Good news for Pushing Daisies

I just noticed yesterdays ratings, and the drama that has redefined quirky ever since it was announced trounced the competition in the 18-49 demographic last night, and that after many a critic (including myself) said that it would be much loved but untouched by the masses. Pushing Daisies scored a 4.2 rating and had over 12 million viewers at 8pm last night, with the closest competition coming from CBS with Kid nation watched by 7.5 mil.

While this doesn’t guarantee the show a full season or anything, the numbers are very encouraging. It will be interesting to see how many of them drop off next week.

Incidentally, in the 9pm hour, Bionic Woman was off almost 30% from the premiere numbers. Lets see if that gets a mention in the UK media.
Pushing Daisies will probably start on ITV1 in the new year, before a lack of understanding by those who watch coronation street and the Bill causes it to be moved to a late night ITV2 slot. Watch the promo for episode 2 (in a crappier than usual quality) after the jump:

Heroes on BBC2

Last night Heroes triumphed for BBC2 and I’m sure it exceeded all their expectations. 4.3 million viewers tuned into the first ep, 4 million into the second. This was enough to beat everything on terrestrial other than ITV1’s “Wire in the Blood”, and give BBC2 its largest ratings triumph over BBC1 since 1994. Not bad going for a show that nobody thought would work at last years LA screenings. It just goes to show that… actually, I don’t know what it shows. Lets see what next weeks figures look like, and how many are still watching in 20 weeks time.

Ratings for the week Mar 5-Mar 11 in the US and UK.. sort of.

Fox is on a roll, with the top five programs in primetime last week belonging to them. Fox also managed to win five out of seven nights in the 18-49 demographic, with NBC winning the other two. With ABC and CBS’s major hits in repeats for the next few weeks, get used to the look of this top 10.

Ratings for the week ending Feb 25

Predictably, the 79th Annual Academy awrds won the week for ABC. What is worth noting is that the highest amount of women aged 18-34 turned out to watch since the 2002 ceremony, when Whoopi Goldberg presided over events. This could be down to the female skewing appeal of Ellen Degeneres. Now that The O.C. has finished, Fox added a third edition of Idol to the week on Thursday, and suddenly became competitive on that night.

The Black Donnellys S01E01 – Pilot

With Scorsese riding high on the critical acclaim of his Irish mob movie, The Departed, NBC were lucky to be able to launch The Black Donnellys a day after The Oscars, a gritty drama about an Irish family who are on their way to becoming the mob. Starting after last night’s episode of Heroes, with many people probably still passed out from the quality of that episode, this show had it’s work cut out to wake people up and make them pay attention.

Friday Night Lights ratings horror

The premiere of Friday Night Lights fell way below even the lowest of expectations. According to Media Guardian, the show was watched by just 26,000 people on ITV4 Wed night. I know more people than that. The abysmal figure can be attributed to live football (or Soccer as Americans like to call it) on Sky Sports, a great game between Barcelona and Liverpool, taking away what would be the core audience of the show. Which begs the question, why was it scheduled at that time in the first place? ITV know that the Champions League will have people hooked from now until May, why did they schedule a sports drama against sport? Do they like to waste money? Apparently so.

I was thinking that a couple more weeks of those kind of figures, and it would be moved to some graveyard slot to die. But ITV4 is a graveyard channel, how much worse can it get? If you haven’t watched it, do so. I promise you won’t regret it. Do I have shares in NBC Universal? Maybe.

Ratings for the week Feb 12-Feb 18 in the US and UK

House continues to grow thanks to it’s superfantabulous Idol lead in. Last week it overtook CSI, this week Grey’s Anatomy. In the UK, five have between now and March to knock up a promo saying they have the top 3 US dramas. Will they do it? My magic 8 ball tells me no.

Lost S03E08 – Flashes Before Your Eyes

A real change of pace, and I have to say I liked it. I take back some of what I said last week, Lost isn’t dead on it’s feet as long as Desmond is around. In the first episode to feature an unconventional full-length flashback, he excelled as the victim of some mind bending time travelling shenanigans. If you don’t want to know the juicy spoilers, do not be clickin’ below innit.

Ratings for the week Feb 5-Feb 11 in the US and UK

Idol producers threw in a “Best of the worst” show, and it garnered the lowest figures of the season. An indication of people growing tired of stupidly bad auditions? maybe, just maybe. And a comedy in the top 10, albeit an average one.

Ratings for the week Jan 29-Feb 4 in the US and UK

As discussed earlier in the week, Super Bowl XLI gave CBS the third largest US TV audience of all time. This happiness will have been tempered by the poor performance of Criminal Minds. Given the plum slot after Super Bowl, the forensic drama delivered about half what Greys Anatomy did last season in the same slot. However as I predicted, House is ready to take off after American Idol on Tuesdays. Because Greys Anatomy and CSI are eating each other, House is now the number one scripted program on US TV, and I think it will continue to be throughout the rest of the season.

Ratings for the week Jan 22-28 in the US and UK

Idol idol idol. Every other network is running for cover. Fox had a stinker from September to December, but they are quickly making up ground. Other Fox shows placed after idol should start to feel the boost in next weeks figures. Expect House in next weeks Top 10, and maybe Til Death as well, which I think will be on after it. (I don’t know, I’m not there.)

Ratings for the week Jan 15-21 in the US and UK

Football, football, football. Even Fox’s largest primetime entertainment audience couldn’t stop the most viewed Championship game since 1986. The effect of the top four seemed to put a drain on everything else, as big guns go head to head all over the schedule.

Ratings for the week Jan 8-14 in the US and UK.

Football continues to dominate US ratings, with Superbowl XLI approaching. Outside of football fever, Grey’s Anatomy took back it’s position as America’s number one drama, but House may have something to say about that starting next week, when it starts to feel the benefit of that Amerian Idol lead-in. The premiere of 24 was down on last years 2 hour start because of the football, but it picked up on Monday. From now until May, expect Idol domination.