David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. More watch happy "House" than de-perked Katie
19.4 million viewers turned into the third-season premiere of "House," which found the good doctor giddy by his standards after an operation apparently took care of that limp of his; 13.6 million took a look at the new "CBS Evening News," featuring Katie Couric's debut.
Comparing the two, obviously, is unfair, as primetime ratings are generally higher than evening news numbers. Couric's ratings performance represented CBS's best for a newscast in eight and a half years, and left NBC and ABC (which both had around 7.5 million viewers) in the dust. Couric's viewership represents roughly one viewer for every dollar CBS is paying her (not to mention the network's big campaign to introduce her).
OK, again, extremely unfair. The key question now is, did viewers like what they saw enough to stick around in the future? If two-thirds to three-quarters did, then she'll prove a boost for CBS. On the other hand, if a lot of those sampling respond with a desultory, "Ah, yes, this is why I don't watch the evening news," or an, "OK, been there, done that; back to Brian Williams (or Charlie Gibson)," then CBS has plunked down a lot of money to attempt to resurrect a moribund medium.
Other ratings news: Fox's "Standoff" did OK, with nearly 14 million viewers, but retaining only 72 percent of the lead-in "House" presented it with; it lost about 5 percent more viewers at the half-hour mark. Those are numbers Fox will be thrilled with if they maintain once the season begins and the show's competing against "The Unit" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" instead of repeats and crap reality shows.
And the UPN/WB affiliates who didn't end up with The CW are really sweating it right about now, as the patchwork MyNetwork's debut last night suggests that it might more reasonably called Nobody'sNetwork. English-language telenovelas "Desire" and "Fashion House" each roughly drew about a million or so viewers, or roughly what the most miserable UPN repeat would draw in the dead of summer. There's a new word for "Desire:" Apathy.
Comments
Yay, House is back!
I didn't watch Standoff in favor of Eureka, which I would have missed had I not set the TiVo.
Posted by: Suzy Q | September 6, 2006 4:11 PM