After weeks of bouncing around from a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating to a 1.3 rating and then back to a 1.0 rating, Psych got off that kick in its season finale, finishing its fourth season with a 1.1 rating with adults 18-49 and 2.95 million viewers. It was its week to bounce back to a 1.3, too. But it didn't happen.
On Tuesday night White Collar ended its first season with a 1.4 adults 18-49 rating and over 4 million viewers.
Even Burn Notice, the best of the performers was down a bit from last year and it already had a run of running Thursday's at 10pm in-season under its belt from last year. Given everything, I get the sense that USA is very OK with how it went for Burn Notice, pleased as punch for the most part for how it went with White Collar and scratching its head a bit over Psych.
Soon Law & Order: Criminal Intent and In Plain Sight will take on 10pm mid-week. It will be very interesting to see how it goes. Psych returns this summer for its 5th season.
Nooo! It was such a great episode (only a little beneath “An Evening with Mr. Yang)… I blame AI's overrun, which would've caused one to miss the beginning, thus making it pointless to watch. Oh well, not too bad…
It was a really good episode of Psych. Very good. Better than any this season.
I just kinda think USA should go back to the Thursday/Friday/Sunday tradition. Doubling up on shows helps show’s ratings too. Royal Pains wouldn’t have been such a huge hit without Burn Notice as it’s lead in.
My guess is that Royal Pains will stay a Summer only show and will have Burn Notice as its lead in at least for its first 8 or 9 episodes.
I gotta ask… how do these ratings actually work? Everyone that I have talked to that watched the episode thought it was the best of the season.
I really hope so, Robert.
The two shows worked well together.
gamma, Here's a link to some basic information on ratings:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/demystifying-the-s
For more information, click the FAQ link in the blue nav bar above.
This was the best episode of a very uneven Season 4. Sad to see it didn't get higher ratings.
I was hoping the ratings would improve for the season finale – at least get over 3 million.
I might be agreeing with Bryan Alford – I think the move to Wednesday actually hurt the show. I know the show has already been renewed for Season 5, but if the so-so ratings keep up I'm worried about Season 5 being the last.
I will be very disappointed if they do something stupid like cancelling Psych or moving around the schedule next season. I watch very little tv, time issues not snobbery, but I make sure to catch Psych each week. I keep my pencil sharpened for the 'write in' campaign…just in case.
It was the best episode EVER of Psych. i'm guessing the DVR numbers will be good, though. It will be interesting to see if they put it back on Friday nights.
Ah well, at least Psych has already been picked up for another season.
Speaking of Criminal Intent.. I haven't seen the latest season, but any idea who will be replacing Vincent D'onofrio and Kathryn Erbe? Will Jeff Goldblum start appearing in every episode rather than every other episode, or will they bring in a new duo?
Craig_212, here's the press release scoop on the new L&O:CI season
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/02/26/usa-networ…
My pain on the departure of Vincent D'Onofrio will not keep me away from the show though.
How do you expect any show to build consistent ratings when your day is bounced around, and your season lasts about 3-5 weeks, then off for 2 months, then on for 4 weeks, then off for 3 months, then brought back on a different day, etc.
There are few shows that can surive this shuffling, especially on cable. Not fair to Shawn & Gus.
Did Psych ever do better than its lead in NCIS rerun?
In 18-49 rating, yes, it did do better than NCIS, including last night. But though I didn't see the NCIS repeat #s yet, I'm sure it had more viewers, and was perhaps the most-watched show overall on cable Wednesday night.
#psych had a good finale – I would say it was the best ep of an otherwise mediocre half-season! – but it seemed a bit disjointed. And for someone who's not a Hitchcock fan – like me, I only like Hitchcock's Marnie – it was mostly confusing.
According to USA's Ted Linhart, the shows – #psych and #whitecollar – are doing better (in key categories) where they are now than on Friday.
KatiKat, Ted is a nice guy, but even though his title is VP of Research he's still in the PR department (not that there's anything wrong with that!).
There was at least an episode or two where Psych and White Collar had better ratings in some key demos on Tues/Weds than their Friday averages. However, I'm pretty sure that the Friday averages were still higher than the Tues/Weds averages.
Question: How do you think L&O and In Plain Sight will do on Tue and Wed compared to White Collar and Psych? Better? Worse? The same?
I'm guessing In Plain Sight will do about as well as Psych on average. Law & Order: CI is harder for to guess at because there were a lot of cast changes. I'll wait and see how the premiere does…
True. On the other hand, I bet that the move raised the overall evening demo averages for USA – I mean, remember the dog show that replaced #whitecollar for that one week? 0.5 demo? #whitecollar did almost twice as good against #lost so I think that they are pleased. Also, on Friday, both #psych and #whitecollar had a good demo lead-in – #monk. And as you said, #ncis has great viewership but lower demo.
I think that #whitecollar did its job. With #psych, I'm not so sure. But they both allowed USA to establish itself outside their usual slots. The future of this experiment will depend on how well IPS and L&O will do, I guess…