It was another largely dark week for the big networks. NBC’s Olympic coverage brought another boatload of repeats from its competitors. That did make for another very nice week for NBC. Although, a third night of Idol did throw a bit of a wrench into things. After the surprising loss to the Olympics in the previous week, you can now assume that another very long win streak is under way for the singing kids. Meanwhile, over on cable, Keeping Up With The Kardashians made news with a very successful finale. Also, Kevin Martin won the gold!
NBC - Another week of Olympic coverage brought in good numbers every night. Now it remains to be seen whether all of those promotions for The Marriage Ref and Parenthood (and the one Chuck commercial…) will do anything to the numbers going forward. Here are the numbers for the Olympics:
FOX - The week started with a little programming sleight of hand. A repeat of Family Guy (6.32m/3.2) was slipped in the middle of The Simpsons (5.98m/2.9), Cleveland (5.59m/2.8), and American Dad (5.66m/2.8) and still managed to lead the night for FOX. 24 (8.83m/2.8) followed up on Monday, with another decent outing. Then, American Idol took over. Tuesday (24.21m/9), Wednesday (22.96m/8.7), and Thursday (18.03m/6.5) outings gave the network quite the answer for the Olympics. Kitchen Nightmares (7.43m/3.4) returned to Thursday, and the week wrapped with the 41st Annual NAACP Awards (2.87m/.8) on Friday.
ABC - Extreme Makeover (7.99m/2.5), Desperate Housewives (10.92m/3.7), and Brothers & Sisters (7.85m/2.5) took another hit from the Olympics to start the week. Things were better for The Bachelor (11.27m/3.9) on Monday. It continues to hold up very well. Tuesday, Lost (9.95m/4.6) remained strong. Unfortunately, that boost at 9 didn’t do much for The Forgotten (5.02m/1.7). The Deep End (3.87m/1.1) finished its run on Thursday. And despite what ABC is claiming, I think we can consider this one canceled.
CBS - Another three hour week brought good news for The Amazing Race (9m/2.9). And great news for Undercover Boss (13.76m/4.8). I still don’t get how that gimmick can hold up for long, but it’s hard to argue with those numbers. Especially against the Olympics. Survivor (11.6m/3.7) finished the CBS week on Thursday, with another solid outing.
CW – As with CBS, CW also had a three hour week. One Tree Hill (2.23m/1.1) rebounded from an off week. Life Unexpected (1.94m/.9) was up week-to-week as well, but just barely. I’ll be very curious to see what CW decides to do with that one. Finally, Smallville (2.53m/1.1) continued to do the hard work on Friday.
CABLE - As I mentioned before, the finale for Keeping Up With The Kardashians (4.81m/2.7) was very successful for E!. How successful? How about the most watched program the network has ever aired? All I know about the show I learned from Chelsea Lately and The Soup, so I probably have a very warped picture of what it actually is, but that’s an impressive number. Also worth noting, the first USA vs Canada hockey game (8.22m/3.4) did very well on MSNBC. Other cable numbers for the week:
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Mar 01, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
*POST AUTHOR*
Update: Another kick to the crotch for Caprica. Feb 19th saw another low, falling below a million viewers for the first time. .98m/.4
Update 2: Feb 26th brought 1.13m/.4 for Caprica, so things are headed back in the right direction. That’s still well below what Sanctuary and SGU have been doing on Friday though.
Smallville Renewed for a 10th Season (but I guess you read that already somewhere)
https://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2010/03/smallville-flies-for-a-10th-season.html