NBC's Monday keeps floundering
   While Monday's last summer were quite delicious for NBC, this summer it just doesn;t seem to be working, despite having the same series on the air. "For Love Or Money 3" is still waiting for that bump, last night it drew 7.5mil viewers, a little above what it;s drawn for its first few weeks on the air. At 10pm, "Who Wants To Marry My Dad," which averaged more than 10mil viewers last summer, slipped to 7.1mil viewers, second in its timeslot, and a little head-scratching for the peacock. At 8pm, "Fear Factor" was at a still solid, and first place, 8.7mil despite being in repeats.
    Fox, which is also trying to air alot of new programs, is having a much worse go of it than NBC. It's two Monday series in particular are struggling to pick up and audience, and the audience that they do have shrunk even further on Monday. "North Shore" sunk to a new low of just 4.3mil viewers, while "The Casino" did not much better at 5mil. Considering these numbers, "North Shore," which is on the fall line-up, mostly likely will get scratched before September, if not sooner.
    CBS did win Monday, thanks to "CSI Miami" (13.4mil) and a growing "Two & A Half Men" (11.0mil), which appears to be the first clear successor to "Everybody Loves Raymond" (10.5mil). It's too bad that NBC didn't have one of those series for "Friends"..... (June 29)

"Simple Life" still working for Fox
    Despite being one of the most pointless series to ever come along, "The Simple Life 2" is still working it's magic for Fox, coming up with 9.1mil viewers on Wednesday, coming in second in its timeslot in viewers, but overwealming first on the night in adults. But the rest of Fox's "new" line-up isn't faring so well. "Quintuplets" scored a weak 5.5mil viewers at 8:30pm, (though it held onto all of it's lead-in from "That 70s Show"), while "Mehtod & Red" slid to 6.2mil viewers at 9:30pm, down 2 million viewers from it's premiere a week ago. So, will there be a "Simple Life 3" ? Unfortunately, yes. A second season of either of the other new series? Not likely.
    NBC was first overall on the night with two episodes of "Law & Order" (10.5mil, 12.7mil), althoughb the burnoff magic special "T.h.e.m." scored a weak 6.8mil at 8pm. CBS was second on the night, while ABC was stuck in fourth, with the (thankfully) soon concluding "Ultimate Love Test" (3.8mil). The WB was fifth, while the UPN averaged only 1.5mil viewers on the night. (June 24)

CBS repeats win over new series on Monday
    While Fox and NBC are trying their harded to lure viewers on Monday nights with new programming, they're largely not succeeding. CBS, meanwhile, which is content to shut down over the summer, is still winning. Case in point on Monday, Fox went with a whole new line-up and drew just 5.0mil viewers on average, while NBC drew 8.1mil for a mostly new line-up, while CBS managed 10mil for airing only repeats.
     At 8pm, "Fear Factor" won the hour with 9.3mil viewers, while CBS's sitcoms were second, each drawing 7.1mil viewers. ABC's "My Wife & Kids" (5.7mil) & "George Lopez" (5mil) was second, while Fox's "North Shore" slipped to a measly 4.7mil viewers. At pm, CBS took charge as it's sitcoms drew 11.2mil viewers on average, while NBC's "For Love Or Money 3" just can't get started, averaging 7.1mil viwers. Fox increased to third with 5.3mil tuning in for "The Casino," while ABC slipped to fourth. At 10pm, it was much the same as "CSI Miami" (11.6mil) ran away with the hour, beating out new episodes of "Who Wants To Marry My Dad?" (7.9mil) and ABC's "Weddings Gone Wild" (5.0mil) series. So far this summer, very little original programming seems to be clicking- the only thing that has really gone well has been Fox's new Wednesday night slate, but week 2 results may well change that prognosis. (June 22)

Reality blows for "Jury," "Money"
    Fox got a hard lesson in reality on Tuesday and it's most hyped summer series, "The Jury," fell flat, averaging only 4.1 million viewers over it's two hour span. It was fourth at 8pm and even slipped to fifth at 9pm as the WB's "Summerland" drew a nice 4.3mil viewers, down only slightly from its premiere.This comes one night after NBC's "For Love Or Money" drew a pathetic 6.3mil viewers for its season premiere, down a third from last summer. With drama winning out over reality, could it be that the network's reality plans for world domination have finally failed? With the continued domination of "Survivor" and "Fear Factor," I wouldn't count on it.
     Elsewhere on Monday and Tuesday, the NBA finals drew a big 15.5mil viewers for ABC on Tuesday, but the final game of the Stanley Cup finals drew only 6.2mil on Monday. Still, that 6.2mil viewers represents a big jump over last season's final and almost double what game 6 drew on Saturday. And considering that the final had a team from Canada and a team from Florida, 6.2mil is not bad. How did the game do north of the border? Well, on the english language CBC, the game drew 4.9mil, just shy of a record. And with 1mil watching on the french language SRC, that bring the total to 5.9mil, nearly what the game drew in the states. o what does that translate into stateside? 60 million viewers. Eat your heart out, ABC. (June 9)

"Mountain" gets moved
    FThe WB is not taking any chanced with its new drama "The Mountain," so it's offically made the first move of the fall season and has placed the drama at Wednesdays at 9pm. The show, which has break-out written all over it, will replace "Blue Collar TV" and "Drew Carey's Green Screen," which will move to Thursdays at 8pm and will be cancelled in October. (June 9)

                                  April 2004 News