And to the guy who says he works for the CW, Smallville is CW’s highest rated scripted show, but its highest rated show overall is ANTM.

Now putting Reaper early was primarily intended to push 90210 to 9pm, and get it out of the way of Idol, and improve its numbers. That is still quite possible.

I never compared Reaper to Idol, that would be silly. I compared Reaper to 90210, and the comparison is not flattering for Reaper.

So, saying “it fell from last year” well, last year it wasn’t opposite of AI. Just a point of fact. It’s one thing to pull a 1.6 rating when you’re up against say, “The Amazing Race” (I believe it aired Sunday last year) vs. going against American Idol on a network that isn’t even available everywhere.

The numbers aren’t great, but what really did CW expect? Would a new episode of 90210 have faired better? Because the statistics certainly don’t bear that out; so what did they have to throw in that spot that would have gotten them a 2 share?

Reaper is a fairly cheap to produce show with a designed 13 episode (1/2 season) run. Compared to the relatively expensive and ratings flop in Priveleged, which last I checked did worse then Reaper on a night where it’s opposition was real counter-programming (action) then you get my point.

The #s were not good. But no way CW can look at this and say “damnit! Reaper should have really taken it to AI in the demos” Good luck with that gimmick.

On another note, how much longer can ABC milk this years Bachelor? I know the numbers have been astonishingly good but surely this is the last show they can pump out, right?

If 90210 does better at 9pm than it had been doing at 8pm, then the CW’s Tuesday as a whole has improved. (The 90120 increase over Privileged being greater than the Reaper decrease from 90210, for a net gain.) Plus it saves 90210 from the AI bus and the CW really seems to want 90210 to do well.

Maybe I’ll PVR it next week

I think REAPER will do better when the entire CW lineup is back.

As for my headline writing, no one cares about Homeland Security USA and Scrubs reruns, and they did *exactly* as anyone with a brain would have expected them to do. Ditto Biggest Loser. Would you have written “Bachelor Beats Reruns At 10″?. Yawn. Premieres of shows are always news. There wasn’t anything else newsworthy last night.

I work for the CW.

Secondly, 2 and a half million viewers is not really that bad for The CW (last week, 90210 and the Reaper had almost the same number of viewers).

If you’re going to have a Big Shocking Headline for this article, it should really mention ABC’s absolutely abysmal ratings from 8:00-10:00.

That would have been a bigger story.

That 90210 did almost 90% better in adults 18-34 the last time it went against AI with a new episode makes the Reaper numbers look bad to me. Period.

And yet, I disagree with you again. The Live+7 DVR numbers are interesting (to geeks like us), but to the best of our knowledge are entirely meaningless to the future success of the show.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/03/04/tuesday-ratings-reaper-torched-by-american-idol/13925/comment-page-1#comment-55363

And I look at numbers too. Spend quite a bit of time doing it as a hobby. Yes, I’m a fellow weirdo who thinks statistics is fun. And IMO numbers that pretty much are the same as last year, despite a 10 month hiatus, going up against AI, a bumped-up premiere date, and a new time really aren’t as bad as you’re trying to make it out. I say wait for the time-shifted numbers, then we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on. Right now we only really have less than half the true picture.

Could things improve? Sure. We’ll see.

If you’d looked at the list, you’d realize they weren’t.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

That is only if 90210 does much better against FRINGE. I happen to think it won’t do that much better, because I think 90210 is junk and believe the “blessed demo,” of the CW for the most part agree.