Ratings Clack – Entourage and Project Runway return

by Brett Love

While things were mostly quiet on the broadcast front, the big premieres continued on cable. Last week saw the return of 'Entourage' on HBO, and 'Project Runway' on Lifetime.

My apologies for the weekly ratings post being a day late. Would you believe me if I told you the sheer dullness of the network numbers just put me right to sleep? The truth is I was completing my nutty July theatre adventure that had me attending 34 events in 31 days, and just ran out of time. But here are the numbers, finally.

CABLE – With nothing exciting at all to report from the networks, the most interesting thing came from cable. There were two premieres of note last week. First, HBO kicked off the final season of Entourage (2.49m/1.4). Later in the week, Lifetime brought back Heidi and Tim for another run of Project Runway (2.75m/1.1). Neither of those numbers is a world-beater, but it will be interesting to watch how each of them develop over the course of the season.

Basic
Falling Skies (4.07m/1.4) In Plain Sight (3.34m/.8) Drop Dead Diva (2.08m/.7) Switched At Birth (3.14m/1.3) Rizzoli & Isles (6.04m/1.1) Warehouse 13 (2.04m/.8) Alphas (1.95m/.7) Eureka (1.77m/.6) Nine Lives of Chloe King (1.19m/.4) Royal Pains (4.84m/1.4) Necessary Roughness (4.21m/1.3) Suits (4.44m/1.5) Burn Notice (5m/1.4) Wilfred (1.74m/.9) Louie (1.02m/.6) Pawn Stars (7m/2.7)	Breaking Bad (1.97m/.9) Leverage (3.25m/.8) The Glades (2.4m/.7) Secret Life of the American Teen (2.9m/1.2) The Closer (6.15m/1.1) White Collar (3.89m/1.2) Covert Affairs (4.36m/1.2) Pretty Little Liars (2.36m/.9) Memphis Beat (3.25m/.6) Hawthorne (2.19m/.6) Franklin & Bash (2.94m/.9) Rescue Me (1.56m/.7) Hot In Cleveland (1.84m/.5) Happily Divorced (1.39m/.4) Futurama (1.49m/.8) Deadliest Catch (3.29m/1.4)
Premium
True Blood (5.26m/2.8) Curb Your Enthusiasm (2.37m/1)

NBC – Meanwhile, back on broadcast… it was a fairly by-the-books week. NBC again had good results for America’s Got Talent (11.54m/3.1 – 10.74m/2.8). Although, that number is off just a bit. The rest of the week was rather uneventful, including Marriage Ref (3.12m/1), a quickly dropping It’s Worth What (5.43m/1.4), Minute To Win It (4.85m/1.2), Love In The Wild (5.12m/1.6), and Love Bites (1.8m/.7)

FOX – I expected this to be a big comeback week for So You Think You Can Dance (6.07m/2.1 – 5.41m/1.7), but apparently Lady Gaga isn’t as big a draw as one might expect. The numbers remain rather soft. The news was a little better for Hell’s Kitchen (5.95m/2.6 – 6.04m/2.6)which was up in both airings. MasterChef (5.87m/2.5) finished out the week.

CBS – Big Brother (6.9m/2.4 – 6.84m/2.4 – 7.12m/2.6) again carried the mail for CBS. The week also featured the premiere of Same Name (5.27m/1.5), and another episode of Flashpoint (6.65m/1.2).

ABC – The rough summer continues with The Bachelorette (8.16m/2.4)coming in as the only show on ABC to crack 2 in the demo. The rest of the struggling week was made up of Extreme Makeover Weight Loss (6.22m/1.9), 101 Ways To Leave A Game Show (4.4m/1.4), Combat Hospital (3.79m/.9), Wipeout (6.61m/1.9), Expedition Impossible (5.13m/1.6), and Rookie Blue (4.92m/1.3).

Photo Credit: Lifetime