I don’t know for certain but it would appear that Tuesday night is NBC’s strongest night of programming now that SNF has ended. Big numbers for The Biggest Loser and L&O: SVU had to put a huge grin on the faces at NBC.

At CBS they have to be chomping at the bit to see how well their big guns do against AI next week. They probably smell victory in the air. This is looking like the year that AI fades even more significantly than it did last spring and we have to note that their were some nights when AI barely scored a 21.5 rating last season. I’m thinking AI will win a few of the first weeks but then drop off significantly enough to allow CBS to take over the night. Then in March AI will be squeezed even further with the return of DWTS: The Results, which demonstrated last fall that it can hold its own against The Mentalist. Clearly, we have already seen from these first few nights of the first week in January that so far every single network is connecting with their niche and this spring 2009 could bring one of the biggest ratings battles between the big four that we have seen in a long time.

CBS’s numbers are fool’s gold, my friends. Impressive now, but not going to be worth it in the long haul. Their audience just keeps getting older, while ad agencies’ desires just keep getting younger. 18-34 is the new 18-49 for those guys. Pretty soon, they may be only interested in prepubescents.

To the people ad guys drool over, Thomas Jane and Jethro Bodine are just “those old guys my mom and gramma drool over.”

I mean, how much of a hit are you really when a bad flu epidemic this winter could end up wiping out 70% of your audience?

Ok, hyperbole, and I know it, but let’s not go off the rails here because every blue haired lady in America gets wet panties over Simon Baker. Ask me, I’d rather have Biggest Loser than The Mentalist on my net any day of the week.

Of course, then I’d never actually watch my own network, but at least I’d be making boatloads of money.

http://www.scrubs-hq.com/news/archives/368

Sounds really great, but is it really? I’m not sure.

Bring on Castle now

Also, Shatten, you can’t quite blame NBC for Scrubs’ seventh seasons. The strike forced the order to be shortened. Though NBC did decided to air that last episode completely out of order for no reason.

Everytime I watched it I found myself wishing C.G.B Spender would stroll in, lite up a Morley and send the whole show someplace past the exosphere.

Apologies.

We should also remember that House premiered to a very weak 7 million viewers in the fall 2004. It doubled it’s audience when American Idol became it’s lead in, and at its peak was retaining nearly 90% of the Idol audience. While it’s possible that Fringe can catch on to that extent, I consider it highly unlikely for a genre show to repeat the success of a medical drama like House.

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20090107abcfamily01

Fringe is not the type of series that can be a tentpole right out of the gate. That doesn’t mean it won’t be, after a couple of seasons. House did not premiere to “tentpole” Nielsen numbers, either .

As for people who just leave the TV on and don’t pay attention – there’s some kind of button on the Nielsen People Meter that you are supposed to push every few minutes to prove you are watching. If the meter is idle for more than 15 minutes, that meter may not be counted, from what I understand.

To me, personally, it just says “Fringe can’t exist on it’s own, and needs help to exist!”

Even though I don`t really like THE MENTALIST, I still watch it cause hes in it

Fringe repeast are looking lousy when not behind a new House episode. No surprise there.

Say what you will about Homeland and Scrubs, they must be losing less money than Pushing Daisies did.

Eat your heart out, Leno.

we have all kinds of data on how Fox did each week and you can see how stuff ranked last year for Fox while AI ran.

Vader,

I’m assuming you’re questioning TM beating NCIS? When you average the hour for NCIS, it comes in a little lower that TM’s average.

I assuming you’re question TM beating NCIS? When you average the hour for NCIS, it comes in a little lower that TM’s average.

General question: Say that American Idol averages 23 million on Tuesdays and Fringe retains 65% of that, which is roughly 15 million viewers.

Of course, 15 million would be nearly double Fringe’s current numbers, but when tied to AI is 65% good enough? What do you think?

Then again compared to TSCC or something like the cancelled New Amsterdam, Fox could already claim Fringe a tentpole show and almost do it with a completely straight face!

A lot of my preconceptions of FOX’s expectations came from the upfronts.

From the upfronts live blog (New York Times):

“I’m confident this [Fringe] will become the next tentpole show for Fox.”–Kevin Reilly

http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/upfronts-live-blogging-the-fox-upfront/?pagemode=print

Now when I think of “tentpole”, and Wikipedia backs this up, I think of a show that brings in huge viewership and demo numbers, can stand on its own, and can be a strong lead-in for fledgling shows. For example, House is a tentpole show for FOX.

Is it just the highly serialized approach to the show? Or does it say something about how the 18-49 demo approaches things? NCIS was always an older-skewing audience, but perhaps all the repeats and syndication finally lured younger viewers to start watching it, after which they started watching new eps too?

“The Mentalist” is a ridiculously huge hit, which is good for network TV! I’m going to bet that CBS is going to win the total viewer race on Tuesdays even after Fox brings back American Idol.

Here is my prediction: Fox will get about 22-24 million viewers from 8-9 with AI, and at 9 “Fringe” will start averaging 12-13 million viewers with the huge lead in. I’m thinking CBS will get 16-18 million for NCIS and probably 18-20 million for The Mentalist. Fox will still dominate in the 18/49 race.

Anyone care to challenge my prediction?

My guess is that especially give House’s erosion, Fringe is in line with Fox’s expectations, unless the Fox execs are delusional, which while possible seems doubtful. If I’m Fox I’m feeling “fine” about Fringe. Not ecstatic, but fine.