Here's the Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending April 22, 2012:
- Eureka - Since this has already been announced as the final season for Syfy's Eureka, the ratings don't really matter that much. But just in case you were holding out for a ratings miracle that would get them to extend the show, I wouldn't hold your breath. Eureka returned last Monday to 1.80 million viewers and a 0.6 adults 18-49 rating, both its lowest premiere numbers yet. They're still pretty decent numbers for Syfy, but when the final season is announced you have to do something truly eye-opening to turn that around. This ain't it.
- Private Practice - The Grey's Anatomy spin-off hadn't had a regularly scheduled timeslot apart from Grey's Anatomy since the first half of its second season, when it was collapsing on Wednesdays in the fall of 2008. Last Tuesday, we learned why it's been so long, as Private Practice aired after the Dancing with the Stars results show and managed just 6.53 million viewers and a 1.7 A18-49 rating. That was the show's lowest demo performance of the season by a long shot, a whooping 0.4 points behind its worst post-Grey's outing. It also did worse than the last three episodes of Body of Proof in the same timeslot. It would seem that in Body of Proof and Private Practice ABC has a couple of dramas that are capable of doing decent numbers only when they have one specific lead-in. The question: is that enough to warrant a renewal? We'll know within a month.
- Revenge - There is one 10:00 ABC drama that doesn't have to sweat out a renewal. ABC's Revenge returned from a seven-week hiatus with 7.77 million viewers and a 2.3 demo. The show still hasn't broken out the way the buzz suggests it should, but it didn't dip much in its first airing of the late spring. For now, it remains about as strong a drama option as there is in the 10/9c hour on a network not named CBS.
- Parks and Recreation - Another show returned from several weeks off the air as NBC put Parks and Recreation back in the 9:30 timeslot where it aired for most of last season. It scored 3.46 million viewers and a 1.7 demo rating. Considering it pulled a 1.7 in the seemingly more difficult 8:30 timeslot for most of the winter, you can argue that's a disappointing result. But it at least did a little better than Up All Night, which showed promise in the fall but collapsed in this timeslot later in the season. Ultimately, it seems The Office is just too diminished at this point to be much of a lead-in to anything.
- Veep - Two weeks ago, all the HBO ratings hype surrounded their new comedy Girls. Last week, they installed another new comedy to the lineup, the Julia Louis-Dreyfus-led Veep. It pulled 1.38 million viewers and a 0.6 demo rating. The good news: the show did make a noticeable improvement on the previous occupant Eastbound & Down. The bad news: those numbers are still a long way from even half of what its Game of Thrones lead-in (3.65m, 1.8) got at 9:00. I'm sure the numbers are good enough for HBO to renew if that's what they want to do. In other HBO news, Girls (858,000 viewers) was down just a touch from the 872,000 viewers of its premiere. Not bad, but Veep also gave it a better lead-in than Eastbound.
