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CBS wins Monday, as usual
     If I'm not mistaken, CBS won nearly every Monday night of the regular season, and it intends to continue to do so in the summer. It had no problems on Monday night, besting second place NBC by nearly 4mil viewers. "Dear" (8.4mil), "Standing" (8.9mil), "Raymond" (13mil), "King of Queens" (12.5mil) and "CSI Miami" (13.7mil) won every half-hour in viewers and were easily the top 5 rated series on the night. The aforementioned NBC is starting to have some problems with its reality line-up and it's just not clicking like it should be. "Fear Factor" (8.0mil), "For Love Or Money" (7.5mil) and the return of "Meet My Folks" (8.0mil) generated okay numbers, but certainly not what NBC had been hoping for. 
     But that's still better than ABC and Fox, who just can't seem to light a Monday fire. Fox was third on the night with "Celebrity Look-Alikes" (6.3mil) and "Anything For Love" (6.1mil), though "My Wife & Kids" (6.4mil avg from 8-10pm) did best both. 
ABC's troubled came at 10pm where a special "The View" came up with only 5.1mil viewers, making it unlikely that ABC will give the girls another shot at primetime. On the WB, "Heaven" lead the way with 3.9mil, while "Girlfriends" scored 2.7mil to lead the UPN. (June 17)

Renewed: Becker
     It may be more than a month late, but mediaweek is reporting that CBS has given "Becker," the show that nobody could kill, a 13 episode order for mid-season. It really comes as no surprise, and it probably has the cast feeling pretty good. Imagine: you're on a series that does pretty well after "Raymond," get moved to Sundays and you're gone after one season. Can you say slap in the face? Maybe CBS's offer is not a business deal, but rather a peace offering. (June 17)

CBS continues on Thursday
     Just like it has for the past three weeks, CBS continued to win on Thursday, though NBC is remaining solid. "The Amazing Race" (8.1mil), "CSI" (14.0mil) and "Without A Trace" (11.5mil) nearly won every half-hour, except at 8pm where "Friends" (10.5mil) took a win, though "Scrubs" (8.8mil) continues to be the chink in the Thursday line-up. "Will & Grace" (9.7mil) and "Frasier" (9.1mil) performed well from 9-10pm, though "ER" at 10pm (7.3mil) slipped to third in its timeslot, behind CBS and "PrimeTime Live" (7.8mil).
     There wasn't much left for the rest, and it really showed. At 8pm, ABC was third with the "That's Incredible Reunion" (6.2mil), followed by "Stupid Behavior" (5.7mil) and "30 Seconds" (5.3mil) over on Fox. "WWE Smackdown!" was fifth in the hour (5.8mil overall), while the WB's canned "The O'Keefes" took a measly 1.65mil viewers in the hour. At 9pm, the UPN popped up into third, while "The Pulse" (4.4mil) and ABC's special "Global Extremes" (3.5mil) trailed. "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment" (2.7mil for the hour) was a not-too-distant sixth. (June 13)

Repeats take Wednesday cake
    NBC tried "Fame," Fox "Cedric," and ABC the NBA finals, but it was repeats the shone on Wednesday. "Law & Order" aired two episodes to 11mil and 13mil, considerably above "Fame" (8.6mil), while CBS fared very well with repeats of "60 Minutes II" (10.1mil) and "48 Hours" (10.5mil) and almost beat out "Fame" at 8pm with "Funny Flubs & Screw Ups" (8.5mil). Over on Fox, repeats of "That 70s Show" (6.2mil), "The Simpsons" (6.5mil) and "Bernie Mack" (6.8mil), though fourth in every half-hour, were still higher rated than a new installment of "Cedric" (5.6mil). Was Fox too quick to renew the series? It's started to appear so.
    ABC's NBA finals continue to linger with only 10.4mil, while the pre-game show took a weak 6.3mil. The WB aired the movie "Austin Powers" to a solid 3.5mil. The only place were repeats didn't work was the UPN, where "Enterprise" (1.9mil) and "The Twilight Zone" (1.7mil) hit new lows. 
    I made much about last week when the networks made huge gains, but is the same true for this week? Well, not quite, but there are a few silver linings. Despite Fox being down 11% and NBC 4%, CBS and the UPN are up 8%, the WB 24% and ABC 38%. With gains like these, are the networks finally looking up? Probably not. (June 12)

"Model," "Comic," ABC win Tuesday
    Well, "American Juniors" (8.6mil) took a big dip in its second week, but that didn't mean that other reality series went the same way. NBC's "The Last Comic Standing" (9.7mil) burned up the later half of the night, giving NBC a very rare Tuesday win, something that hasn't happened in ages. "Dog Eat Dog," at 7.8mil viewers, however, was not a hot as "Comic" and must be quite disappointing for NBC considering that it was last summer's second highest rated reality series. Over on the UPN, "America's Next Top Model" took it up a notch with 4.4mil viewers tuning in, making it the UPN's higest rated series in hour in ages. A repeat drew a respectable 2.5ml at 8pm.
     Another winner? ABC, who is sticking with good old repeat programming on Tuesday for the summer. Two episodes of "8 Simple Rules" (8.1mil), "Jim" (9.3mil) and "Less Than Perfect" (8.1mil) were all first or second in their half-hours with similar results in adults. How great are these results for ABC? They're around the same numbers the series drew for original episodes in the spring. Repeats on the other networks, however, aren't having the same impact. CBS averaged 7.3mil viewers with repeats, while the WB took 2.8mil for back-to back episodes of "Smallville."
    And what about the only scripted original programming on Tuesday? Well, it's not doing so well either. "Keen Eddie" slipped to 5.0mil at 9pm. Guess not everything is coming up roses for Fox these days. (June 11)

