Ratings Results for the Week of January 11th « Axiom’s Edge Network Ratings Tracker

Ratings Results for the Week of January 11th

January 18, 2009 at 3:58 pm | In John J. Joex, Ratings Results | Leave a Comment
Tags: Smallville, Supernatural, The Ghost Whisperer, The Mentalist

By John J. Joex

Hold onto your hats everybody because American Idol is back and the whole Prime Time landscape changes now. Expect to see FOX shows get a boost (cheers from Sarah Connor fans and those of us anticipating the premiere of Dollhouse). And those shows going head to head with Idol (does that thing air every day of the week?) better get ready for some knock-down blows.

That said, The Mentalist did quite well this week when faced off with the behemoth. It held steady with the 18-49 demographic from the prior week and only lost about one million of the total 19.4 million viewers it had previously. This suggests that the CBS hit has achieved bullet-proof status.

We had a Lost sighting this week as ABC ran three repeats on Wednesday night as a warm-up to the January 21st Season 5 premiere. The three episodes only averaged around 4.5 million viewers though (of course the first two hours squared off with American Idol). This superfluous block of reruns should irk Pushing Daisies fans such as myself seeing as it had fared as well if not better in the ratings and they could have aired its last three episodes (currently in limbo) during this time.

On the CW, Smallville returned this week with new episodes and pulled about the usual numbers you would expect to see for that show. Supernatural also returned, but saw a slide from the numbers it averaged earlier in the season. I expect to see those figures work their way back up, though.

On CBS, The Ghost Whisperer continues to hold on strong to its Friday night audience.

Ratings Results:

Title	Day / Time (EST)	Network	Rating (Viewers 18-49)	Timeslot Rank	Total Viewers (Millions)
Jericho (R)	Sunday / 7 PM	CW	0.3	5th	0.82
Chuck	Monday / 8 PM	NBC	On Break	n/a	n/a
Heroes	Monday / 9 PM	NBC	On Break	n/a	n/a
The Mentalist	Tuesday / 9 PM	CBS	3.8	2nd	18.09
Fringe	Tuesday / 9 PM	FOX	Pre-empted	n/a	n/a
Knight Rider	Wednesday / 8 PM	NBC	1.6	5th	5.34
Lost (R)	Wednesday / 9 PM	ABC	1.6	4th	4.26
Life on Mars	Wednesday / 10 PM	ABC	On Break	n/a	n/a
Smallville*	Thursday / 8 PM	CW	1.9	5th	4.27
Supernatural*	Thursday / 9 PM	CW	1.2	5th	2.96
Eleventh Hour	Thursday / 10 PM	CBS	4.3	1st	15.51
Ghost Whisperer	Friday / 8 PM	CBS	2.5	1st	10.52
The Sarah Connor Chronicles	Friday / 8 PM	FOX	On Break	n/a	n/a

Title	% Chg from Prior Wk	% Chg from Lead-In	Cancell- ation Alert
Jericho (R)	0.0%	n/a	n/a
Chuck	n/a	n/a	Moderate
Heroes	n/a	n/a	Low
The Mentalist	0.0%	0.0%	Low
Fringe	n/a	n/a	Low
Knight Rider	-5.9%	n/a	High
Lost (R)	n/a	n/a	Low
Life on Mars	n/a	n/a	Medium
Smallville*	111.1%	n/a	Low
Supernatural*	50.0%	-36.8%	Low
Eleventh Hour	n/a	-30.6%	Moderate
Ghost Whisperer	0.0%	n/a	Low
The Sarah Connor Chronicles	n/a	n/a	High
*Prior week’s broadcast was a repeat airing.

The Cancellation Alert column is based on season to date performance and my assessment of how likely the network is to cancel the show. TVbytheNumbers.com also provides their Renew/Cancel Index which tracks the likelihood of cancellation on a weekly basis.

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