With the new broadcast season underway, ABC and NBC are in a race for No. 1 in 18-49s, with CBS, Fox and the CW trailing behind, much as buyers expected.
What is surprising is the performance of many new shows. Generally, NBC's new shows are doing better than expected while those of the CW are underperforming.
Another major surprise: CBS’s "Moonlight," widely slammed by critics, pulled strong ratings in its premiere.
But shows like ABC’s "Private Practice," the "Grey’s Anatomy" spinoff, CBS’s "Cane" and the CW’s "Gossip Girl" failed to deliver on all the hype going into the season's opening week.
Also, a few shows that premiered to strong ratings may be heading to ratings stumbles, based on viewer falloff from the first half hour to the second on their premiere nights. Those include ABC’s "Big Shots" and "Dirty Sexy Money," and NBC’s "Life" and "Journeyman."
"Big Shots" took the steepest tumble, from a 5.1 overnight rating in 18-49s to a 4.0 in its second half hour.
"I call this trial inflation," says Susan Hajny, broadcast research manager at GSD&M.
"‘Big Shots’ had a huge ‘Grey’s’ lead-in and ‘Journeyman’ had a ‘Heroes’ lead-in. ‘Cane’ has Jimmy Smits, who’s a big star, so he’ll draw trial viewers. I think we’ll see those shows down a few points over the next couple of weeks."
Coming out of "Private" on Wednesday, "Dirty Sexy Money" started off with a 3.8 rating but fell to a 3.5 at 10:30.
NBC’s "Journeyman" on Monday at 10 p.m. began with a 3.8 rating in its debut, ranking No. 2 in its first half hour behind CBS’s "CSI: Miami." But it slid to a 3.3 in its second half, ranking No. 3 also behind ABC’s "Bachelor." It was down even more in its second outing.
On Wednesday, NBC’s "Life" led out of "Bionic" with a 4.4 rating that fell to a 3.7 in its second half.
CBS’s "Cane," on Tuesday at 10 p.m., suffered a slight decline in its second half but barely beat ABC’s returning "Boston Legal."
A number of other rookie series are expected to see ratings cool off in coming weeks.
Among these is "Bionic Woman," which ranked No. 1 in its Wednesday 9 p.m. time slot, outpacing the more highly-anticipated "Private Practice."
"I thought ‘Private Practice’ would be the front runner, but I don’t know what happened there," says Shari Anne Brill, senior vice president and director of programming at Carat. "I was expecting that [‘Bionic’], based on advanced excitement, would be huge. How that translates in week two is another thing entirely."
"Private Practice" likely suffered from an early preview last spring as an episode of "Grey’s." Many viewers were unimpressed, along with critics.
A few new shows managed to surpass expectations, including "Chuck," which kicks off NBC’s Monday night. It ranked No. 2 in its time period against ABC’s "Dancing with the Stars" and grew from its first half hour to its second. But it saw a 14 percent decline in its second outing.
CBS’s new Monday sitcom "Big Bang Theory" improved on its lead-in in its first two outings, flowing nicely into CBS’s No. 1 comedy "Two and a Half Men." And on a smaller scale Fox’s reality show "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Back to You" and CW’s "Reaper" are doing fairly well.
Media buyers say it’ll take a few more weeks to gauge how each of the network’s new shows are doing.
More shows are premiering over the next few weeks. And it will take another week or so to see how many viewers are using DVRs to record programs and watch them after they initially air.
"It’s all about what happens over the next four weeks because that’s when all the shows will be underway," says Brill. "The network viewing environment is in a state of flux the first few weeks."
