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Ratings Clack – Community gets the boot

It's a dark day for fans of 'Community' as the new NBC mid-season schedule has the show being bumped into the neverland of 'returning at some point'. On cable, AMC has found a partner for 'The Walking Dead' in 'Hell On Wheels'.

NBC - Something came up yesterday, so I’m a wee bit tardy with the weekly ratings post. Fortunately, NBC has provided the silver lining for that particular cloud by giving us a bit of ratings/scheduling news to chat about. It seems that the NBC mid-season schedule is out, and Community is nowhere to be found. In related news, last week was another down week for Community (3.49m/1.5).

Now, to be fair, this isn’t a cancellation. Community is making way for the return of 30 Rock at 8, and NBC has said that the show will return at some time… on some night… at some point in the future… What that vaguest vote of confidence means is hard to guess, but Community fans should probably start poking needles into their Whitney dolls in the hopes that her show craters in its new Wednesday time-slot, leaving the network no options.

As one would expect, the internet quickly erupted into shouts of disgust as people tried to reason how NBC could pull Community from the schedule. Well… I think it’s pretty obvious how. They’ve been trying it for three years, and nobody watches. Rather than be upset that the network did the logical thing, I’m going to be happy that we got three seasons of a show that really should have been canceled after one.

While it was another terrible week for Community, that certainly wasn’t the only show with troubles. Prime Suspect (4.86m/1.3) remained down, and it didn’t make the mid-season cut either. Worse, there wasn’t much in the way of reassurance that this one wasn’t a cancellation. The rest of the Thursday night was iffy as well, with Parks & Rec (3.66m/1.8), Whitney (4.28m/2.1), and The Office (5.96m/3). That 3 demo was good enough to put The Office in second place at 9, but the numbers continue to head the wrong way with the Nardog at the helm.

Elsewhere, the only bit of really good news again came from Sunday Night Football (22.12m/8.8). The Sing Off (4.25m/1.5), Biggest Loser (6.86m/2.4), Parenthood (5.3m/2), Up All Night (4.79m/1.8), Harry’s Law (7.11m/1.3), SVU (6.7m/1.9), Chuck (3.17m/.9), and Grimm (5.19m/1.5) all continue to reveal just how many problems NBC has with their schedule.

CBS - On the opposite side of that coin, we find CBS. They are like the anti-NBC. As an example, NBC had 3 scripted shows that were able to get 2 or better in the demo. CBS had 6 that were over a 4. And in viewers, every show on NBC would be in last place on CBS. Crazy! It’s almost ridiculous how smooth their schedule is running. So much so, that they just decided to run repeats of Person of Interest and The Mentalist on a Thursday in the middle of sweeps and still got 9 and 10 million viewers. The rest of the schedule, which was actually new, looked pretty solid across the board. That Monday comedy block is particularly impressive.

Sunday

  • Amazing Race (9.73m/2.7)
  • The Good Wife (9.07m/2)
  • CSI Miami (8.67m/1.9)

Monday

  • How I Met Your Mother (10.28m/4.4)
  • 2 Broke Girls (11.43m/4.6)
  • Two and a Half Men (14.71m/5.2)
  • Mike & Molly (11.93m/4.2)
  • Hawaii Five-O (10.32m/3.1)

Tuesday

  • NCIS (20.38m/4.1)
  • NCIS LA (15.66m/3.4)
  • Unforgettable (11.72m/2.4)
Wednesday

  • Survivor (10.8m/3.2)
  • Criminal Minds (11.36m/3.4)
  • CSI (10.16m/2.5)

Thursday

  • Big Bang Theory (15.89m/5.3)

Friday

  • A Gifted Man (8.25m/1.2)
  • CSI NY (9.65m/1.6)
  • Blue Bloods (12.56m/2.1)

ABC - The week started with another strong performance from Once Upon A Time (11.45m/3.8) as the show continues to easily outpace Desperate Housewives (8.78m/2.8) and Pan Am (5.17m/1.7). This is looking like the breakout drama for the new season. The other highlight was the return of the CMA Awards (16.4m/4.8). That is right on pace with last year’s show, and gave a nice boost to the ABC Wednesday.

Elsewhere, it was mostly business as usual from Dancing With The Stars (18.16m/3.4 – 15.07m/2.8), Castle (11.07m/2.4), Last Man Standing (9.26m/2.6), Man Up (6.24m/1.7), Charlie’s Angels (5.1m/1.1), Grey’s Anatomy (11.29m/4.1), and Private Practice (7.5m/2.8). The most interesting bit of that moving forward is probably the Man Up number. The trend isn’t doing the show any favors.

