Ratings Results for the Week of March 29th – A Bit of Good News for Some Shows

By John J. Joex

After last week’s dismal results in which almost every network show in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre showed a drop in their ratings, this week brought a bit of good news for several shows.

On NBC, Kings halted its decline, which is about as good of news as that show can expect these days. And on Monday night, both Heroes and Medium improved on their rating in the 18-49 demographic from last week. Heroes Volume 4 continues to get stronger each week and it appears that viewers are slowly migrating back.

On ABC, while the premiere numbers for Cupid were nothing to get excited about, it was not a complete disaster, pulling a 2.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 7.56 million viewers. Those numbers aren’t quite strong enough to win it a second season, but at least it is not DOA (from a ratings perspective that is) like I originally thought. I’m actually going to bump down the Cancellation Alert on that one to “Medium” for now. On Wednesday, Lost ’s numbers rebounded some from the prior week with a 4.2 rating in the 18-49 demo and 9.35 million viewers. And the Life on Mars finale delivered more total viewers than that show has seen in two months.

On the CW, Reaper remained pretty much steady with the numbers it saw the prior week, and both Smallville and Supernatural saw a healthy boost to their ratings. In fact, Supernatural improved on its Smallville lead-in with the numbers in the 18-49 demo and actually posted its best numbers in the 18-34 demo since October 2006 .

On CBS, The Eleventh Hour was not so lucky. It’s one week pre-emption because of College Basketball lead to viewers forgetting about it and it posted is lowest numbers for a new episode since December.

On FOX, Dollhouse improved its rating in the 18-49 demo from last week and The Sarah Connor Chronicles stayed even, though both dropped some in total viewers. Both appear pretty much finished, though, as neither has made any significant move out of the ratings cellar they have been in all year.

Ratings Results:

Title Day / Time (EST) Network Rating (Viewers 18-49) Timeslot Rank Total Viewers (Millions) Jericho (R) Sunday / 7 PM CW 0.3 5th 0.72 Kings Sunday / 8 PM NBC 1.3 4th 4.45 Chuck Monday / 8 PM NBC 2.1 4th 5.62 Heroes Monday / 9 PM NBC 3.1 4th 6.32 Medium Monday / 10 PM NBC 2.6 2nd 7.26 Reaper Tuesday / 8 PM CW 1.0 5th 2.37 The Mentalist Tuesday / 9 PM CBS 3.8 3rd 16.92 Fringe Tuesday / 9 PM FOX Returns Apr 7th n/a n/a Cupid Tuesday / 10 PM ABC 2.3 3rd 7.56 Knight Rider Wednesday / 8 PM NBC Season Completed n/a n/a Lost Wednesday / 9 PM ABC 4.2 2nd 9.35 Life on Mars Wednesday / 10 PM ABC 2.1 2nd 5.80 Smallville Thursday / 8 PM CW 1.6 5th 3.80 Supernatural Thursday / 9 PM CW 1.7 5th 3.28 Eleventh Hour Thursday / 10 PM CBS 2.5 2nd 10.38 Ghost Whisperer (R) Friday / 8 PM CBS 1.6 1st 7.60 The Sarah Connor Chronicles Friday / 8 PM FOX 1.3 3rd 3.35 Dollhouse Friday / 9 PM FOX 1.4 2nd 3.49

Title % Chg from Prior Wk % Chg from Lead-In Cancell- ation Alert Jericho (R) 0.0% n/a n/a Kings 0.0% n/a High Chuck 0.0% n/a Moderate Heroes 6.9% 47.6% Low Medium 18.2% -16.1% Moderate Reaper 0.0% n/a Medium The Mentalist 0.0% 11.8% Low Fringe n/a n/a Low Cupid n/a -23.3% Medium Knight Rider n/a n/a High Lost 5.0% 147.1% Low Life on Mars 0.0% -50.0% Cancelled Smallville 6.7% n/a Renewed Supernatural 41.7% 6.2% Renewed Eleventh Hour n/a n/a Moderate Ghost Whisperer (R) n/a n/a Low The Sarah Connor Chronicles 0.0% n/a High Dollhouse 7.7% 7.7% Elevated

The Timeslot Rank , and % Change from Prior Week and Lead-In columns are based on the rating in the 18-49 demographic. The Cancellation Alert column is based on season to date performance and my assessment of how likely the network is to cancel the show. TVbytheNumbers.com also provides their Renew/Cancel Index which tracks the likelihood of cancellation on a weekly basis.

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