ABC’s Barbara Walters Special Patrick Swayze: The Truth was Wednesday night’s most-watched show in a night peppered generously with reruns. (Check out Ken Tucker’s recap and watch a clip of Swayze and Walters over at EW.com’s Watching TV blog.) Still, CBS drew in the most total viewers for the evening, combining its two-hour telecast of the People’s Choice Awards with strong performances from repeats of its two half-hour sitcoms, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Gary Unmarried. The CW’s new reality series Fear Is Real (whose opening credits feature both a stuffed rabbit that’s supposed to look menacing and a contestant named “Melyssa,” and that’s as far as I got) debuted with 2.4 million viewers. The network’s most recent new series, Stylista, debuted at 2.5 million.
| Time | Show | Viewers (in millions) |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 p.m. | Old Christine (CBS) Bones (Fox) Knight Rider (NBC) Scrubs (ABC) Fear is Real (The CW) |
8.2 (repeat) 6.6 (repeat) 5.7 4.5 (repeat) 2.4 |
| 8:30 | Gary Unmarried (CBS) Scrubs (ABC) |
7.4 (repeat) 4.4 (repeat) |
| 9:00 | People’s Choice Awards (CBS) Special Edition 20/20 (ABC) Law & Order: SVU Bones 90210 |
9.3 8.0 7.4 (repeat) 6.5 (repeat) 1.9 (repeat) |
| 10:00 | Barbara Walters Special (ABC) Law & Order (NBC) |
12.6 10.1 |
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The People’s Choice Awards recap
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If we add the ratings for Scrubs from Tuesday and Wednesday, does this mean it got decent ratings? While I do find it odd that ABC repeated the show so quickly, I hope the multiple showings helps it in the long run. It is a deserving show (as opposed to say…Knight Rider).
I also found it odd that they would air repeats the very next day, but apparently it paid off. Combining the two nights, that equates to 11 million viewers per episode for the first two new shows in the series. An even bigger plus has to be that the repeat episodes scored higher ratings than some of the new episodes of According To Jim, the lame sitcom that never should have received renewal in the first place.