Winners and Losers From The Last 7 Days

WINNERS

BREAKING IN: Finally, Christian Slater breaks his unlucky TV streak!

After back-to-back flops with My Own Worst Enemy and The Forgotten, it was third time’s the charm for the 80’s movie star as his Fox sitcom delivered impressive numbers in its Wednesday night premiere.

Breaking In pulled in 9.81 million viewers and a 3.5 18-49 share. Sure that’s a hefty drop from lead in American Idol (23.13 million) but Breaking also held onto more viewers than any post-Idol comedies in the last four years.

Of course the real test will come next week as we see how many of those viewers Slater holds on to. Don’t forget ABC sitcom, Mr Sunshine was looking like a hit a few weeks ago. This week it ended its run with just 4.66 million viewers and a 1.6 youth share, less than a Modern Family RE-RUN! Premiere numbers have now become fairly pointless. But let Christian enjoy the good news – a lot of people, myself included, counted him out!

EXTREME COUPONING: Hot on the heels of its recent special, TLC’s saving series kicked off its regular run with some solid ratings for the network. Wednesday’s Extreme Couponing pulled in 2.60 million viewers and a 1.3 18-49. That’s better than pretty much everything on The CW these days – and can you imagine how much Couponing costs compared to a show like 90210?

Will the ratings gold continue though? I’m not so sure. For me Couponing is a great special but I’m not sure I’d tune in week after week for what is essentially the same show. But then again, that’s not stopped the likes of Hoarders and Toddlers and Tiaras from continued success…

THE KILLING: For weeks now TV insiders have been speculating how The Killing, AMC’s remake of a popular Danish serialized show, would perform. Would it be a critical but low rated hit like Mad Men (which hovers around the 2 million viewers mark) or a popular smash like The Walking Dead (6 million a time!)

Well the results are in – and it’s somewhere in between. Sunday’s premiere opened with 2.72 million viewers – a good, but not spectacular, start for the show.

Now for the bad news. Despite the solid ratings, the 18-49 numbers for The Killing were low – just 0.7 (compare that figure with Extreme Couponing above). And don’t forget The Killing is a serialized show, which means the ratings are likely to go down – not up – in future weeks. It’ll be interesting to see where The Killing ends up by the end of its run…

LOSERS

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: So ABC have you actually given up on Desperate Housewives this season? It would seem so given that you seem hell bent on killing the show’s ratings this year. Why would you keep Housewives off air for the last few weeks and then bring it back on Sunday night, up against the Country Music Awards? And it’s not the first time this has happened – you did the same thing with the Grammies and The Golden Globes. Who the heck is running your scheduling department?

The result was predictably grim – 9.04 million and a 2.9 18-49 rating. That’s about 2 million down on the show’s usual ratings. And to add insult to injury there’s ANOTHER repeat this week, before more new episodes begin.

To be fair Housewives isn’t firing on all cylinders at the moment – more on that soon – but even so the show deserves better. Start getting your act together ABC – it’s not like you’re overrun by hit shows!

BODY OF PROOF: Last week Body of Proof was in our winners’ column – so what gives? Well as I mentioned above, premiere ratings now mean very little, with numerous shows falling fast after impressive first weeks (The Event, Mr Sunshine, No Ordinary Family)

In week 2 ABC’s new crime series fell badly. A post Desperate Housewives airing, dropped 35% from its premiere ratings to 8.49 million and a 2.0 18-49 share (though admittedly that’s probably better than Brothers and Sisters would have done in the same slot).

Then on Tuesday ANOTHER new episode bounced back a bit – up 20% from Sunday but still down 23% from last week. The final result was 11.15 million viewers (after DWTS remember) and a 2.4 18-49 share. That’s good enough for now… but ultimately the network won’t settle for anything below a 2.0…

tori-and-dean-home-sweet-hollywood TORI AND DEAN – STORIBOOK WEDDINGS: I never want to say I’m pleased when a show underperforms… but actually sometimes I am!

I like Tori Spelling and think she seems sweet – but I also think she’s barely one step above Kate Gosselin on the talent front. I’ve never understood the non-stop parade of reality shows she keeps churning out – and why people would actually watch them on a weekly basis (and these people actually get to vote – wow!)

But this week Tori and Dean seem to have met their match – as new makeover show Storibook Weddings, featuring the couple as wedding planners for ordinary members of the public, tanked for Oxygen. The premiere pulled in just 341,000 viewers and a 0.2 18-49 share, well below the network average. With Tori flailing and The Real Housewives franchise also starting to fall apart are we witnessing a sea change in the industry… let’s hope so!