Whether they came for the dancing or to gawk at Cloris Leachman’s cleavage, most TV eyes last night were tuned into ABC’s two-hour premiere of Dancing With the Stars (pictured). The first episode reached 21.1 million viewers, according to overnight ratings, down about 3 percent from last March’s debut of 21.8 million, but still a number that would please even Len Goodman. Those Stars fans apparently don’t care much for William Shatner and James Spader, however, as the season premiere of Boston Legal only managed 9.5 million viewers, losing more than half of Stars‘ audience.
Meanwhile, CBS debuted its Monday night lineup to strong numbers, especially for How I Met Your Mother (9.7 mil) and Two and a Half Men (14.9 mil), which were up 20 percent and 10 percent, respectively, from last year’s debuts. The Big Bang Theory was slightly down from last year’s premiere (9.4 mil vs. 9.5 mil), while CSI: Miami drew a sunny 16.9 million viewers, 1.8 million more than last season’s debut episode. Newbie series Worst Week didn’t have the worst debut, attracting 11 million viewers, though that is a loss of almost 4 million from its Men lead-in.
The biggest disappointment of the night would have to be NBC’s flailing Heroes. The network’s 8-9 p.m. recap special drew an un-heroic 6 million viewers. Then, the two-hour premiere reached only 10 million viewers, down about 29 percent from the 14.1 million who tuned in for season 2’s premiere. (Last year, NBC was able to get Nielsen to add together Heroes’ ratings for the initial Monday night premiere along with a Saturday repeat to come up with a final number of 17 million.)
While DVR playback should boost the Heroes premiere numbers, that lukewarm start could still be a sign that the series’ superpowers are weakening
UPDATE: Wondering how The CW’s Monday lineup fared against all this fresh competition?
Pretty solidly, actually. Gossip Girl reached 3.4 million viewers, down about
300k from the previous week’s series high of 3.7 million. Meanwhile, Chad
Michael Murray and the folks of One Tree Hill also saw a decline of 300k,
with this week’s episode nabbing 3.1 million pairs of eyes.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
Annie Barrett’s Dancing With the Stars season premiere recap
DWTS: Kristi Yamaguchi is season 6 champ
Marc Bernardin’s Heroes season premiere recap
Heroes: Season 2’s best and worst
Heroes creator apologizes to fans for season 2 mistakes
Gillian Flynn’s review of Worst Week
Comments (1-30) of 71 Add your comment
What about Fox and CW shows??? (although in the case of Fox shows I should say what’s the point since there is about 99.9% sure chance that both of the shows WILL be canceled!)
Um how did Gossip Girls and One Tree Hill do?
It was all about them last week…
Thank god How I Met Your Mother premiered strong. Lord knows it needed the ratings to keep it from being cancelled after this year.
i’m actually glad to see solid numbers from heroes. after 9 months of no episodes, coming off a strike shortened second season, and double digit premier makes me pretty glad.
The writers strike was so detrimental to shows like Lost, Heroes and 24. I’ve always been a big fan of 24 but with almost two years of waiting, I’ve lost the anticipation I used to have for the show. I loved Heroes but it will take a while to get back into it. These shows need momentum and interrupting their seasons weakened their run. I hope all these shows can get back on track.
Heroes was seriously lame last season they want to blame it on the writers strike but it was awful anyway. You can’t believe anything on that show because they never kill anyone off. They all come back, to the detriment of the show. Kring and crew need to get over the fear of firing or letting someone go.
Why Two and a Half Men is still watched? That is WRONG!
No one under 50 watches Two and a Half Men. They are a very faithful demographic.
I watched all 4 seasons of lost straight through in a week on the internet. The first 3 in HD on my big monitor. Never watched it before now I’m hooked. I did the same thing with Heroes on it’s first and second seasons, watched them on the internet. This too me is the best way to become totally completely sucked in. No waiting a week to find out what happens, only a very few commercials (not quite TiVo). It’s like if you’re rich and roll around naked in a pile of cash. It’s like eating a whole cake in one sitting. It might not be healthy but it sure is fun.
