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 »

The World Series was the big ratings winner last week, but with New York involved, everyone kind of expected that, right? What nobody expected — most notably ABC — was the success of the V premiere. The numbers weren’t just good. It was the highest rated scripted program on the network, topping the Housewives and Grey’s. Even better, the V demo rating was the highest for a scripted show on any of the networks.  Someone at ABC has to be kicking themselves for only ordering four episodes of V, while they continue to crank out more Hanks than they know what to do with. Read the rest of this entry »

Elizabeth Gendler, today’s Guest-clacker, is another aspiring writer who came to LA from the Midwest after college. She’s worked as an intern, script reader, secretary, and shipping clerk (most of it even for pay!). Not having done much in the way of blogging before, she’s excited to be using her compulsive TV-watching for good rather than evil.

Probably the most interesting thing about Glee is that it’s already done so much better with the audience than anything else centered around music. As some of us are lucky — or maybe unlucky — enough to know, that pretty much consists of Cop Rock and Viva Laughlin (If you don’t know either of those shows, well, that’s my point.)

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It’s another slow week for the big network series releases, but that just might be a good thing. There are season releases from Bones, Medium, and Nip/Tuck. If none of those are on your radar though, there might be enough left in the DVD buying budget to take a look at a couple of Complete Series collections. After years of battling over music clearance, you can now watch every last episode of Ally McBeal, any time you want. Ally and the gang are joined in the Complete Series world by the new Stargate Atlantis collection. Other highlights this week include the new Red Dwarf, Get Smart, Mary Tyler Moore, and Masterpiece Theatre. The complete list is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

ABC

It’s sweeps time, everybody! You know what that means – people are going to break up, people are going to die, and there’s going to be a whole lot of stunt casting. It usually also means we get some great episodes of our favorite shows. There is something distinctly different about this season, however… at least for me. I’m just not that excited, and I think I’ve pegged the reason why. The best TV is still yet to come. I think the mid-season shows may be even better than what we have seen so far this year. Some of my favorite shows haven’t even premiered yet, and none of the new shows have blown me out of the water.

Join me as I run down all the mid-season shows that have me more excited than the sweeps.

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Wikimedia

With its “Weekly Casting Roundup,” CliqueClack brings you a summary of the TV casting news released throughout the week, be it the addition of a series regular, a new recurring cast member, a guest star, or even someone making a cameo.

Be warned, the casting news after the jump may contain slight spoilers about the roles the actors will play.

This week, we have casting news for the following TV series: 30 Rock, Dirty Sexy Money, Grey’s Anatomy, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, NCIS, Nip/Tuck, Private Practice and Privileged. Read the rest of this entry »