CBS takes a reality
glut on Wednesday
How full of reality is this
summer's schedule? Well, on Wednesday, out of 15 hours of programming,
6.5 hours were reality. But that doesn't mean that everything is finding
an audience. Take ABC's "The Family," which landed only 4.8mil viewers
from 9-11pm, albeit for a repeat episode. Fox's "American Juniors" (5.7mil)
is a huge disappointment, while NBC's "Race To The Altar" (6.5mil) is doing
only slightly better than "Fame" did. And it seems like Simon Cowell is
a double loser on Wednesday- his "Cupid" (7.3mil) has been a let-down for
CBS. But when it works.... Well, "Big Brother 4" (10.0mil) hit a summer
high, and "Paradise Hotel" (7.2mil) is holding up well for Fox, no matter
where they stick it.
Well,what about the
repat programming, that must be doing okay, right? Well, some of it is.
"Law & Order" (11.3mil), "The George Lopez Show" (7.7mil) and "60 Minutes
II" (10.1mil) contionue to be the Wednesday stand-outs, while "My Wife
& Kids" (7.2mil) and "The Twilight Zone" (2.3mil) are pulling in some
decent numbers. But that's pretty much where it ends. "Enterprise" (2.0mil)
is having the summer from hell, making one wonder if the UPN cancelled
the wrong series, while "The West Wing" (6.0mil) came back to the schedule
with a thud. "Smallville" moved over to Wednesdays, but it could only rustle
up 2.3mil viewers.
But the biggest flop
of the summer? The WB's "Pepsi Summer Smash Concert Series," which will
culminate in a one-in-one-thousand chance of a one billion dollar give-out.
It drew just 1.5mil viewers on Wednesday, making Pepsi rethink the whole
deal. (July 31)
Summer's biggest Thursday
Thanks to removing the weakest
links, like "Frasier," "Scrubs" and the WB's entire line-up, last Thursday
night ended up being the highest rated Thursday of the summer. Of course,
CBS still won with "CSI" (12.1mil) and "Without A Trace" (11.0mil), but
NBC had a solid night with repeats of super-sized episodes. "Friends" (9.0mil)
and a double shot of "Will & Grace" (8.7mil) were either first or second
from 8-10pm, while a special "Dateline" with Brad & Jen nearly doubled
"ER"s performances of late with 10.4mil. "The Amazing Race" was 2nd at
8pm.
ABC was third on the
night with the old special "Disco Ball" (4.6mil) and "PrimeTime" (6.6mil),
while the UPN was fourth with "Smackdown!" (4.6mil). Fox ended up in fifth
with "Stupid Behavior" (5.0mil), "30 Seconds" (5.3mil) and the show that
just won;t die, "The Pulse" (3.6mil), while the big jump came on the WB.
Say what you will about the network, but it sure knows how to air movies
at the right time: after "Austin Powers" snagged 5mil last summer right
before the third installment at the cineplex opened, this time it was "Bad
Boys" with 4.0mil. (July 18)
ABC's patchy week
It was a weird for ABC...
First "The Drew Carey Show" came back to the schedule on Wednesday with
some pretty promising numbers. The show drew 7.1mil at 9pm, third in its
slot, but first in adults. Drew's other series, "Whose Line?" drew about
5.2mil on Friday, and was also first in adults at 9pm.
On the other hand, drama
repeats keep getting worse for ABC. As if "The Practice"s 4.2mil viewers
wasn't bad enough, "Alias" slipped to just 2.3mil viewers at 9pm, a record
low for the network. CBS canned "Charlie Lawrence" for drawing twice that....
(July 2)
Erosion gets worse on Tuesday
Tuesdays have simply
sucked for most of the summer, and they got even worse this week. Not one
show managed to break 8mil viewers, and most series hovered in the 4-5
ratings range. NBC won the night in adults and viewers with "Dog Eat Dog"
(7.1mil), "Comic" (7.5mil) and "Dateline" (7.0mil) all performing at lower-than-normal
levels. Fox did peak at 8pm with "American Juniors" (7.7mil), which seems
to be just treading water, while the soon-to-depart "Keen Eddie" slipped
toa series low 4.7mil. Over on the alphabet, it was the return of
"Life With Bonnie" that threw a chink in the armour. The series drew just
5.4mil, losing quite a bit from "8 Simple Rules" (7.0mil). "Jim" picked
up a bit at 9pm (7.4mil), while "Perfect" (6.4mil) and "NYPD Blue" (6.7mil)
trailed off at the end of the night. Over on CBS, the night was lost with
"JAG" (6.6mil), "The Guardian" (6.2mil) and "Judging Amy" (6.4mil). At
the frog, neither "Gilmore Girls" (2.3mil) nor "Smallville" (2.4mil) are
living up to their regular-season prowess.
The only network
with anything real to brag about was the UPN. A repeat of "America's Next
Top Model" (2.5mil) and a new episode (4.5mil) were the clear cut winners
of the night. Now if the UPN could only spread the wealth to its other
nights, it might actually move up a bit. (July 2)
Cancelled: Charlie, Bob
It hasn't been a good
summer for male-named series on CBS. Last week, the eye canned both "Charlie
Lawrence," which never got started on Sundays, and "Baby Bob," which drowned
on Fridays. The winners? Good taste. The losers? Critics. Now they only
have "Accoring To Jim" to beat around. (July 2)
June 2003 News
JustTV News Archive: July 2003