Weekly Ratings Report: The Good, The Bad & ‘Eastwick’

Ratings-wise, it was a wacky week, with the combined forces of the NFL regular season and Major League Baseball playoffs wreaking havoc on network schedules.

Indeed, the pitching was tough to hit for regularly scheduled programs, with baseball in particular dominating the audience that determines success or failure for TV shows, 18-49-year-olds, on Sunday, Tuesday and Monday nights.

But out of that mayhem came some opportunities for struggling shows like ABC’s previously moribund rookie ‘The Forgotten,’ which saw its viewership perk up 13% last week.

A lack of series competition helped.

CBS practically sent all its heavy hitters on vacation, putting sluggers ‘NCIS,’ ‘CSI: Miami,’ ‘CSI: New York,’ ‘The Good Wife’ and ‘Criminal Minds’ on the repeat bench until baseball cleared out of the way.

Meanwhile, Fox also vacated its schedule for baseball – mainly on the count of it has the World Series broadcast contract. So that meant no ‘House’ at all – not even repeats — this week.

Here’s a look at how the ratings of some of your favorite shows graded out during this very disrupted week.

A

NCIS (CBS) – Even an ‘NCIS’ re-run wins the Tuesday 8 p.m. slot in total viewers. Not that we’re grading repeats this week… but this show is unstoppable.

MODERN FAMILY (ABC) – Lesson: viewers love a good back-to-school episode in late-September! Did an impressive 9.2 million viewers, a 7% week-to-week uptick, going up against Game 1 of the World Series Wednesday. Did an impressive 3.7 in adults 18-49s. The word “hit” now applies.

THE OFFICE (NBC) – Wow, Grademaster still shocked – shocked! – that Jim would let Michael fall into the drink without helping him. But still have to come up with the “A” grade after drawing 8.1 million viewers and an impressive 4.2 demo rating.

GREY’S ANATOMY (ABC) – Averaged13.4 million viewers, good for third place behind ‘CSI’ and baseball. But more importantly, its 5.1 demo score would have won the entire week, not to mention the Thursday 9 p.m. time period, if it wasn’t for friggin’ baseball.

B

SURVIVOR: SAMOA (CBS) – Voted on by 12.5 million viewers Thursday night at 8 p.m., while scoring a 3.7 demo rating in the teeth of Yankees-vs.-Phillies baseball. Nice.

PRIVATE PRACTICE (ABC) – A 3.6 demo rating to narrowly beat ‘The Mentalist.’

THE MENTALIST (CBS) – Averaged 14.9 million viewers, which would have won the time period in that metric if not for the Yankees and Phillies; narrowly lost the demo race to ‘Private Practice’ with a 3.5.

THE FORGOTTEN (ABC) – The comeback is on! 8.6 million viewers (a 13% week-to-week increase). And sure, it was going up against a ‘Good Wife’ re-run, but demo win (2.0 rating) is a demo win.

CSI (CBS) – Average of 14.9 million viewers beat everybody Thursday night at nine… except, of course, baseball. 3.4 demo number was the best non-sports performance.

THE GOOD WIFE (CBS) – It bares repeating – if a rookie show can go into repeats and still lead its hour in total viewers (9.3 million average), that ain’t bad.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (ABC) – Up ever so slightly to 13.8 million viewers on a Sunday night dominated by NFL and Major League Baseball playoff over-runs.

THE BIGGEST LOSER (NBC) – Two-hour block won the demo race at both 8 p.m. (3.4 rating) and 9 o’clock (4.0). Impressive, but you can’t get an “A” grade when you lose to a repeat in total viewers, even if that repeat happens to be ‘NCIS.’

DANCING WITH THE STARS (ABC) – Tuesday-night results show scored a time-period-leading 14.7 million viewers; lost the demo race to ‘Biggest Loser.’

VAMPIRE DIARIES (CW) – Sucked in 4.2 million viewers Thursday at eight. Given the network and the time period, that’s notable.

C

30 ROCK (NBC) – A 3.0 rating among adults 18-49 should get you a “B”… but not when you lose a whopping 27% of ‘The Office’s’ lead-in audience.

COMMUNITY (NBC) – Call it a C-plus… perked up a bit to (6%) to 5.5 million viewers and scored a totally respectable 2.1 demo rating, despite being stuck out on the 8 o’clock Thursday island, going up against baseball, ‘Survivor’ and god knows what else on a last-place network. The good news: It just got picked up for the rest of the season, which it totally deserves.

FLASHFORWARD (ABC) – A respectable 9 million viewers Thursday night at eight; finished third behind baseball and ‘Survivor.’; had a 2.7 demo score. All find and good. But it’s now time for this exceptional successful enterprise to define itself as a true hit. After all, ‘Lost’ doesn’t finish second.

COUGAR TOWN (ABC) – An impressive 3.2 demo rating was the night’s third best. But it also lost 16% of ‘Modern Family’s’ lead-in audience… plus we don’t like it, so that drops it a grade.

LAW & ORDER: SVU (NBC) – Fourth place Wednesday at 9 p.m. with 8 million viewers. The 2.7 demo rating, however, was the night’s fourth best.

AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL (CW) – Cat-walked to 3.5 million viewers Wednesday at 8 p.m.

D

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (Fox) – Averaging 6.6 million viewers during its first hour Tuesday, it finished in fourth place behind a 43-year-old Halloween special at 8 p.m. Don’t get us wrong; ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown’ is a total classic, but still…

SUPERNATURAL (CW) – Lost a ton of ‘Vampire Diaries’ audience.

PARKS & RECREATION (NBC) – Lost 10% of ‘Community’s’ audience at 8:30. If ‘The Office’ ever finds a decent lead-in, it’s numbers will look like ‘The Big Bang Theory’s.’

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS (NBC) – Star-studded theatrically adapted Halloween special couldn’t beat an encore presentation of ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ Wednesday at 8 p.m.

F

MELROSE PLACE (CW) – Sure, it was just a re-run, and we probably shouldn’t be grading it… but with 844,000 viewers, the turnout was rivaled by the Jai alai Channel. It’s tough to say goodbye to such a venerable brand, but goodbye we must say.

EASTWICK (ABC) – ‘Jay’ has become the bar for total failure. When you do just 5.1 million viewers (about the same as ‘Leno’), it ain’t working. Even a petition drive probably can’t save it now.

JAY LENO SHOW (NBC) – It bottomed out in 18-49-year-olds. In fact, NBC has lost a MASSIVE 45% of that key demo at this key time period this season. It will be curious to see how long Jay digs in.

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