Chances are that you spent a fair bit of time watching the Olympics last week. You surely had plenty of time to do so, considering how light the schedules were on all of the other networks. ABC, CBS, FOX, and CW combined to take about 37 hours off last week. And I’m not even counting The Deep End and Past Life in that total. It all made for a great week for NBC, with the Olympics scoring big every night. Although… it is worth noting that American Idol was able to stand the test of the games on Tuesday, winning the night.
NBC - The numbers were all big. The Olympics scored well every night. While Idol did, in fact, beat the Olympics on Tuesday, it’s worth noting that the Wednesday installment of the Vancouver games topped Idol. That’s something that hasn’t happened for a very long time. Here are all seven days of results:
FOX - Things started off slow, with The Simpsons (5.85m/2.6), Cleveland (4.87m/2.4), Family Guy (6.44m/3.3), and American Dad (5.25m/2.5). Those are all off the pace, but we’ll give them all a pass because they are going against the games. Much like 24 (8.58m/2.8) on Monday. As mentioned earlier, American Idol had no trouble with the games on Tuesday (23.92m/9.2). Wednesday (18.63m/7) was a little rougher, but that’s still awfully impressive. Human Target (7.21m/2.1) took the expected hit. The week was finished by what appears to have been the last episode of Past Life (3.5m/1.1).
ABC – More good news for The Bachelor (11.53m/4.1). Despite the increased competition of the games, it kept all of its demo from the week before. Lost (9.82m/4.5) didn’t have quite that retention, but that’s still a very good number, all things considered. The Forgotten (4.97m/1.7), meanwhile, continues to struggle. It could be worse though, they could be The Deep End (4.26m/1.1). We give leeway because of the games, but that’s just bad any way you look at it. Grey’s Anatomy (10.27m/3.7) and Private Practice (7.59m/2.8) finished things up with solid, if not impressive, performances.
CBS - The network came flying out of the gate with a solid enough premiere for Amazing Race (9m/2.8) and a very surprising result for Undercover Boss (15.45m/5.2). Things slowed considerably after that. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all repeats. Thursday, Survivor (11.97m/3.9) was solid, but that was it for the week. The one other bit to make note of was the experiment that has The Mentalist and CSI swapping time slots. Could that be a glimpse at the future of the CBS schedule?
CW - Look at that, CW had as many new shows as CBS last week. There were no surprises, as One Tree Hill (1.86m/.9), Life Unexpected (1.8m/.9), and Smallville (2.42m/1) were all right about where you would expect. Off just a bit, but against much tougher competition. And that’s it for the week on the networks. Expect more of the same next week. Finally, some cable numbers from the week:
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Clacked by Brett Love 
on Feb 22, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
Those numbers for “Undercover Boss” are insane…
I was thinking the same thing about Damages … is it possible for those to go any lower? Yikes!
*POST AUTHOR*
I suppose that ‘technically’ they can go lower, but that would be pretty incredible to see. In semi-related news, it looks like ABC Family has ordered a 10 episode fourth season of Greek, despite the struggling numbers.
I wonder if these Olympic numbers are better or worse than what NBC was expecting when they announced the $200 million loss they would be taking on the deal.
Something on ABC dropped below The Forgotten? Yikes.