The glass was either half full or half empty regarding Tuesday-night ratings for Fox. On the plus side, the season premiere of House (in its new 8 p.m. time slot) led all shows for the night with an average 14.4 million viewers in the overnights, and the network’s freshman series Fringe (from creator J.J. Abrams) retained 93 percent of its House lead-in, with 13.4 million viewers. Better still, episode 2 of Fringe boasted 4.4 million more eyes than the show’s two-hour premiere got last week (not counting its Sunday night encore). True, Fringe (and its super groovy title cards) clearly benefited last night by following Hugh Laurie’s established medical hit, but the folks at Fox have to be happy. The one troubling bit of data regarding the latter show, however, was the fact that House’s numbers were off year to year. The season 4 premiere drew a final figure of 18.3 million, and last night’s overnights represent a 21 percent dip.(Do be sure to check out EW’s recent House cover story, as well as our Best and Worst Gallery of House’s fourth season.)
Or to put it a different way, House lost more viewers between its fourth and fifth season premieres than The CW’s much-discussed 90210 snagged in total in the overnights yesterday. One not-negative note was that 90210’s 3.3 million viewers was dead even with last week’s totals (which slipped 30 percent from the series premiere). Could it be the skin-and-bones physiques of the show’s leading ladies (a hot topic on our PopWatch blog today) are keeping those early viewers from coming back? Following 90210, the second episode of The CW’s Privileged drew 2.4 million viewers, down about 500,000 from last week’s series premiere.
Reality shows dominated the remainder of the prime-time lineup. The Biggest Loser: Families
premiered to an overnight audience of 7.8 million on NBC, and while
that figure was off about 26 percent from the show’s most recent
premiere (10.5 million on New Year’s Day 2008), the program did show
growth over every half hour of its two-hour running time. Meanwhile,
CBS’s season finale of Big Brother 10 — catch Josh Wolk’s Big Brother episode recap here, and Lynette Rice’s exit interview with the Big Brother 10
champ here — was up from its season 9 finisher. Last night’s telecast
drew an audience of 7.6 million, while the April 2008 finale drew only
6.4 million.
Reality shows dominated the remainder of the prime-time lineup. The Biggest Loser: Familiespremiered to an overnight audience of 7.8 million on NBC, and whilethat figure was off about 26 percent from the show’s most recentpremiere (10.5 million on New Year’s Day 2008), the program did showgrowth over every half hour of its two-hour running time. Meanwhile,CBS’s season finale of Big Brother 10 — catch Josh Wolk’s Big Brother episode recap here, and Lynette Rice’s exit interview with the Big Brother 10champ here — was up from its season 9 finisher. Last night’s telecastdrew an audience of 7.6 million, while the April 2008 finale drew only6.4 million.
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I don’t think the networks have done a very good job in advertising the premieres for Fall TV season. My friends didn’t know it was a new ‘House’ last night….
The networks advertise in magazines and billboards and if you watch FOX, they have been showing spots the last 2 weeks. You have a copy of EW right? Hugh Laurie was on the cover last week. If that isn’t promotion, I don’t know what is then.
No TV Watch for House this season?
I really like privileged and think it is much better than 90210..the only part of 90210 that was exciting was when Kelly confronted Brenda and it was revealed who Kelly’s baby’s father was….so i hope they stick with Privileged!!!
I love House but hate the new time slot. Stupid DVR also cuts the last few minutes of the show. ARRRRG!
Seriously – what the hell is up with no TV Watches? Nothing for Bones or House, but heaven forbid you guys miss reviewing an episode of “The Hells” (that was a typo, but it’s too accurate to be corrected), “Gossip Girl”, or “ANTM”. Have all your reviewers been replaced by twelve year old girls?
If it wasn’t for Silver and Dixon, 90210 would suck
It makes me angry that Fox is pushing back its best show House for its much hyped newbie. Why did they have to do that? 9pm Tuesday nights has always been the best time when I can sit back and put my feet up, to enjoy my fave show!
PUT HOUSE BACK ON AT 9 P.M. WHERE IT BELONGS!!! GET RID OF 13!!!!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE HOUSE and I ADORE HUGH LAURIE!
FOX and the writers are messing with HOUSE. FOX b/c they needed a lead-in for Fringe (which I did not watch), and the writers for not listening to the fans when we cry, GET RID OF 13!
They think they know better than we do what we will like/dislike about the show. This is not a few viewers not liking 13, this is a majority!
PUT HOUSE BACK ON TUESDAY AT 9 P.M. and GET RID OF 13!!!!! Then watch your
ratings zoom again!!
Wilson come home!
We love you, Hugh!
Fingers crossed for the Emmy on Sunday!
i’ve been coming back again and again looking for House recap. I’ll settle for a popwatch or whatever you call it. where is it?!?!?! It was such a great episode. worthy of a full recap.. hello??? anybody out there???
Sara, you read my mind. Lately, EW’s had such a preoccupation with these shows: 90210, Gossip Girl, The Hills, etc…who do they think their readers are, for Pete’s sake? Those shows get 5 million viewers, tops, whereas Bones and House and Fringe get millions and millions more, and are actually for (gasp!) grown-ups! Hey EW–I’ll volunteer, if your writers are too busy watching MTV! (That statement excludes Jeff Jensen, smartest EW columnist EVER.)
