It was a bit of a slow week of television. Football on FOX sent all the other networks scrambling on Sunday. Then Obama took over all the channels on Wednesday. Add in an oddly quiet Thursday and we had three pretty weak nights of numbers. Not to worry though, there was still the occasional cause for celebration. To call the NFC Championship a success would be a terrible understatement. How terrible? How about it more than doubled the Idol numbers? In non-gridiron results, FOX took advantage of the quiet Thursday, garnering some very good results for Bones and Fringe. Castle managed to grow their numbers again. And Vampire Diaries tied for second in the demo!
FOX - It’s hard to start a week off better than having the NFC Championship (57.93m/21.3). That success carried over to Monday and the return of House (14.21m/5.2). 24 (10.81m/3.4) followed up the good doctor with another solid hour. American Idol took over next, with big numbers for Tuesday (24.45m/9) and Wednesday (25.7m/9.5). Human Target (9.26m/3.1) was just okay following Idol. And that really doesn’t bode well for the series. For reasons I don’t really understand, Human Target will switch to 8PM next Wednesday, leading into Idol. Granted, the Wednesday at 8 competition is weak, but we already saw how that experiment works with Lie To Me last season.
There was more good news on Thursday. Bones (12.33m/3.6) has really taken advantage of the Survivor break to build its numbers, and last week was probably the weakest competition it has faced. It will be interesting to see how much of that audience remains when Survivor gets back into full swing. If I was betting, I’d say Survivor will return to #1, but Bones is now the solid #2 show at 8. Fringe (8.98m/3) had a similar night. That’s a great number for the show, but came against repeats on ABC, NBC, and CBS. We’ll have to see how it holds up next week, when everything is new at 9. Finally, Friday brought the series finale of Dollhouse (2.16m/.8), and the premiere of Kitchen Nightmares (3.28m/1.4).
CBS - With Sunday and Monday in repeats, the week didn’t get started until Tuesday. Jethro and the gang at NCIS (20.22m/4) teamed with NCIS: LA (16.91m/3.7) to make it a very good night. Wednesday was also out, with the SOTU, and Thursday might as well have been. The only new offering was Jeff Probst’s Live For The Moment (4.56m/1), and the tribe has really spoken on that one. That’s a fifth place in the demo right there. Friday brought the usual wins in all three hours from Ghost Whisperer (8.34m/1.9), Medium (7.98m/1.8), and Numb3rs (8.7m/1.8).
ABC - It was a fairly quiet week for ABC as well. The biggest news came with The Bachelor (11.47m/3.9) and Castle (10.55m/3) on Monday. The win in the 10PM hour for Castle did come against a repeat of CSI: Miami, but it’s very encouraging that the show has continued to build its audience since DWTS went on break. After that, the news wasn’t so good. Scrubs (3.16m/1.2) and Better Off Ted (2.52m/1) continued to struggle on Tuesday, and round two of The Deep End (6.09m/1.8) dropped a million viewers from the premiere on Thursday. Things wrapped up with Supernanny (4.72m/1.3), Shark Tank (4.38m/1.5), and 20/20 (8.07m/1.7) on Friday. Next week will be much more interesting, with the return of Lost.
NBC - Also with limited scheduling, NBC started with Chuck (6.97m/2.5) and Heroes (4.3m/1.9) on Monday. The good news is that Chuck was up in viewers and steady in the demo against the return of House. Heroes was up from last week, but that was a series low, so being up .32m/.1 isn’t exactly great. The Biggest Loser (9.71m/3.8) was solid on Tuesday, and will be moving next week. Leno will get the boot so Loser can go head to head with Lost from 9 to 10. Dateline (7.35m/1.4)wrapped up the new programming on Friday.
CW – The network is finally back to three nights a week, with One Tree Hill (2.2m/1.1) and Life Unexpected (2.17m/1.1) starting things off on Monday. That was a fairly big drop from the premiere for Life Unexpected, but it’s still in the ballpark of reasonable CW numbers. We’ll need a few more weeks to see how it all shakes out. Thursday, Vampire Diaries (3.7m/1.8) continued to impress. It was against a rather weak night for the big networks, but any time a CW show can get to second in the demo, it’s worth noting. Supernatural (2.71m/1.2) was solid following it at 9. Smallville (2.52m/1.1) returned on Friday to finish off the week, with a fourth place finish.
CABLE - Psych (4.37m/1.5) returned for USA last week, on a new night, to solid numbers. Not as successful, Greek (1.03m/.5) kicked off the latest chapter on Monday, and the numbers look kind of bad when compared to Secret Life Of The American Teenager (3.23m/1.2) and Make It Or Break It (2.3m/.7). Actually, they look even worse if you look at the younger demos. At first glance, I’m tempted to say it doesn’t bode well for the future of the show. Then again, it’s not like the show has ever done much more than that, so maybe that’s just enough for ABC Family. Some other cable numbers:
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Feb 01, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
Greek is screwed. ABC Family really wanted some better numbers I feel, like 1.8 million at least, just a feeling. However the upside is that at least the show’s ratings are higher than last chapter by 300,000… probably not high enough for them though, the show can’t be cheap with all the actors. But whatever, I have a feeling the season / series finale will have to have some type of closure anyways because
Fringe’s numbers are further proof that Fox is trying to kill the show, MOVE THE DAMN SHOW ALREADY YOU DUMBASSES!
Brett came up with Caprica’s numbers for me, and it feels like he dumped ice water on my head. 1.41 million viewers. Down from last week??? Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot!