Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates, TV | Tagged: ABC, fox, jamie wotton, nbc, ratings, tv ratings

Nikita Returns…. Not So Good, Once Upon Flies Up, Revolution Does Its Thing – The Week In TV Ratings

Jamie Wotton writes for Bleeding Cool.

For this column, I will be ignoring the overall viewing audience and focusing on the 18-49 demographic. That's the only demo that advertisers care about, and the one that will tell us whether our favourite shows will live or die.

Revolution, the first (and so far only) out-and-out hit on the season continues doing it's thing on Monday night. Rising up two-tenths from last weeks 3.0 to a 3.2. Many journos have predicted the demise of the show, only for it to continue rising or at least stay steady week on week. People can't quite understand why this show is doing what Flash Forward, Heroes, V and The Event all failed to do. I'm not up to date with it, but I think it's genuinely wonderful to see someone's ambitious genre show succeed – and making NBC the #1 network on TV at that. Who would have thought?

Also on Monday, CBS's comedy lineup is showing its humanity still. With shows like How I Met Your Mother, 2 Broke Girls and Mike & Molly averaging a 3 point. It's so strange to see the undisputed Gods of high-ratings to be down so low, all because of a Two And A Half Men move.

The presidential debate was the main focus of Tuesday but 8PM reality shows gave both ABC and NBC the highest ratings. NBC scored a 4.7 with The Voice lead-in, while ABC did a 2.8 with Dancing With The Stars. And people say lead-ins don't mean anything anymore.

Nashville sang a bum-note on Wednesday, dropping from a respectable 2.8 debut to a risky 2.0. If the show holds, it'll be on a while, but I'm unsure. I loved the pilot – it was arguably my favourite all year – but it's a show that can so easily give into its soapy tendencies, and a buzzy soap is nothing without a large audience, at least in my mind.

However, Arrow performed very well, scoring a 1.3 for The CW – same as the premiere last week. Shows don't ever do that. This is The CW and they have pretty dedicated (small) audiences so I wasn't expecting a huge drop-off, but still. 'Grats, Arrow.

Supernatural matched last week too, with a 1.0. Hard to not be pleased for a show that was regulated to Fridays do well again mid-week.

Shows that do drop-off on The CW though were The Vampire Diaries and Beauty And The Beast on Thursday. It's disheartening (but ultimately doesn't matter, the show is still successful) to see The Vampire Diaries settle back down into it's heavily DVR'd 1.3. I think it's okay though, because Beauty And The Beast fell to a pretty bad 0.7. The Secret Circle was in the same supernatural romance spot last season and didn't succeed, and I don't expect this to either.

Elementary over on CBS isn't doing too well for itself either. The modern-day Sherlock Holmes adaptation is garnering a large overall audience (10.91 million) but the 18-49 just isn't there (2.3). I could see it sticking around for a while, however, just like I do ABC's Last Resort which has impressed me by maintaining its admittedly low scores week on week. The latest episode scored a 1.7. ABC shows that open bigger struggle to stay above that, so its hopeful to see even these numbers. A second season might be unlikely, but a back 9 isn't. At all.

Down 50% from last season's premiere (0.6), Nikita's chances for a fourth season don't look promising at all. It rated a tiny 0.3 on Friday. If it floats a bit, up to a 0.5 maybe, I could see The CW keep it around for another year due to it filling gaps in the lineup (critical acclaim, spy show) but if not – enjoy these 22 eps, Nikita fans.

Oh, and there was no Fringe this week. No reason to be depressed that the masses don't watch "Quality TV."

Fans of ABC on Sundays, where they're the only broadcast network actually airing things many people would want to watch, ensured all of their shows were up too. Once Upon A Time hopped to a 3.3, with Revenge going up to a 2.8 and 666 Park Avenue making 1.8. The rest of the nation, as per usual, was watching NBC's Sunday Night Football. Hurrah!

I'll see you all next week, with more numbers, speculation and excitement. If there's something more exciting than TV ratings, I don't want to hear it!

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