I’m with you Jen80. Inane shows like 90210, Gossip Girl, and MTV’s reality cr@pola are highlighted constantly in each issue — one wonders if EW is hiring Teen People rejects (thus the A and B grade reviews). So sad.
Put House back to 9pm then the ratings will improve.
WHERE IS THE TV WATCH FOR HOUSE????????
I think the fact that House ratings have gone done so much is because loyal fans who stuck with this show from the beginning and were always promised from the end of season 3, that the original team would be back in full capacity, had enough and couldn’t be bothered to watch anymore after what happened in season 4.
The new team pretty much sucks, 13 even had more screen time than House – and he’s the main character. So if Shore and Co. are wondering why there’s a 21% drop in ratings, look back at the past season and the season premiere and you’ll see. There’s only so much that Hugh Laurie can do on his own (and he’s doing great) but the reason why House worked previously was because of the amazing supporting cast that shared proper chemistry. Now it just looks disjointed and even more forced than it should be.
House was at the top of its ratings in Season 3 with the original six characters. Drastic, unnecessary changes were made, promises to bring Chase and Cameron back were broken, and the ratings are falling. It seems simple to me – people do not like the changes. One more episode like the premiere with WAY too much Thirteen, and I’m throwing in the towel, too. I’m sick to death of her.
Along with the TV Watch for House, it looks others have disappeared as well, like Terminator:SCC, Greek, etc. Have they cut back on staff?
This website has had a change in management over the last year…that might be why we have The Hills and Gossip Girl shoved down our throats now. I can’t believe there is no recap for HOUSE. Terrible.
As for Shore etc., what can you say about a decision-maker who takes away a Jesse Spencer and gives us a Peter Jacobsen instead? Then when we do get Chase back all his pretty is covered up with surgical garb. Why not give Kutner, 13 and whatever the other guy’s name is an infectious disease and kill them all. I would definitely tune in for that.
I’m by all means no huge Thirteen fan, but I don’t hate her like the rest of you House fans seem to do. I agree that she probably needs to be cut back, but as long as she doesn’t derail the show like Tritter did, I can survive. His episodes were easily the most unwatchable parts of House in its four season run. Compared to that, Thirteen’s tolerable.
I’m more intrigued by House and Wilson’s break up, and it seems to be the driving force for at least the next few installments.
However, I do hope the old team gets some more attention. Three seasons of going through the show with them shouldn’t go to waste. And yes, the time slot switch sucks. 9 EST is a better air time.
P.S. What is with the lack of TV Watches this year? No T:SCC, Prison Break, House or Bones (though I can live without Prison Break)? Why the cutback on reviewing scripted shows?
I’m just not a fan of the new cottages. I was willing to give them a try, but they just don’t work for me. Kutner and Taub can stay (in the periphery), but Thirteen needs to go. And Cameron needs to be brunette again. The blonde makes her look washed out.
Gee, you think that the fourth largest city in the US is without power could have something to do with lower ratings? It’s called the real world, folks.
FOX has to make a choice… switch HOUSE back to 9pm and put FRINGE on at 8pm, HOUSE will go back up, but then FRINGE will take a hit (i’m sure), so is it better to have 2 above average rated shows in one block night, or one mediocre and one hit? thats FOXs decision
House’s ratings was down because of crappy promotion! Two friends of mine who are House fanatic HAD NO IDEA it was premiering already. I bet you a lot of House fans still don’t realize it’s started for the year.
As much as I love Doc Jensen, my entertainment weekly magazine and ew.com. I must say there has been an abnormal amount of coverage and covers to WB oriented feature films and television shows. The reason simply is money. EW is owned by Time Warner, who also owns WB and (a large part of) CW. That means more “synergy” between the two. That means more positive articles on Gossip Girl, 90210, etc. as well as Harry Potter, Batman and others pushed to multiple covers. It reeks of biased news coverage and I hope it stops. One can hope for fairness, but it is very unlikely.
On a tangent, 90210 is horrible, because of uninspired writing, elementary acting and the million commercial breaks, NOT because of the skinny girls. If anything, the guys watching aren’t paying much attention to plot anyways. But 90210 is a HUGE disappointment.
Namaste, there are about 2 million people still without power. That’s less than 1% of this country’s population of 300 million. That’s not why ratings were down.
James, of those 2 million without power, I sincerely doubt that even a third of them are House fans. I agree with you that the power outages would not affect ratings that drastically. I also don’t understand why people didn’t know the time or date of the season premiere and yet claim to be “big fans” of the show. It’s not as if it has never been on at 8:00 before. It’s also been on Monday nights and there was even one on Wednesday night (Euphoria, Pt. 2)two years ago and people still managed to find it. I know EXACTLY when my favorite shows premiere – it’s quite easy to find!
I love Fringe. Good stuff.
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I don’t understand why so many people want House moved back to 9pm. I was relieved to hear that it was earlier this season. I have to get up at 6:30! I don’t need to be watching tv until 10pm!
It’s a wonder anyone knows when any show is on, the way the networks jerk the schedule around so much. I love cable. Your show is always on when it’s supposed to be on. Networks, take notice. You have to change the way you do things if you want to keep viewers.
Looks like the viewers have spoken on House. I wasn’t watching and a lot of my friends have stopped watching also. I will continue to boycott it until the new team is history. I think the writers would benefit from a repeat viewing of S1.