At least, that’s the delusion that Angela Bromstad (President, Primetime Entertainment, NBC and Universal Media Studios) seems to be operating under. Asked about the show at NBC’s TCA presentation, Bromstad said, “”It’s been performing very strongly in its 8 p.m. time slot.” I would argue that finishing in fourth place every week, and losing to repeats of the CBS comedies, is a far cry from “very strongly.” Also… last week it performed even worse in the 9PM hour. That really makes one question the thinking behind a return to the Chuck/Heroes Monday from last season. Haven’t we already seen how that story plays out?
ABC - Despite a stumble on Tuesday night, ABC had the best week among the networks. Things got off to a very nice start Sunday, with Extreme Makeover (11.01m/3.3), Desperate Housewives (15.36m/5.1), and Brothers & Sisters (10.91m/3.5). Monday wasn’t quite as successful, but still brought a solid premiere to the latest version of The Bachelor (9.54m/3.3). That was followed by the premiere of Conveyor Belt Of Love (6.53m/2.7). That’s not a great viewer number, but make note of that demo. I doubt Castle will be able to match it following The Bachelor. Although, to be fair, Conveyor probably couldn’t match it again either.
The wheels, as you would expect, came off on Tuesday as the network rolled out their two hour Scrubs (3.86m/1.5), Better Off Ted (2.99m/1.3), Scrubs (3.05m/1.4), Better Off Ted (2.6m/1.1) block. All of those numbers are way too low. Even The Forgotten (4.38m/1.2) at 10 gets better numbers. The results were completely opposite on Wednesday, with The Middle (7.55m/2.2 – 8.17m/2.7), Modern Family (10.22m/4.1), and Cougar Town (7.92m/3.3) all performing so much better. The numbers for The Middle are particularly worth noting. It was a somewhat weak night of competition, but it looks like the show is starting to find its audience. Unfortunately, the first shot for Ugly Betty (5.08m/1.7) on Wednesday wasn’t so lucky.
The real highlight of the week came Thursday, in the form of the BCS Co-Championship (30m/10.2) game featuring Alabama and Texas. That’s a number that even Idol would have a hard time reaching anymore. The week then wrapped with a rather uneventful Friday, featuring Supernanny (4.26m/1.2), Shark Tank (3.96m/1.4), and 20/20 (7.81m/2.3).
FOX - A solid night from Animation Domination, The Simpsons (8.65m/4), The Cleveland Show (6.96m/3.3), Family Guy (8.1m/3.9), and American Dad (5.91m/2.8), got things off to a very nice start on Sunday. After that, FOX had it’s own part of the bowl season with the Fiesta Bowl (12.88m/4.3) and the Orange Bowl (10.27m/3.5). The only other new programming for the week came Friday, as Dollhouse (2.38m/.8) burned off another episode.
NBC - Sunday Night Football (14.6m/5.5) gave NBC their own piece of the lucrative football pie to start the week on a winning note. That winning feeling quickly disappeared on Monday, with two hours of Heroes (5.3m/2.3 – 4.57m/2.1). That 9PM number is particularly distressing, when you consider the show was beaten by more than 5 million viewers and a full demo point by repeats of Men/Big Bang. What’s going to happen this week when it goes up against new episodes? I guess the network thinks much more of the Chuck lead-in than I do.
The news got considerably better on Tuesday, with the return of The Biggest Loser (11.68m/4.6). That’s the highest demo of the night, against an all new CBS lineup, and football on FOX. The Biggest Loser remains the biggest hit NBC has. Mercy (7.3m/1.8) remained steady on Wednesday, and was followed by a nicely boosted L&O: SVU (10.83m/3.2). Things wrapped up with a Dateline (7.55m/1.6 – 10.35m/2.2) double-shot on Friday.
The Jay Leno Show (5.35m/1.4 average), as you may have heard, didn’t have a great week. It was announced over the weekend that the show will no longer air at 10PM starting in February. The network is still trying to figure out what it’s going to do with Jay, Conan, and Jimmy, but the 10PM experiment is over. Aside from that, it was a rather average week for the show where the numbers were concerned.
CBS - The Tiffany network took a little longer to recover from the New Year’s celebrations, starting their week on Tuesday with NCIS (21.34m/4.4), NCIS: LA (17.96m/3.7), and The Good Wife (13.85m/3). That’s a heck of a way to start the new year. Wednesday brought the return of I Get That A Lot (8.5m/2.9) and the People’s Choice Awards (10.74m/3.4). Neither of those are OMG numbers, but it did make for a very solid night. Finally, the week wrapped up with another easy overall win on Friday, on the strength of Ghost Whisperer (9m/2.2), Medium (8.93m/2.1), and Numb3rs (9.32m/2.1).
For next week, I’m most curious to see the numbers for the return of Chuck, and what happens with Heroes Monday at 9. Interestingly, Fringe is getting its shot following Dr. House on Monday. I suspect it to have something around 3 million more viewers than Heroes. We’ll also have the premiere of the Paula-free Idol to look at, which should be interesting.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Jan 11, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
I don’t have a lot of hope for NBC’s Monday night lineup. Chuck certainly received much more promotion this year, but do people really expect it to do any better against House/24, The Bachelor, and HIMYM this year? Maybe a little bit, since The Big Bang Theory was moved to crush Heroes instead, but not very much, I’m guessing.
Of course, as NBC continues to implode, Chuck may well be one of the only things they have left by May.