FOX - The Simpsons (8m/3.7) continued to ride the high of the previous week’s Halloween special to start the week, but that didn’t do anything to help Allen Gregory (4.32m/2.1). Family Guy (5.82m/3.1) and Cleveland (4.85m/2.5) finished Sunday before handing off to Terra Nova (7.75m/2.6) and House (7.55m/2.8) on Monday. Both were well up from what was a terrible performance the week before, but that Monday is still looking a bit iffy for Fox. The big surprise there is Terra Nova with more viewers than House.

That was the tone for the rest of the week as well. Glee (6.91m/3.1) and New Girl (6.84m/3.5) looked good, but are well off the pace they started the season with. And without a boost from Jess, Raising Hope (4.51m/2.1) has quickly come back to Earth. X Factor (10.25m/3.8 – 10.13m/3.3) was more of the same. Good numbers, but not the expected. Ditto for Bones (8.64m/2.6), which took a solid second week hit, despite CBS phoning it in. Finally, the week wrapped with Kitchen Nightmares (3.92m/1.6) and Fringe (3.07m/1.1).

CW - Vampire Diaries (3.17m/1.4) again knocked off Charlie’s Angels in the demo to finish 4th at 8. And it nearly made it to third, finishing just a tenth of a point behind Community. Other than that, nothing too exciting to report.

Monday

  • Gossip Girl (1.26m/.6)
  • Hart Of Dixie (1.45m/.6)

Tuesday

  • 90210 (1.55m/.8)
  • Ringer (1.75m/.7)
Wednesday

  • Next Top Model (1.7m/.8)

Thursday

  • Secret Circle (2.17m/.8)

Friday

  • Nikita (1.9m/.6)
  • Supernatural (1.79m/.8)

CABLE - The Walking Dead (6.29m/3.4) continued to roll (and yes, to complete the circle, that demo does beat all of the NBC shows for the week), but there was even more good news for AMC. Rick handed the ball off to Hell On Wheels (4.36m/1.9), giving the network the two top shows for the night on cable. Those are premiere numbers, so we’ll take it under advisement, but that is a solid start for the show.

Basic
  • Sons Of Anarchy (3.93m/2)
  • Covert Affairs (2.67m/.8)
  • American Horror Story (2.83m/1.6)
  • Psych (2.45m/.9)
  • Burn Notice (2.66m/1)
  • Good Luck Charlie (4.56m/.6)
  • South Park (2.85m/1.6)
  • Beavis & Butt-Head (1.8m/1)
  • It’s Always Sunny (1.32m/.8)
  • The League (.97m/.5)
Premium
  • Boardwalk Empire (2.74m/1.1)
  • Dexter(1.98m/1)
  • Hung (1.09m/.5)
  • Homeland (1.33m/.5)
  • Bored To Death (.15m/.1)
  • Enlightened (.1m/0) <—– 0!
Photo Credit: NBC

5 Responses to “Ratings Clack – Community gets the boot”

November 15, 2011 at 12:51 PM

Who the heck are these people watching CBS? I don’t understand it. They all must be androids who are programmed by CBS. Nothing makes sense anymore. Bingle bongle dingle dangle yicky doo yickity da ping pong lipytapy toota.

November 15, 2011 at 1:07 PM

I would guess they are the same people that read all of those John Grisham and Tom Clancy novels. Clearly, there is a market for those kinds of shows. CBS has found their audience, and they continue to program to it.

November 15, 2011 at 8:43 PM

Why you gotta crack on Tom Clancy? I mean, it’s not like he’s written his novels in the last ten years, but at least the guy ghostwriting for him is considerably better than the guy ghostwriting for WEB Griffith.

November 15, 2011 at 8:51 PM

That’s not a shot at Tom Clancy. Just pointing out that much like NCIS and its CSI cousins on TV, there is a huge market for Clancy’s brand of book. And on a side note, I’ve probably read a dozen of them.

November 16, 2011 at 5:54 PM

Heh. I like CBS’s procedurals and comedies almost across the board, even the ones I don’t watch. My dad and I loved Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and the rest. De gustibus non est disputandum.

On the plus side, I understand there’s always the possibility Sony could produce a fourth season of Community at a loss in order to get it into syndication. On the minus side are the questions of whether the show will sell well enough to make that worthwhile, and whether or not Comcast is serious about raising the network out of fourth place next fall.

The Big Bang Theory seriously was CBS’s number one comedy in viewers and number one show overall in the demo? Wow. And yay.

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