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Revolution Holds Well, Last Resort Sinks, Fringe Keeps Steady – The Week In TV Ratings

Revolution Holds Well, Last Resort Sinks, Fringe Keeps Steady – The Week In TV RatingsFor 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.

Ratings have been down, up, and nonsensical for a while now, but how did they shake out for this last week?

On Monday, there was possible cause for celebration that NBC's big genre offering, Revolution, didn't drop too badly from its big opener last week. JJ Abrams and Eric Kripke's show garnered a 3.4 in the 18-49 demographic. We'll see how it goes, but I think it has a solid chance of continuing to keep a hold of The Voice lead-in more than previous shows in that time slot, like Smash.

For those getting twitchy about How I Met Your Mother returning for a possible ninth (!) season, it's less-than-stellar ratings compared to the previous season (3.6 versus 4.7 18-49) may mean that CBS may finally end this one – much to the creators' relief.

Then, on Tuesday, Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis' period police show Vegas got off to an okay – but not at all great – start with a 2.9; however it notably lost a lot of its audience of throughout the hour. We saw the same thing last season with Pan Am and The Playboy Club and, so it is again here – the average joe really really doesn't care for shows set in the 60s.

FOX's big comedy night didn't open too well either. Maintaining 90% of  New Girl's (2.8) strong audience, The Mindy Project premiere was still just  a 2.4. The FOX braintrust seem to like star and creator Mindy Kaling enough so I think it'll stick around for a while, but I'm very interested in how many people will return.

There wasn't much going on come Wednesday, except for ABC's juggernaut sitcom Modern Family returning to spectacular ratings. I'm never not impressed to see a 5.5 for a scripted, non-CBS show in the year 2012. I shouldn't be surprised though, considering how last Sunday's Emmys were basically a two-hour advert for the show.

Thursday was once the biggest night in television, but that myth is fading away. NBC's Comedy line-up of The Office (2.1), Parks And Recreation (1.6) and Up All Night (1.4) were down across the board, with the previously huge Office barely even being a blip on the radar anymore.

ABC had something of a mixed night, with their big, expensive submarine show Last Resort premiering to an  easily-axed 2.2 in the 8pm hour, before jumping up to double and provide 4.4 for the Grey's Anatomy premiere at 9pm.

And despite rather silly protests, CBS's modern-day Sherlock Holmes adaptation Elementary debuted to strong numbers, giving them a 3.1 demo.

Much like Wednesday, Friday nights don't boast a wide line-up yet but Grimm continues to do pretty well for itself (1.6) and FOX's Fringe earned a 1.1, similar to where it was all of last season. It's a miracle the show got this far and there's no need to worry about it, but it's nice to know that the fans are still watching.

Sunday was much more interesting with Once Upon A Time continuing to somehow do very well for itself (3.8), and it even helped out Revenge (3.2) – but sadly not the new campy scarefest 666 Park Avenue, starring Terry O'Quinn. That one only reached a 2.2. That's a  pretty huge dropoff that suggests people just aren't digging the Devil.

Similarly, the  acclaimed legal drama The Good Wife only got a 1.8. CBS love the critical attention they get for the show, but at some point, something has gotta give and I think it's probably fair to say this fourth season will be the last.

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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