… and very tiny ones for the King of Gilboa. And, if we want to carry on with that little game, very good numbers for the King of the Courts. It was another fairly typical summer week. As has been the pattern, FOX was the big winner in the demo, taking 5 of 7 nights. In viewers, despite having only two new programs, CBS still managed to take 6 of 7 nights. Crazy how that works. Along the way, a whole lot of people watched the Jackson Memorial. On the other end of the spectrum, a very few devoted individuals continued to tune in for Kings. There were also premieres for Big Brother, The Great American Road Trip, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Warehouse 13.
A little more info on the Jackson Memorial. 31 million viewers places it third on the big list of possibly creepy televised mourning. It falls just shy of the Reagan Burial (35.07m) and Princess Diana’s Funeral (33.25). And getting to those other “Kings,” we begin the week with NBC.
NBC - The week got off to a nice start with the Federer/Roddick final at Wimbledon. Averaging 5.71 million viewers made it the most watched final since Sampras/Agassi in 1999, which had 5.85 million. The junk hit the fan later that night though, as Merlin (4.29m/1.1) continued to struggle despite being the only new programming for the night. That situation wasn’t helped by the premiere of Great American Road Trip (4.66m/1.3) on Tuesday. That’s bad enough, in fact, that the show has already been moved to Monday, to keep it from scaring viewers away from the lone NBC summer hit, America’s Got Talent. Talent continued to roll with good showings on Tuesday (10.43m/3) and Wednesday (11.69,/3.3).
Elsewhere, more lowlights. The Philanthropist (5.14m/1.4) found himself last in the timeslot, behind Primetime:Crime and a CSI:NY repeat. He’s now reduced to saying, “Well, it’s better than The Listener (3.24m/.8).” Continuing the chain, The Listener is then better than Chopping Block (2.09m/.6), and just about everything is better than Kings (1.64m/.4). How bad are those numbers? That demo is so low that despite the fact that CW aired no new programming last week, Kings would have finished in a tie for 5th on the little network. It was bested by repeats of Smallville, Supernatural, 90210, and Roadhouse. Wow.
ABC - The Bachelorette (7.67m/2.6) continues to battle mightily against the CBS comedies. It was enough to give ABC its only demo win for the week, despite carrying the weight of Here Come The Newlyweds (4.65m/1.8). In other good news, Wipeout (8.07m/2.8) remains strong. Everything else probably has the suits anxious for fall. The Superstars (4.2m/1.4) looked silly against an NCIS repeat (10.77m/2). I Survived A Japanese Game Show (4.09m/1.2) continued to piss away that Wipeout audience. And the final grind for Samantha Who? (3.59m/1 – 3.23m/1) and Eli Stone (2.76m/.6) is just kind of sad.
FOX & CBS - It’s funny that these two networks continue to dominate the demo and viewer numbers, despite the lack of new programming to report. For FOX, the week amounted to So You Think You Can Dance on Wednesday (7.47m/2.9) and Thursday (7.8m/2.8), followed by Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader (4.69m/1.3) and Mental (3.68m/1) on Friday. CBS virtually tripled their programming output for the week with the premiere of Big Brother (6.68m/2.3) and the two hour Harper’s Island finale (3.84m/.9).
CABLE - ABC Family set another record with the premier of 10 Things I Hate About You (1.6m). That’s good enough to be the network’s #1 comedy debut ever. It wasn’t a record, but the results were also good for the premiere of Warehouse 13 (3.5m). That is the third highest viewer number for a series episode that has ever been posted by the network formerly known as SciFi. It falls behind the premieres of Stargate Atlantis (4.2m) and Eureka (4.1m). Eureka also returned, but I’ve yet to see any numbers on that one. Look for that next week.
Finally, it’s a little late, but worth noting. Apparently there is no end in sight to the Hannah Montana craze. A new episode managed 6.9 million viewers, which was enough to top The Closer and take the #1 spot for the week that ended July 5th.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Jul 13, 2009 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
