Allow me to plug yesterday's November Cable Ratings Guide one last time. A couple of this week's items below may be familiar if you were paying attention! Here's the Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending December 4, 2011:
- TNT Premiere Monday - As mentioned in the Cable Guide yesterday, TNT brought back their Monday procedurals The Closer and Rizzoli & Isles with new episodes last week. While The Closer pulled 5.40 million viewers and a 0.9 A18-49 rating and was only a little down from last winter's premiere, the first ever in-season airing of Rizzoli & Isles finished with 4.78 million and a 0.8 demo, down by 0.3 from its lowest summer result. Considering the show often built from The Closer when they air in the summer, it's not a great start by comparison. But the numbers are still good for TNT.
- Ringer Fall Finale - Several CW shows signed off till 2012 last week, but the only potential game-changing results came from the new shows. Ringer limped to the finish, with its 1.60 million viewers and 0.6 A18-49 rating grading out as the show's worst performances in two months. Those numbers would also put it among the CW's weakest shows. Not exactly how you want to head onto hiatus. Meanwhile, fellow new drama Hart of Dixie set new highs in 18-49 and 18-34, posting 1.90 million viewers and a 0.9 18-49 rating. All I will say is that considering the CW has run ten repeats of Ringer and just one of Hart of Dixie this season, I'm pretty sure they weren't expecting at this point that Hart of Dixie would be doing 0.3 better than Ringer. With The Vampire Diaries in repeats, Hart of Dixie actually tied a Muppets Christmas special as the highest-rated CW show of the week.
- I Hate My Teenage Daughter - Fox premiered their new comedy I Hate My Teenage Daughter last Wednesday to 6.80 million viewers and a 2.8 A18-49 rating. Superficially, those numbers look pretty decent (especially considering the vile reviews from critics), but the show was in a really favorable situation. Not only did it have a good lead-in from The X Factor (which averaged a 3.7 and was at more like a 4.1 in the last half-hour), but it also had very little competition; CBS' Criminal Minds and ABC's Happy Endings were both in repeats. Next week, they'll both be back, so I'd count on a drop from this show.
- The Exes - As mentioned in the Cable Guide, TV Land's premiere of The Exes looks like their weakest sitcom launch yet. It was the third show they've launched out of Hot in Cleveland. The other two got 0.5 in the demo on premiere night, but The Exes managed just 1.44 million viewers and a 0.3 demo. Hot in Cleveland has also been on the downswing, now down by about two-thirds from its series premiere less than 18 months ago!
- USA Upswing - When the CBS is away, the USA will play. It's been kind of a tough fall for USA's original dramas, with Burn Notice down more than 25% from last fall and Covert Affairs doing way worse than its two previous summer runs. But their three dramas currently on the air all took big upticks last week. The most obvious explanation was that CBS' competing crime dramas went off the air for repeats or specials last week. That meant new season highs for Psych (1.2 A18-49) and Burn Notice (1.2), while Covert Affairs (1.0) tied a season high. A couple of those CBS shows return this week, so let's see if USA can hold the numbers.