Viewers catch onto "Trace"
     It may not have happened with "The Agency" last summer, but something has certainly changed over on CBS this summer. "Without A Trace" is starting to show some muscle, drawing 13.5mil viewers on Thursday night, not too far from "CSI"s 14.5mil. A repeat of "ER," by comparison, was 31% behind "Trace," making one wonder what will happen come September. Can "Trace" grow all summer? CBS may just have another "CSI" on its hands if it plays its cards right. also on CBS, "The Amazing Race" drew an okay 8.5mil at 8pm, not great, but second in its slot.
     NBC took a dip on the week with "Scrubs" back in the line-up. "Friends" started the night off with 10mil viewers, "Scrubs" dipped slightly to 8.8mil, while "Will & Grace" and "Frasier" fell in the middle with 9.5mil and 9.8mil, respectively. Maybe next season would be the appropriate time to think about moving "Grace" back to Tuesdays. Or maybe not, considering that both Thursday and Tuesday will be in deep shit once "Frasier" and "Friends" fold next May. Boy, what a ratings week that'll be for NBC!
     Fox was a distant third on the night with "Stupid Behavior" (7.0mil), "30 Seconds To Fame" (6.6mil) and "The Pulse" (4.6mil). But as distant as it was, it was still up 33% on the night over last season, which is a generall bellweather for Fox's entire summer season so far. "WWE Smackdown!" drew an average 5.3mil, while ABC dropped out of it with just 3.7mil tuning in for Game 5 of the Anaheim-New Jersey series. Personally, I dropped out of it after Ottawa died in Game 7 it series with New Jersey about two weeks ago. An interesting sidenote is that if a Canadian team were still in it, the series would be drawing 2.5-3mil viewers up here, which translates into about 40mil viewers stateside. The CBC, the public broadcaster that airs hockey up here, has been particularly annoyed with ABC for having its way in scheduling games for Saturday afternoons, not Saturday night, as is traditional with its 40 year-old "Hockey Night In Canada" franchise. But I digress....
    The WB drew about 2.3mil, viewers on the night, peaking with "Jamie Kennedy" (2.6mil). (June 6)

Nets continue to shine through Thursday
    Now here's something amazing about this week so far: only two nets are posting ratings losses and the others are up in the double figures. The losers? Well, the WB is down 10% and ABC has shed 2%. But on the other side, CBS is up 12%, much thanks to... well.... nothing really. NBC is next at 22%, with "Miss Universe," "Fame," "Law & Order" and "For Love or Money" under its belt. The UPN, yes, the UPN, is up 25% with "America's Next Top Model" tearing up the bottom of the ratings, while Fox is up an thrilling 63%. All totaled, the nets are averaging 40.6mil viewers through Thursday, up 18% over last season's dismal numbers. (June 6)

Fox, ABC, UPN grow on Tuesday
    It's turning out to be a strange summer season so far..... Fox is no longer winning Tuesday, ABC's comedies are outdrawing original episodes from the spring and "America's Next Top Model" is doing better numbers than "Buffy" did. That's right. The show drew 3.9mil viewers for its 9pm installment on Tuesday, besting the majority of "Buffy"s first run episodes during the regular season. A repeat of the show drew 2.3mil at 8pm. Over on ABC, it's line-up "8 Simple Rules" (7.3mil, 8.4mil), "According To Jim" (9.2mil) and "Less Than Perfect" (7.7mil) are doing really well, though "NYPD Blue" (7.3mil) still could be replaced with something for the summer. Even Fox got in on the action with "American Juniors" (11.3mil) and the new series "Keen Eddie" (7.4mil). Outside of "American Idol" last summer, it's been years since Fox has scored these kinds of numbers on Tuesday in the warmer months.
    Where were the rest? Not too far off. NBC, in fact, won the night with "Dog Eat Dog" (8.8mil) and the "Miss Universe Pageant" (11.9mil), though CBS was off with "AFI's 100 Hereos... 100 Villians" (7.3mil). Over on the mini-nets, the dWB virtually tied to UPN with "Gilmore Girls" (3.2mil) leading to charge. Wondering how the summer ratings on the whole are faring? Well, this week last summer, only 11 shows drew more than 10mil viewers, so far this week it's already up to 8. For the first two night sof the week, it's really quite amazing. Though ABC is down 10% and the WB 8%, NBC is up 5%, CBS 14%, the UPN 28% and Fox has jumped a staggering 80%. All totaled, the nets are up 14%, proving that the tv season is gradually becoming a 12 month long affair. (June 4)

                                           May 2003 News