Thank you, Kevin Reilly.
The NBC Entertainment chief delivered a full-season, 22-episode pickup to ratings-weak “Friday Night Lights,” rewarding the critically lauded series and promising patience.
He did the same last week for “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”
Let’s forgive Reilly for patting himself on the back about these courageous moves and concentrate on the forbearance he is showing with two quality shows despite disappointing numbers.
The high school football drama is averaging a dismal 2.7 rating in the crucial 18-to-49-year-
old demographic, with a mere 6.7 million viewers. It airs Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on KUSA-Channel 9. Don’t make me come over there and make you watch it.
“Friday Night Lights” might have been saved by the fact that the Nielsens improved from the first half-hour to the second during its first five Tuesday telecasts.
Could the decision reflect the fact that “Lights” is an intelligent, sensitive, beautifully adapted story about fully realized characters with accessible, contemporary American concerns, presented free of special effects or other gimmicks? Nah, it was probably the uptick in second-half-hour ratings.
With “Heroes” going strong (the sci-fi comic-book adventure was the No.1 new series of the week) but “30 Rock” looking DOA, NBC has had a mixed fall. The deciding factor may be “Studio 60,” which has been averaging a lame 4.0 rating among the 18-49 crowd. NBC likes to say the Aaron Sorkin hour “skews upscale,” delivering wealthy, well-educated and thus desirable viewers to advertisers. That’s what they always say when they can’t brag about the number of people watching.
Over at Fox, post-baseball, there’s no road too low. A “reality special” titled “O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened,” will feature Simpson “in his own words, how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes.” That November sweeps class act is slated Monday and Wednesday, Nov. 27 and 29, on Channel 31.
Beyond O.J., Fox executives are counting the minutes until “American Idol” and “24” return. The “Idol” audition hours begin Jan. 16-17, and “24” clocks in with “Day Six” on Jan. 14-15, a four-hour, two-night push. Fox is hanging on in the meantime, limping in fourth place among five networks. Only “House” is delivering decent ratings; moving “Prison Break” to a new time period only diminished that show’s audience.
Here’s a smart move: Showtime has decided to make all 10 hours of the second season of “Sleeper Cell” available to subscribers, when the series returns in December, via on-demand cable services. If people are paying for the privilege, why make them wait week-to-week?
News numbers
Meanwhile, on the Katie Couric Watch, things are so bad the tabloids are calling her toast. Yet CBS crunches numbers to prove that, judged over a two-month period not counting the first two weeks of Couric’s tenure, the half-hour has gained 348,000 viewers, while NBC lost 624,000 and ABC lost 213,000.
CBS claims its Couric-cast has “significantly cut the gap with NBC in women’s demos.” At least credit them with scuttling the impossible “Free Speech” opinion segments.
Ultimately, during a heavy news week, viewers abandoned Couric.
NBC points to the midterm election week ratings as disastrous for CBS.
“For the first time since Katie Couric became anchor, CBS is down compared to a year ago,” the NBC News public relations team gloated. Couric’s audience fell to under 8 million viewers last week.
At the same time, while ABC News was gleeful over its Election Night ratings (“Dancing With the Stars” delivered a huge audience to Charles Gibson), NBC News claimed a big election-week win, a million viewers ahead of ABC, more than two million ahead of CBS.
For the week, NBC’s “Nightly News With Brian Williams” drew 9.8 million viewers, 11 percent more than ABC’s “World News Tonight With Charles Gibson,” at 8.8 million, and 26 percent more than CBS’s “Evening News with Katie Couric,” at 7.7 million.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