I hope they find a way to include my viewing in the ratings some day (not likely… a year behind). I don’t have cable. My only TV watching is via internet or purchasing DVDs.
Terminator is one of the most DVR’d
shows on TV, as well as one of the most purchased (itunes/unbox) and streamed (hulu and fox.com).
It’s not produced by FOX (WB gets all the DVD/Bluray and download $, which basically pays for the show), so it doesn’t have to be a ratings monster anyway (fox wins just by showing it; it’s their 4th or 5th most watched program in primetime, and is making decent $$$ until Idol and 24 arrive
mid-season).
actually the writer’s strike DID have an impact. not just for heroes. look at ratings across the board since the strike ended. most have been down…
Two and a Half men is a great show
heroes has been gone a while, and seeing as it’s last season was not very good, i’m not surprised it’s numbers are down. i’ll still be tuning in though, as long as this season is better then last season.
Terminator and Prison Break are both under 6 million viewers. That’s lower than soem of their shows they cancelled last year.
Heroes horrible ratings prove that the show has sucked since the season 1 finale and has got worse since than.
They killed too many characters in Season 1. The writer’s strike actually helped Heroes not conitnue the outlined suckage they had in store (keeping Hiro in medieval Japan longer; more scenes with the Wonder Twins, etc.)
Heroes Season 3 came out with a huge bang. No more silly plotline with Hiro in medieval Japan. No dumb twins running on empty. Once people see how the show gets back to form they will return.
I am 25 and watch Two and a Half Men. I think it’s hilarious!
Hopefully Heroes can come back with stronger numbers later in the season once people see that it’s actually good again.
I love how shows that require you to focus and follow a running plot like Heroes suffer but total crap like DWTS and CSI:Crappola manage such good ratings. I will say that if I was going to watch a reality show other than The Amazing Race I guess I would pick DWTS if cool people are on. But seriously CSI:Miami?! Why do people watch that show it is soooooo horrible.
HEROES IS THE BEST SHOW EVER CREATED FOR TV. PERIOD.
It was good last season and will just keep getting better! I loved the season 3 opener and cant wait til next week
heroes in terrible, i can’t wait for friday night lights to get cancelled to so that everyone will stop talking about it. go watch actual good tv.
loved HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER!!!! great season opener
Heroes is one of those shows which had an amazing series premiere, But slowly dropped after that. It was clear by season 2 that they weren’t even trying. The only reason I kept watching was because it was free on the internet. I may watch it again on the internet, but its something I’m that I won’t take time out of a Monday night for.
Also, people have been able to get passed Lost’s second season, amazing.
Heroes is amazing, way better than a bunch of D-list celebrities trying to dance around a ballroom. I don’t need ratings for one day to tell me that. Hopefully, the GOOD buzz coming from season 3 will boost it’s ratings.
Sylar gets Claire’s power – STUPID, Once I saw that I changed it – Heroes screws it up again and Mojinder is still a GIANT WUSS – he needs to go!
There is only one great TV show. LOST. Mystery, suspense, humor, amaizing story and frankly you can jump in whenever. Losts worst episode is still 10 times better than Heroes best episode..i watched both series at once on DVD. Heroes feels like crap after an episode of LOST.
I have a scared feeling that Heroes will decline Lost-like (Great ratings then… not so great).
And by the way, their premiere was really really boring for me. I could barely stand it. It just got better later on. So… there is hope and I am sick of all the haters. DON’T WATCH THE SHOW.
Yeah… the first hour of Heroes was lame in many ways. It really did improve the second hour, probably because the stronger actors were featured more, like Kristen Bell, Jack Coleman, and Adrian Pasdar… they can all elevate the bad dialogue to a large extent. I would just like for Heroes to reign in it’s sloppy plots, which it looks like it’s trying to do.
America’s tastes just baffle me. People hate reality TV, yet it continues to flourish. People seem to love Heroes, yet the ratings fall. Two and a Half Men pulling those kinds of numbers? What is going on?