In premiere week, many returning shows delivered smaller ratings than last year's strong premiere week numbers. This was seen on hit shows such as Modern Family, Criminal Minds, CSI, Dancing with the Stars, How I Met Your Mother, The Middle, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Blue Bloods, and others. But there was one veteran drama that had a significant uptick year to year and that was Grey's Anatomy. In its ninth season, the medical drama delivered a stellar 4.4 demo, only trailing Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory for the week in the demo. This is a great performance for a show that looked like it was on its way down for the past couple years until last spring's uptick. Then it followed a strong spring with a premiere number that was only topped once all last season. It may be old, but it remains one of TV's hottest shows.
Premiere week always brings a couple duds but it seems like there were more immediately dead shows than usual this year. After seeing the ratings for The Mob Doctor, Partners, Made in Jersey, and Animal Practice - it's clear that none of these shows will be around for long. The entire freshman class seems pretty weak but those four shows are dead in the water and I'll predict that one at most will live until November. There was a vibe going in that this year's class was weak and the premiere week numbers lived up to that. In an era of declining audiences, people aren't going to watch shows with no buzz and no appeal. Yet networks continue to greenlight shows like that - I mean, did FOX really think a show about a mob doctor would work? Did CBS really think Partners was going to be their next comedy hit after watching the pilot?
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