Ratings News - 5th April 2012 *Full Tables Added*

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Metered Market Wednesday Ratings
Fox Wins; Mixed Results for New NBC Entries

Wednesday 4/04/12
Metered Market Results

Household
Rating/Share
Fox 11.4/18
CBS 7.2/12
ABC 3.0/ 5
NBC 2.6/ 4
CW 1.2/ 2

-Percent Change from Year-Ago Evening – Wednesday 4/06/11
CBS: + 4, CW: no change, ABC: - 9, Fox: -12, NBC: -30

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-Winners:
American Idol (Fox), Survivor: One World (CBS), Betty White’s Off Their Rockers (NBC), Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI (CBS)

-Losers (excluding repeats):
BFF (NBC), One Tree Hill (CW), Bent (NBC), Rock Center With Brian Williams (NBC)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
New sitcom BFF was a big fat flop on NBC, but the positive news for the network was respectable sampling for the Wednesday 8 p.m. time period debut of Betty White’s Off Their Rockers. Everyone loves that Betty!

Fox won this first Wednesday in April overall, with an overnight advantage of 4.2 rating points above second-place CBS. In the distant No. 3 spot was another night of almost all repeats on ABC, followed by NBC and, of course, The CW.

Betty White’s Off Their Rockers finished third in the 8 p.m. half-hour on NBC, with a 5.1 rating/9 share in the overnights. Comparably, that beat the season (or series) finale of Whitney one week earlier (3.3/ 5 on March 28) by 55 percent, and year-ago game show occupant Minute To Win it (2.2/ 3 on 4/06/11) by 132 percent. It was also NBC’s top metered market household rating in that half-hour since November 30, 2011 (Christmas in Rockefeller Center). While you need to keep in mind that competing The Middle (#4: 3.1/ 5) on ABC was a repeat, you can consider the time period premiere of Betty White’s Off Their Rockers a “winner.”

The series-debut of NBC sitcom BFF, however, dipped to fourth with a 2.7/ 4 in the overnights at 8:30 p.m., which was only on par with the season (or series) finale of Are You There, Chelsea? one week earlier (2.6/ 4 on March 28). Comparably, dismal BFF dropped by 47 percent in the overnights out of Betty White. Since most new shows drop in the vicinity of 10 to 20 percent in week two, tick, tock…the cancellation clock is ticking on BFF.

Minus any lead-in support, the two final episodes of sitcom Bent on NBC sunk to a 1.6/ 3 at 9 p.m. (#4) and a 1.4/ 2 (#4) at 9:30 p.m., respectively. That 1.4/ 2 could very well be the lowest overnight rating for any sitcom in the history of NBC. At 10 p.m., ailing Rock Center With Brian Williams finished third with a 2.3/ 4.

In series-finale news, two-hours of The CW’s nine-year old One Tree Hill did not pick up any steam with a mere 1.2/ 2 in the overnights from 8-10 p.m. One week earlier it scored a 1.3/ 2 on March 28 (and that translated into 1.34 million viewers and a 0.7/ 2 among adults 18-49, based on the Live Plus Same day ratings).

Fox led the evening care of American Idol, of course, which averaged an 11.4/18 from 8-10 p.m. And that, compared to a 90-minute edition one year earlier (15.1/24), was down by 25 percent.

Over at CBS, still healthy (but boring) Survivor: One World was close to one year earlier with a second-place 6.3/10 in the overnights at 8 p.m. For Douglas Pucci’s review of last night’s episode ("Just Annihilate Them"), click on the following: http://tinyurl.com/c9cn2wx. Douglas…I completely agree with your assessment this week.

Next on CBS was Criminal Minds (#2: 7.4/12 at 9 p.m.), which dipped by 14 percent from one year earlier, followed by veteran CSI at a dominant 7.9/14 at 10 p.m. Comparatively, CSI outdelivered failed year-ago occupant Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (5.6/ 9 on 4/06/11) by a hefty 41 percent.

Mirroring the last two weeks, only Happy Endings on ABC was an original telecast last night. The network opened with a fourth-place 3.1/ 5 for The Middle encore at 8 p.m., followed by repeats of Suburgatory (#3: 2.8/ 5) and Modern Family (#3: 3.8/ 6) from 8:30-9:30 p.m., the original installment of Happy Endings (#3: 3.0/ 5), and a repeat of Missing (#2: 2.8/ 5). Next Wednesday on ABC will feature the debut of new sitcom Don’t Trust the B____ in Apartment 23.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

Source: Marc Berman@TVMediaInsights