The retentionistas should be pretty happy. With 5.397 million average viewers, the premiere of "Men of a Certain Age" held ~87% of "The Closer's" 6.180 million. "Age" bowed as the top series premiere of 2009 on ad-supported cable in households and adults 25-54. But among 18-49 year olds, "Men of a Certain Age" actually improved versus "The Closer," 2.074M vs. 1.875m. For comparative purposes, last week's season two finale of "Sons Of Anarchy" averaged 2.985 million adults 18-49.
TNT press release below:
TNT’s Critically Acclaimed Men of a Certain Age
Draws 5.4 Million Viewers and Scores Ad-Supported Cable’s
Top New Series Launch of 2009 among Households and Adults 25-54
After receiving strong reviews from critics across the country, TNT’s Men of a Certain Age proved equally popular with viewers Monday night. More than 5.4 million viewers tuned in for the 10 p.m. (ET/PT) premiere of the series, which ranked as ad-supported cable’s top new series launch of 2009 among households (4.1 million) and adults 25-54 (2.6 million). Among key adult demos, Men of a Certain Age delivered strong growth over its lead-in, a new episode of The Closer.
“The response from viewers and critics to Men of a Certain Age has been amazing,” said Michael Wright, executive vice president, head of programming for TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). “I’m proud of everyone involved with this wonderful series, especially its creators, Ray Romano and Mike Royce, and the great cast headed by Ray, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula.”
Ratings Highlights:
- TNT’s Men of a Certain Age premiere ranks as ad-supported cable’s top new series launch of 2009 among households (4,113,000) and adults 25-54 (2,630,000).
- Men of a Certain Age scored strong growth over its lead-in (The Closer), with adults 18-49 (2,074,000) up 11% and adults 25-54 (2,630,000) up 8%.
- Overall, Men of a Certain Age was watched by 5,397,000 viewers.
- The Closer scored big deliveries for the first of its three December episodes, with 6,180,000 viewers; 4,562,000 households; 1,875,000 adults 18-49; and 2,431,000 adults 25-54.
Men of a Certain Age explores the unique bonds of male friendship among three men approaching mid-life. Now in their 40s, they have been best friends since college, but they’re finding that life is indeed, as John Lennon once said, “what happens when you’re making other plans.”
The show focuses on Joe (Romano), a friendly, 40-something, slightly neurotic, recently separated father of two who had dreams of being a professional golfer but instead owns and runs a party store. He has two best friends: Owen (Braugher), an overstressed husband and father who is a car salesman at his dad’s dealership; and Terry (Bakula), an offbeat, handsome, intelligent and still-struggling-to-make-it actor. Romano and Royce serve as executive producers with Rory Rosegarten and Cary Hoffman.
TNT, one of cable’s top-rated networks, is television’s destination for drama and home to such original series as the acclaimed and highly popular detective drama The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick; Men of a Certain Age, with Ray Romano; Saving Grace, starring Holly Hunter; HawthoRNe, with Jada Pinkett Smith; Leverage, starring Timothy Hutton; and Dark Blue, starring Dylan McDermott; as well as the newly acquired Southland, from ER creator John Wells. TNT also presents such powerful dramas as Bones, CSI: NY and Numb3rs; broadcast premiere movies; compelling primetime specials, such as the Screen Actors Guild Awards®; and championship sports coverage, including NASCAR and the NBA. TNT is available in high-definition.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, creates and programs branded news, entertainment, animation and young adult media environments on television and other platforms for consumers around the world.
After the success of the Golden Girls, I wasn’t worried about this show not hitting the right demos.
However, premieres typically have higher ratings than its season average, so we’ll see how the following weeks do.
As TNT shows go, I’d say it got very heavy promotion, and I’d rate the debut as very solid, but not “wow!” though I’m sure TNT will be referring to it as “The New Hit Show Everybody Is Talking About” before I hit the “submit comment” button.
In fairness though, “The Closer” was not at the top of its ratings game as a lead-in with overall viewers or adults 18-49.
I thought men of a certain age was really good. I will to continue to watch it.
I’ve been anxiously waiting to see this series and was certainly not disappointed! I felt like it was a very strong pilot episode that did a great job of introducing these strong characters.
I’m also pretty impressed with the numbers – I wasn’t to sure that the show would find it’s footing on a network dominated by procedurals and mostly female-led series, but after seeing the 87% retention, I’m feeling more at ease!
