Ratings Clack – Community gets the boot

NBC - Something came up yesterday, so I’m a wee bit tardy with the weekly ratings post. Fortunately, NBC has provided the silver lining for that particular cloud by giving us a bit of ratings/scheduling news to chat about. It seems that the NBC mid-season schedule is out, and Community is nowhere to be found. In related news, last week was another down week for Community (3.49m/1.5).

Now, to be fair, this isn’t a cancellation. Community is making way for the return of 30 Rock at 8, and NBC has said that the show will return at some time… on some night… at some point in the future… What that vaguest vote of confidence means is hard to guess, but Community fans should probably start poking needles into their Whitney dolls in the hopes that her show craters in its new Wednesday time-slot, leaving the network no options.

As one would expect, the internet quickly erupted into shouts of disgust as people tried to reason how NBC could pull Community from the schedule. Well… I think it’s pretty obvious how. They’ve been trying it for three years, and nobody watches. Rather than be upset that the network did the logical thing, I’m going to be happy that we got three seasons of a show that really should have been canceled after one.

While it was another terrible week for Community, that certainly wasn’t the only show with troubles. Prime Suspect (4.86m/1.3) remained down, and it didn’t make the mid-season cut either. Worse, there wasn’t much in the way of reassurance that this one wasn’t a cancellation. The rest of the Thursday night was iffy as well, with Parks & Rec (3.66m/1.8), Whitney (4.28m/2.1), and The Office (5.96m/3). That 3 demo was good enough to put The Office in second place at 9, but the numbers continue to head the wrong way with the Nardog at the helm.

Elsewhere, the only bit of really good news again came from Sunday Night Football (22.12m/8.8). The Sing Off (4.25m/1.5), Biggest Loser (6.86m/2.4), Parenthood (5.3m/2), Up All Night (4.79m/1.8), Harry’s Law (7.11m/1.3), SVU (6.7m/1.9), Chuck (3.17m/.9), and Grimm (5.19m/1.5) all continue to reveal just how many problems NBC has with their schedule.

CBS - On the opposite side of that coin, we find CBS. They are like the anti-NBC. As an example, NBC had 3 scripted shows that were able to get 2 or better in the demo. CBS had 6 that were over a 4. And in viewers, every show on NBC would be in last place on CBS. Crazy! It’s almost ridiculous how smooth their schedule is running. So much so, that they just decided to run repeats of Person of Interest and The Mentalist on a Thursday in the middle of sweeps and still got 9 and 10 million viewers. The rest of the schedule, which was actually new, looked pretty solid across the board. That Monday comedy block is particularly impressive.

ABC - The week started with another strong performance from Once Upon A Time (11.45m/3.8) as the show continues to easily outpace Desperate Housewives (8.78m/2.8) and Pan Am (5.17m/1.7). This is looking like the breakout drama for the new season. The other highlight was the return of the CMA Awards (16.4m/4.8). That is right on pace with last year’s show, and gave a nice boost to the ABC Wednesday.

Elsewhere, it was mostly business as usual from Dancing With The Stars (18.16m/3.4 – 15.07m/2.8), Castle (11.07m/2.4), Last Man Standing (9.26m/2.6), Man Up (6.24m/1.7), Charlie’s Angels (5.1m/1.1), Grey’s Anatomy (11.29m/4.1), and Private Practice (7.5m/2.8). The most interesting bit of that moving forward is probably the Man Up number. The trend isn’t doing the show any favors.

FOX - The Simpsons (8m/3.7) continued to ride the high of the previous week’s Halloween special to start the week, but that didn’t do anything to help Allen Gregory (4.32m/2.1). Family Guy (5.82m/3.1) and Cleveland (4.85m/2.5) finished Sunday before handing off to Terra Nova (7.75m/2.6) and House (7.55m/2.8) on Monday. Both were well up from what was a terrible performance the week before, but that Monday is still looking a bit iffy for Fox. The big surprise there is Terra Nova with more viewers than House.

That was the tone for the rest of the week as well. Glee (6.91m/3.1) and New Girl (6.84m/3.5) looked good, but are well off the pace they started the season with. And without a boost from Jess, Raising Hope (4.51m/2.1) has quickly come back to Earth. X Factor (10.25m/3.8 – 10.13m/3.3) was more of the same. Good numbers, but not the expected. Ditto for Bones (8.64m/2.6), which took a solid second week hit, despite CBS phoning it in. Finally, the week wrapped with Kitchen Nightmares (3.92m/1.6) and Fringe (3.07m/1.1).

CW - Vampire Diaries (3.17m/1.4) again knocked off Charlie’s Angels in the demo to finish 4th at 8. And it nearly made it to third, finishing just a tenth of a point behind Community. Other than that, nothing too exciting to report.

CABLE - The Walking Dead (6.29m/3.4) continued to roll (and yes, to complete the circle, that demo does beat all of the NBC shows for the week), but there was even more good news for AMC. Rick handed the ball off to Hell On Wheels (4.36m/1.9), giving the network the two top shows for the night on cable. Those are premiere numbers, so we’ll take it under advisement, but that is a solid start for the show.

Clacked by Brett Love
on Nov 15, 2011 @ 09:00 EST5EDT