Depending on where and how you look at the numbers, you can find good things happening at several networks in the first two days of the 2004-05 TV season.
CBS, unsurprisingly, has opened the season strong with its powerful Monday lineup and the finales of summer shows “Big Brother 5” and “The Amazing Race.” ABC and The WB both got solid performances from returning shows on Tuesday (Sept. 21). An old standby also did well for NBC Tuesday.
Starting at the top, the two-hour finale of “The Amazing Race” led CBS to a win Tuesday in both total viewers and the adults 18-49 demographic that advertisers so dearly love. The final legs of the race capped a successful summer run with close to 13 million viewers, its second-best number ever, and a 5.6 rating in the 18-49 demo, third-best in the show’s history.
“Big Brother 5,” meanwhile, shut its doors with 10.5 million viewers and a 4.2 in adults 18-49, leading the 8 p.m. hour in both measures.
Opposite CBS’ finales, the debut of ABC’s reshuffled comedy block helped draw the network’s biggest Tuesday audience (excluding the NBA Finals) since February. An hour-long “My Wife and Kids” drew 9.4 million viewers at 8 p.m., while “According to Jim” and new show “Rodney” averaged about 10.3 million the following hour. (Both hours finished second to CBS.)
NBC’s biggest bright spot Tuesday was the sixth-season premiere of “Law & Order: SVU,” which beat “The Amazing Race” in total viewers at 10 p.m. (14.2 million vs. 13.2 million) and posted a 5.3 rating among adults 18-49. It added about 5 million viewers from its lead-in of “Father of the Pride” and “Scrubs,” which continued to post decent, but not great, ratings.
The WB may have the biggest reason to celebrate Tuesday’s results. The season premiere of “Gilmore Girls” (5.8 million viewers) improved by more than a million people over last year’s debut, while “One Tree Hill” (4.9 million) nearly doubled its audience from last fall’s series premiere. Both shows also did well among the teen and young-adult viewers the network targets.
Monday night, as expected, belonged to CBS, although “Monday Night Football” carried ABC to a narrow win among adults 18-49. The 8 to 10 p.m. comedy block, which includes new series “Listen Up” (11.75 million viewers) was off some from last year; returnees “Everybody Loves Raymond” (18 million) and “Two and a Half Men” (16.4 million) each lost about 2 million viewers.
However, the “CSI: Miami” premiere, including the heavily hyped death of Rory Cochrane’s character, drew the show’s third-largest audience ever — nearly 22.5 million viewers. It also contributed to heavy second-week declines for NBC’s “LAX” (7.9 million), which bled 5 million viewers from its premiere last week.
Credit: Zap2it.com
