Ratings Clack – Should FOX switch Fringe and Lie To Me?
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 »
Ratings Clack – The Mentalist knocks off CSI
A combination of baseball and pre-sweeps repeats made for a bit of an odd week. Repeats don’t mean there aren’t numbers of note however. We had Jay Leno’s first shot against CSI: Miami and NY repeats, and a look at what running repeats on Friday does for FOX. That is, nothing good for Dollhouse season 3. Also interesting this week — The Mentalist finally topped CSI in viewers and the demo, and even a repeat Gibbs appearance is worth 16 million viewers. Read the rest of this entry »
Ratings Clack – Favre and Baseball create havoc
It was a strange week for ratings. Brett Favre playing against Green Bay made for a huge Monday Night Football (21.84m/9) audience on ESPN. And then the baseball playoffs ran through the rest of the week, calling a lot of the seemingly odd drops in viewers into question. Despite that increased competition, there was some good news to be had. The Biggest Loser, Bones, The Office, Lie To Me, Castle, and The Simpsons all managed to make gains week-to-week. Dollhouse also got in the game, stopping a four episode streak of series lows. On the other side, it’s starting to look like ER took all of it’s viewers with it when it left. The premiere numbers for Three Rivers were not good, and NBC’s dueling medical dramas continue to struggle. Read the rest of this entry »
TV on DVD for October 6th
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 »
Ratings Clack – Is Dollhouse about to get pulled?
Week two of the full-tilt-boogie season brought with it some interesting things, including premieres for Animation Domination, The Amazing Race, Trauma, Hank, and The Middle. We also saw more huge numbers from House, NCIS, and Grey’s. But after all of that, the most interesting story again comes from the show with the worst ratings on all of the big four networks, Dollhouse. After season two premiered to a series low last week, things got even worse. Episode two just barely cleared the 2 million viewer bar, while falling below a 1 in the demo. Reached for comment, my BFF Jill said, “OMG! RLY!?”
Yes, really. The situation is dire. Even the hardcore Whedonites are now at DEFCON 1. Someone has got word that the show could be in danger of being pulled from the air. I don’t know anything more than they do about that, but I would expect it to get one more shot this Friday, before baseball takes over. If episode three doesn’t show some sort of improvement though, I wouldn’t be surprised if baseball makes way for a series of House and Bones repeats on Fridays at 9. Read the rest of this entry »
Redemption-rooting for dirty rags on television
Long-time commenter bsgfan2003 (or Rosie, if you prefer) is guest clacking today. She’s a stay at home mom of three who loves two things dearly: 1) children 2) when people respond to her first post, so she doesn’t have to take off a finger in a ritual shame ceremony.
Keith threw down the gauntlet. CliqueClack is the no-boundaries wonderland. And so I board. Choo Choo! (I hope I did not rip that off from someone else!)
I’m probably classified as a conservative woman, who bleeds Catholic. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s God, Country, and Notre Dame for me.
So while I strive to be good, I know wholeheartedly that my goodness is as dirty rags. So, as I examine my soiled linen — figurative and literal (I have three kids, you know) — I came to the conclusion that I root for the redemption of Dirty Rags on television. I have lots of “Dirties;” my favorites have been Battlestar Galactica’s Gaius Baltar (Space Dirty), Deadwood’s Al Swearengen (Wild West Dirty), Dallas’s J.R. Ewing (Old Skool Oil Man Dirty) and Entourage’s Ari Gold (Hollywood Dirty).
The Week Ahead – The Tony Awards and the end of the world
The summer season is getting under way now. Here’s a handy guide of what’s to come:
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
- It hasn’t even debuted yet and I’m already annoyed with NBC’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. I say get them all out of there, and off my screen before the two-hour premiere. (Mon. 8pm)
- But if you can’t get enough of Heidi Montag and Spender Pratt, you can flip over to MTV and see “Speidi’s Wedding Unveiled” in a special presentation of The Hills. (Mon. 11pm)
- Scare tactics are alive and well on ABC’s Earth 2100, which takes a speculative look at how we might just wipe ourselves out in the next 100 years. It WILL happen. Bob Woodruff says so. (Tue. 9pm)
- The following night NBC takes us into the Presidency with Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports. I wonder if he’ll ask how we’re going to avert oblivion in the next century. (Wed. 9pm)
- Just in time for Land of the Lost, find out how Will Ferrell would really fare in the wild as he takes it on with Bear Grylls in a special Man vs. Wild on Discovery (Tue. 10pm)
- The NBA Finals kick off with a Jimmy Kimmel special on ABC before the Orlando Magic take on the Los Angeles Lakers. (Thu. 8pm)
- It’s The Tony Awards in HD for the first time on CBS, and it’s hosted by NPH himself, Neil Patrick Harris! (Sun. 8pm)
- Worst Week is back to burn off its remaining episodes on CBS (Sat. 8:30pm)
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