »

(1/19 – 1/26)

The subject of the Friday night death slot comes up fairly regularly around here. Moreso recently, what with the Terminator/Dollhouse debut right around the corner. I’m not one to argue in the face of so much damning evidence, but I do think there is a plucky young upstart with eyes on the crown. Life On Mars made it’s debut following Lost this week, and it just wasn’t good. Barring some drastic change in the numbers, or an odd act of kindness from the network, it’s looking like the island is ready to take its next victim. Elsewhere this week, Idol continued to roll, NCIS & CSI scored big, and The Bachelor was up, again. Read the rest of this entry »

This may seem like piling-on after yesterday’s brilliant Grinch/Zucker ditty by CliqueClack’s own Richard Keller, but what the hell happened to NBC? The once imposing network — home to such television icons as the Cartwrights and Johnny Carson — has plummeted into a chasm of mediocrity. A perennial ratings powerhouse during the ’80s and ’90s, the 21^st century has seen NBC flounder like week-old sea bass at the bottom of the Nielsen Media Research barrel.

Allow me a moment’s diversion: Has anyone ever met a man, woman or child who belonged to the elusive “Nielsen Family?” I’m aware these chosen few are sworn to secrecy — under threat of execution by firing squad — never to divulge their Nielsen status, but I smell an American Idol-sized rat. I am convinced this so-called Nielsen is actually an introverted genius with Coke-bottle-thick glasses and severe hyperhidrosis, who works out of a windowless room feeding advanced algorithms into a holographic supercomputer. But that’s just my warped opinion. I could be wrong.

Anyway, among the big four networks, NBC consistently places third or fourth in the weekly ratings race. Is this a prolonged slump or has the peacock lost its broadcasting mojo?

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