Our hour by hour coverage of the fall schedule is almost complete. On to Thursday nights at 10pm where there are no new shows this hour. But, it will still be new to have NBC's The Apprentice in the 10pm hour joining The Mentalist and Private Practice, which were both in this time period last season.
Thursday Nights 10pm-11pm:
| Thursday | 10:00p | 10:30p |
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Private Practice | |
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The Mentalist | |
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The Apprentice |
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After launching last fall with unscripted programming every night between Monday-Friday (you might remember The Jay Leno Show) this fall, NBC has unscripted at 10pm only on Thursday nights (though many are predicting a hasty demise for Outlaw only to be replaced by a second hour of Dateline on Friday nights).
Who'll Win? The Apprentice (original flavor, not the celebrity version) could surprise me, but my bet is things will work out a lot like they did late last season and that The Mentalist will typically win with adults 18-49 (and there's no doubt it will win the imaginary war for total viewers) followed by Private Practice.
Last year NBC ran The Marriage Ref in the spring on Thursdays at 10pm, and it started out OK but by the end it was down in the low 2.x range with adults 18-49, with one episode dipping in the 1.x range. I'd guess The Apprentice will provide more stable and predictable ratings week-to-week, but still finish last with adults 18-49.
One More Thing...
While I've taken a "who'll win?" approach with these postings, that's been for sport, and to foster discussion. By itself, who wins doesn't matter much, and there is a hair-splitting discussion to be had about whether it matters at all. But whether winning matters a little or not at all also isn't very important.
What really matters is whether the ratings are any good, regardless of who is winning. If there is an hour where CBS wins with a 5.0 adults 18-49 rating and NBC loses with a 4.0 all the major broadcast networks will be happy. Conversely, if CBS wins with a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating, there will be frowns all around, even at CBS (unless it's Friday where they'll happily take a 2.0 rating at this point).
You can find all the previous hour-by-hour coverage here.
I think is the night where all three shows will receive healthy ratings, I could see Private Practice dropping a little bit but it still has Grey’s Anatomy as lead in and crossovers will always help keep it afloat. The Apprentice will do well, I think the non-celebrity edition will be embraced by viewers although if Outsourced really tanks (2.0 below) it would affect the ratings as well but this a safer choice for NBC than Love Bites. The Mentalist should continue to do well although moving 10pm last season kept this show to be a bigger hit than it should be basing on the ratings it got on its first season behind NCIS.
The Mentalist – 3.5
Private Practice – 3.3
The Apprentice – 2.9
like last year, private practice will premiere bigger and then it’ll be mix of winning between the two: some weeks PP takes it, other weeks TM takes it.
Personally don’t care for any of the three. If you forced me to watch one it would be ‘Private Practice’ but short of that, another hour for cable/DVDs.
Against The Mentalist, i honestly don’t think PP stands a chance.
The Mentalist – 12 or 13 million
Private Practice – 8 or 9 million
The Apprentice – 9.5 million
Private Practice beat the Mentalist quite a few times in A18-49 rating. im sure the premiere will beat the Mentalist again. Private Practice killed The Mentalist in A18-34 rating as ABC always bragged about it.
We’re talking Adults 18-49, not total viewers.
What are “imaginary… total viewer?” Are you saying if you are not between the ages of 18-49, you don’t exist, or you don’t matter? Just wondering why everyone is meaningless in your column.
The Mentalist will surely win that timeslot.
The Mentalist averages more in the range of 14-15 million viewers even if u want to consider the overall ratings.
I actually can see The Apprentice premiering to like 15 million viewers for its premiere since there is no competition against it on September 16th and its relevant and people can relate to it now. And in the 18-49 rating I believe it will be over a 4 for the premiere. Then it will settle in maybe around 10-12 million viewers and 18-49 ratings around 3-3.5 or more.
Not meaningless – just reality. In television most ad agencies and their clients are after the more popular/lucrative 18-49 adults cell than caring for total viewership. CBS, for example, could have 10 million total viewers while NBC or ABC may only have 6 or 8 million but, still outperform them with a higher percentage of their viewers falling in the 18-49 adult demo. Thus, raking in more advertising dollars. I’m sure there are a few clients that go after a broad ‘hit as many people as I can’ advertising scheme (political ads for one).
Older folks tend to hold on to their money while 18-49 year olds are in the daily groove of going out to eat, buying clothes for their kids, schools supplies, toys, music and going out to movies, hitting the bars, buying/leasing cars and such on an ongoing basis. Older folks plan for these things and only lay out the cash when necessary.
There are specific shows and channels that lean older and covet their older viewership.
There’s no business like Cho business, its all about The Mentalist!!!
Should be pretty tight as it was last year, I’ll say the Mentalist will average around a 3.1 and barely edge the 3.0 average of Private Practice. And The Apprentice averages an OK 2.5 or so.
Personally, my viewing choice is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Being a fan of both The Mentalist and the Apprentice, i will definitely watch the Mentalist and dvr Apprentice. I’d assume that the Celebrity editions of the Apprentice would get better ratings then just a regular season of the Apprentice, right?
Mentalist
Private Practice
The Apprentice
That’s how it’ll break down for the hour in viewers and in 18-49
Mentalist is going to continue to dominate the 10pm slot and I think it will be a dog fight between Private Practice and The Apprentice for second.
To the point that The Mentalist “dominated” during the 2009-10 season here are the 18-49 ratings averages through 5/23/10.
The Mentalist 4.0
Private Practice 3.5
The Mentalist certainly “won”, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say it “dominated”.
late in the season the margin was a bit narrower with both shows performing below their season average, And the Private Practice finale (the week before the last week of the season) edged out Mentalist by .1
Probably The Mentalist by a couple of tenths. But I’m not sure who comes in second. A regular season of The Apprentice sounds interesting to me. Less celebrities in unscripted television is a good thing. However are the viewers now trained to expect D list stars for The Apprentice?
I think The Mentalist might be more up and down than we think. Last season there seemed to be two shows running. Some great tight shows particularly those involving Red John and then a lot of Murder She Wrote shows that were so easy to figure out and silly that at times I thought I was watching Pysch with better actors. I started missing episodes of The Mentalist and it didn’t seem to bother me the way missing episodes of Castle did.
The Mentalist should easily win this slot. The Apprentice should be strong and give PP a run for its money for the #2 spot. If PP slips below a 2.8 (for the entire season, not just the fall) and those rumors about actors wanting out are true, we could be waving goodbye to two ABC veterans next May (well, three, if the DH actresses decide not to renew their contracts).
CBS – The Mentalist – 3.6
ABC – Private Practice – 3.0
NBC – The Apprentice – 2.8