On a fairly quiet Thursday before a holiday weekend, USA's Royal Pains topped the basic cable night with both adults 18-49 and total viewers, narrowly edging out its lead-in, Burn Notice.
The rest of Wednesday's cable finals via Travis Yanan:
Thursday cable finals
Bethenny Getting Married (10pm)
- 1.720 million viewers
- 1.2/2 HH
- 0.9/3 A18-49Futurama (10pm)
- 2.159 million viewers
- 1.3/2 HH
- 1.1/4 A18-49River Monsters (9pm)
- 1.314 million viewers
- 0.8/1 HH
- 0.6/2 A18-49TNA: Impact (9pm, 120 minutes)
- 1.266 million viewers
- 0.8/2 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49Police Women of Memphis (9pm)
- 1.305 million viewers
- 0.8/1 HH
- 0.5/2 A18-49Mall Cops: Mall of America (10pm)
- 1.028 million viewers
- 0.6/1 HH
- 0.4/1 A18-49Burn Notice
- 5.213 million viewers
- 3.3/6 HH
- 1.5/5 A18-49Royal Pains (61 minutes)
- 5.321 million viewers
- 3.5/6 HH
- 1.6/5 A18-49The OCD Project
- 0.540 million viewers
- 0.3/1 HH
- 0.3/1 A18-49
Interesting to see Royal Pains beating Burn Notice. I wonder if this is the start of a new trend.
I'm pretty sure it has beat Burn Notice before. I'm sure it will happen again.
Personally, Burn Notice has gotten a little tired to me. Still watch it, but kind of annoyed with it.
I don't watch either, but I have friends who stopped watching Burn Notice this season.
I am almost positive that Royal Pains did not ever beat Burn Notice last summer, so if it has beaten it before, it would have been in the past few weeks. Which is easy enough to check and so I did. Royal Pains just barely edged out Burn Notice in total viewers once before, and has been tying in the demo most of this season. But this is the first outright win in the demo.
What a shame OCD Project isn't doing better. It's such a riveting show and much better than that quack Dr. Drew's shows.
Royal Pains had a slightly higher viewership than Burn Notice the Thursday of Game 7 of the NBA Finals. I didn't make a lot of it, because of the game.
Burn Notice seems “darker” this season with a lot more intense violence. Also the current arc which focuses somewhat on Michael's betrayal (burn) of this other guy is certainly not the light fare of Royal Pains. I happen to like Burn Notice, but it's been around longer and maybe the novelty has worn off.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Bethenny. I only wish she and the rest of the housewives at Bravo would go away – far away. That probably isn't going to happen anytime soon based on the numbers. But one can hope on this holiday weekend.
I'm off to work on my WordPress blog. Already had to kill it once since it didn't seem to work well on a Microsoft platform. Now on to Linux, something new for me.
Bethenny is up from last week and should continue that trend through at least next weeks episode when her wedding airs.
Actually, in total viewers RP beat BN in 4 of their 8 Summer 2009 episodes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Pain…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Burn_Notic…
So while the in demo wins may be more recent, their total viewer ratings have been competitive for awhile.
Can't say it enough ” Love ” Burn Notice. I watch Royal because its cute. It will never be Burn Notice.
I think this year is way better on Burn than last year.
Wait till the White Collar premiere. Bet Royal Pains doesn't beat it…
The problem with Burn Notice this season is a) Michael is allegedly working WITH the people who burned him, which I think might irritate some fans; b) the pace is slower – he doesn't really seem to be getting anywhere with his current mission, which is fairly nebulous; c) Fiona's not wearing any revealing clothing; d) the guy he accidentally burned eventually has to learn who burned him and they're dragging that out really way too long.
In other words, the writers have run out of ideas and consequently have slowed the pace with inconsequentials – the inevitable fatal mistake of practically all shows sooner or later.
Don't forget the addition of Jesse. Quite a few people on the forums aren't happy about it…
I'm ok with that, it brings a bit of testosterone, unpredictability, and craziness back into the show. I wonder if he lasts the entire season. In some ways Burn Notice is the standard PI show from the 80s, it could be Magnum PI set in Miami. If you are familiar with that show you can see a lot of similarities. The “client” of the week, sidekicks, etc.
They have tried to modern it up the overlay of the spy/burn plot line. I happen to think it works pretty well. You do get more up and downs in quality as the seasons progress.
I agree with those people, the entire premise of the show was Michael being burned, not Jesse being burned. Let him get his own show called Jesse Burn Notice if they want to follow that storyline.
Your analysis is right on. BN definitely has that “same bat-time, same bat-station” feel to it. Humor down; violence up (even more); it's definitely now for hard-core testes junkies.
Not surprising. Royal Pains definitely fills a need which is glaringly void this summer so far: the light touch. However, it hasn't addressed its many weaknesses. Creepy dumb-ass brother still gets WAY too much play; the love interest is hopelessly dull; and the story lines disintegrate embarassingly as the hour progresses. I say kill off idiot brother and girlfriend in a car crash and send Hank back to Cuban outlaw.
I don't have a problem with the brother but I don't like the love interest at all. She's very bland with no sparkle to me and I don't see any chemistry at all between her and Hank. Divya on the other hand I really like a lot. Burn Notice and In Plain Sight don't really appeal to me personally but I like Royal Pains and White Collar.
O.K. I agree with the 80's type PI show but I think Nix added fun stuff to. No dumb blonde bimbo,
just Fi with some bomb. Sam is also fun. Not crazy about Sharon Gless. She makes me feel like she really is like my Mom. (so maybe she is really good) I love love gritty locale. Not always super urban,
like Miami really is.
any word on syfy's phantom from the other week?
Pretty soon Warehouse 13 begins to fill that light touch