RATINGS RECAP: 9/22/11

It has been a busy couple of days, but I'm still hoping to catch up on pilot reviews this weekend so please check back!

ABC
8:00 Charlie's Angels
Viewers: 8.8 million, 18-49 demo: 2.1
9:00 Grey's Anatomy
Viewers: 10.4 million, 18-49 demo: 4.1

CBS
8:00 The Big Bang Theory
Viewers: 14.3 million, 18-49 demo: 4.9
8:30 The Big Bang Theory
Viewers: 14.9 million, 18-49 demo: 5.1
9:00 Person of Interest
Viewers: 13.3 million, 18-49 demo: 3.1
10:00 The Mentalist
Viewers: 13.6 million, 18-49 demo: 2.8

NBC
8:00 Community
Viewers: 3.9 million, 18-49 demo: 1.7
8:30 Parks and Recreation
Viewers: 4.1 million, 18-49 demo: 2.1
9:00 The Office
Viewers: 7.6 million, 18-49 demo: 3.9
9:30 Whitney
Viewers: 6.8 million, 18-49 demo: 3.3
10:00 Prime Suspect
Viewers: 6.1 million, 18-49 demo: 1.8

FOX
8:00 The X-Factor
Viewers: 12.5 million, 18-49 demo: 4.3

On night four of premiere week, NBC's week-long troubles continued. At 8pm, Community continued to be a terrible lead-off and was done substantially from last year's low rated season premiere. How in the world did this show make it to a third season? Parks and Recreation did manage to get over a 2 in the demo at 8:30pm but the total viewer numbers are terrible. The season premiere of The Office was down from last year but if it can hold here (unlikely), NBC will breathe a sigh of relief as the show is going through the transition of Steve Carell leaving and James Spader joining. New series Whitney got sampled at 9:30pm (though not as much as failed Outsourced) did last week. This show's only saving grace is that NBC is in trouble all over the place. That was very evident at 10pm where the series premiere of Prime Suspect, NBC's last best hope for fall, tanked. It was barely better than The Playboy Club and NBC is just falling apart everywhere. No show even got close to 10 million viewers this week.

CBS started with a bang... literally... as The Big Bang Theory got off to a hot start, slightly edging last year's season premiere numbers and winning the hour in both viewers and the demo. It posted an incredibly strong 5.1 demo in the 8:30pm slot... which is only the fourth best demo performance for a sitcom this week, crazy! The news wasn't as good at 9pm though where the highly touted series premiere of Person of Interest was actually below CSI's numbers in this slot last year as it sunk to fourth place in the demo. Like FOX's The X-Factor, these numbers aren't bad in and of themselves but when you consider the hype, the timeslot, and in this case, the lead-in - it's quite disappointing. At 10pm, The Mentalist didn't get helped by Interest and was down from last year's strong season premiere numbers. CBS may have some trouble on Thursdays ahead.

ABC had an ok Thursday night but it was nothing spectacular. The series premiere of the reboot of Charlie's Angels was sampled but not huge. If 8.8 million and 2.1 in the demo is its high point, which it probably is, that doesn't bode well for the show. With the bad reviews, it's unlikely to stay at this point and it looks like ABC will be looking again for a Thursday 8pm show. The two hour season premiere of Grey's Anatomy followed and was down significantly from last year's premiere of 14.3 million viewers and a 5.4 demo. This show is aging fast but remains a strong demo performer for the alphabet network.

Finally, night two of The X-Factor on FOX was basically even with its Wednesday night performance which is a good sign even if the numbers overall are a disappointment. It's all about expectations though. If this show didn't have high expectations, these numbers would be just fine for FOX. It's successful enough, it's just not the breakout hit everyone was expecting.