The fact it retained a good chunk of the Closer lead in does give it better chances of holding it up on its own in January but the cable competition will be a little tougher with Damages returning in January as well.
I think if it remains in the 4m region then it will be renewed.
Why is it when a show does well, the writers on this site are disappointed, and when a show bombs they are overjoyed? It’s off-putting. Did these guys use to work in tv, get drummed out, and now bash from the sidelines? Oh well, I still enjoy the site overall.
Chad- They aren’t bitter. They are cautious. The fact is we won’t know the real success of this show until we see how it pans out for the rest of its season. For one, it has a strong lead-in, so people would tune in to see what all the hype was about. For two, numbers just about always come down after a premiere. So we’ll see.
Jon- I don’t see Damages being a factor TNT is worried about. I LOVED the first season (haven’t seen S2 yet), but its S2 ratings were abysmal. The only reason the show got a third season is because they ordered it with the second one.
Damages and Men of a Certain Age appeal to the older demo but I think Men of a Certain Age will come out on top and it only has seven episode in January and February once the three episodes in December are finished with.
Jon, based on Damages season two ratings, Men of a Certain Age will beat Damages even if it loses 80% of its premiere #s!
True, Damages wasn’t on Mondays last year, but realistically, “Men of a Certain Age” is a MUCH bigger threat to “Damages” than the other way around. And “CSI: Miami” is likely the much bigger threat to both as far as 10pm scripted drama goes.
Can Damages’ ratings get any lower, it was hovering between 800,000-1m and I think it’s unlikely to get another season so FX would have been wise to try and wrap it up this season.
Is Men of a Certain Age the first TNT show, besides The Closer, to get over 4 million viewers in a while? I know Raising the Bar did well its first season but was regularly in the 3 millions this past season. I think the same is true for Leverage and Hawthorne (both in the low to mid 3 millions). I don’t think Saving Grace went over 4 million in its final season either.
nkinsey – that doesn’t explain why they’re so happy when shows fail. There is something extra motivating all of that bitterness and snark.
I thought it was just about angering fans to increase site hits, but now I think there’s something else going on. hmmmmm….
Chad you can’t show an example of us being happy when shows fail because we’re not. We don’t take any joy in shows failing. Sometimes they are even shows we really enjoy.
Now, mocking whining crybabies like you is another story, that you can find more than one example…
You have a few choices:
1.) continue to be a sensitive whining crybaby and be mocked
2.) just focus on the numbers — there was NOTHING in the post above or my first comment on this post that was snarky, bitter or that expressed disappointment in the show
3.) don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Who’s whining? I’m just asking questions?
Let me win my way back into your good graces:
Castle sucks
Dollhouse fans are stupid
BINGO! BINGO! BINGO!
We never said Castle sucks. It’s not for me, but I didn’t think it sucked, and I’m sure Bill has NEVER SEEN AN EPISODE of it! And I like Dollhouse!
That you don’t like the “Fan Excuse Bingo”….that I can understand, but, that has absolutely nothing to do with this post. And again, this post had nothing snarky, bitter, no expressions of disappointments. So yeah, on top of being full of crap, I find you a whining crybaby.
lol@ Robert, you tell him! Were you using SoA numbers for comparative reasons or because you love the show? I know that I always use my fave shows to make comparisons!
I’ve only watched Men.. up until the first commercial break, but I love what I’ve seen thus far.
As for the promotion, I hadn’t heard of the show until a few days ago when I spotted it on the guide. But you mention “heavy promotion” so I assume it was promoted somewhere, but where? I never saw a promo for this show, not once!
Sean, a little of both, but I imagine I would’ve made the comparison even if I’d never seen an episode of SOA. With the cable numbers a lot of focus is given to the total audience (because often, those are the only numbers widely available). But since I had the 18-49 numbers for both, I found it interesting that with more than 1 million fewer viewers overall, SOA had more than 900K more 18-49 viewers.
Because we come from largely divergent viewpoints, I personally enjoy going back and forth with Robert — until we both get vicious.
TNT has set their sights too high in their expectation for every series to do “Closer” numbers — which is more the exception than the rule. If a series regularly draws 3-4 million viewers, they should be spared cancellation since that is the range between which most of their shows’ numbers fall.
Cucumber, It was promoted constantly on TBS, and quite often on other cable networks (but perhaps in the advertising slots made available to local cable companies, so it might not have). But during the baseball playoffs, I saw those commercials constantly on TBS/TNT and saw it a lot during basketball games on TNT, too. It got constant on-air promotion, at least on TBS/TNT.