Ratings Clack – Burn Notice and Royal Pains off to a good start

Yes, the boys over at USA earned the headline this week. There just really wasn’t that much to talk about where the networks were concerned. For example, CBS was the most watched network on three different nights, with a combination of repeats and one episode of Million Dollar Password.  It was much more interesting seeing the press release from USA that revealed Burn Notice had 6 million viewers for the season premiere. Royal Pains was right on pace with 5.6 million. It will be interesting to see if Royal Pains can stay that close as the weeks progress. After the jump, it’s the NBA vs the NHL, So You Think You Can Dance vs Wipeout, and I’m A Celebrity vs the basic common sense of viewers.

NBC - All things considered (like being a network that is mired in 4th place) it wasn’t a bad week for NBC. The network actually took the demo crown for the first three nights of the week. Although, if you want to put that in perspective, it doesn’t look quite as good. On Sunday, the NHL (5.3m/2.2) squeaked out a win against Password, and nothing else. And Monday was led by I’m A Celebrity (6.35m/2.6), but the shine is quickly coming off of that ridiculous bauble. Tuesday (5.5m/2.2), Wednesday (4.79m/1.8), and Thursday (5.17m/1.9) suggest a certain trend in the numbers.

In less annoying programming news, the NBC finale of Medium (7.38m/2.3), season finale of SVU (11.34m/3.5), and season finale of L&O (8.79m/2.3) were all at expected levels, despite the late date. The network also got good mileage out of the NBC special, “Inside the Obama White House” on Tuesday (9.12m/2.6) and Wednesday (8.97m/2.3).

CBS - There really isn’t a lot to say about the network this week. A week that was almost exclusively repeats performed well enough. The few bits of new were Password (6.88m/1.1), the last episode of Worst Week (1.91m/.5) and Harper’s Island (3.61m/.9). The new Worst Week on Saturday does seem odd. Surely, that would have done a much higher number after Monday’s 2 1/2 Men repeat.

ABC - The Bachelorette (6.34m/2.2) led off the week for the network, and was bested by I’m A Celebrity, but I would expect that result to change sooner, rather than later. Elsewhere, there was good news for Wipeout (8.37m/2.9) and the NBA Finals (10.47m/4.4). After that, it was all a bit rough. According To Jim (4.1m/1.2) finally had a series finale. And as bad as that was, it was still rated higher than The Goode Family (3.17m/1.2 – 2.16m/.9), The Unusuals (2.94m/.9), and Pushing Daisies (2.29m/.8).

FOX - A week full of repeats was broken up by So You Think You Can Dance getting down to their top 20. That was enough to win the night in viewers and demo on Wednesday (8.76m/3.4) and also return a respectable number against the NBA on Thursday (8.2m/3.1). The news was not as good for Mental (5.04m/1.6) or Friday’s Don’t Forget The Lyrics (3.08m/1).

Clacked by Brett Love
on Jun 08, 2009 @ 15:00 EST5EDT