'Knight Rider' sputters; CBS wins night

UPDATED: NBC's "Knight Rider" had starter trouble in the ratings race Wednesday night while CBS continued its premiere week victory lap of year-over-year gains.

Despite having the highest level of viewer awareness of NBC's new fall shows, "Rider" (7.4 million viewers, 2.5 preliminary adults 18-49 rating and a 7 share -- THR review here) opened in third place in the 8 p.m. hour, slightly less than "Deal or No Deal" in the slot last year and half the rating the "Rider" movie pulled down last February.

"Rider" faced the debut of CBS' new comedy hour, featuring a transplanted "New Adventures of Old Christine" (6.5 million, 2.1/6) from Monday night and the series debut of Jay Mohr laugher "Gary Unmarried" (6.8 million, 2.4/7 -- THR review here). The comedies underperformed "Kid Nation" in the slot from last year, with "Christine" earning 34% less than when it was snuggled in the Monday block.

NBC and CBS faced heavy competition in the hour from ABC, which came in second place for the night and won the 8 p.m. time period by stretching its "Dancing" (15.9 million, 3.6/10) results show to Wednesday this week.

President Bush’s brief live address at 9 p.m. pushed back the rest of the night's major broadcast network programming, but the speech didn't stop CBS from having a terrific rest of the night.

The season premiere of "Criminal Minds" (17 million, 4.7/12 -- improving nicely in the nationals) was the highest-rated show of the night, followed by "CSI: NY" (14.6 million, 4.0/11) winning the 10 p.m. hour. "Minds" was up an impressive 34% compared to last year and "CSI" climbed 8%.

CBS has now demonstrated gains on the first three nights of premiere week, despite a relatively modest performance from its new shows. With the network not facing "Dancing" next week at 8 p.m., CBS expects their comedies to improve and help the network dominate the night.

"We're extremely happy with the way our returning series have performed so far," says CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl. "We’re up on the first three nights, bucking the conventional wisdom that audiences might not come back as strong. Continued strength with these shows establishes a great environment for audiences to find our new series."

Other results: Fox aired "Bones" (9.7 million, 3.1/9) followed by its comedy block of "Til Death" (4.6 million, 1.4/4) and "Do Not Disturb" (3.5 million, 1.3/3), the comedies dropping slightly once again. CW aired an on-par "America's Next Top Model" (4.1 million, 2.1/6). NBC aired "America's Got Talent" (10.3 million, 2.7/7) followed by the second season premiere of NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" (6.3 million, 2.4/6), which was in third at 10 p.m., down 14% from last year, bested by "CSI" and the final hour of ABC's special, "David Blaine: Dive of Death" (7.1 million, 2.6/7 and, nope, he didn’t die).

Comments

[jake]

I really expect and hope that Christine and Gary unmarried improve next week without Dancing with the stars in the mix and Knight Rider more likely to drop. Those ratings are not that bad given the tremendous competition. Christine and Gary and two of the funniest sitcoms on the air. Must see TV.

[David]

http://familyguts.tv/my-familys-got-guts-vs-knight-rider/

Check out what I found while browsing the web

[Anon]

Wouldn't Lipstick Jungle be third and not fourth in the hour? Fox and CW don't program at 10pm.

Right, fixed, thx -- JH

[tim]

thank you for that enlightening link, David.

[Angry Moonlight Fan!]

Good. I think what CBS did to the Moonlight fans was horrible. I'm also boycotting other new CBS shows and hope they flop as well. I invite other Moonlight fans to join me to send CBS a message: Stop treating your viewers like crap.

[Chad]

KNIGHT RIDER.......!!! I thought I was watching a SOAP OPERA!!!! You'd think that the first episode would wow the viewers. I am still a die hard fan of the original. The fact that I am a Ford man, I was like a kid in a candy store. I got the show back plus the MUSTANG!!!! Please stick to the action/adventure.....and leave the love stuff to the SOAP OPERAS!!!! Betcha get more die hard viewers.

Very Disappointed.

[Kevin]

Knight Rider was funnier than either of the CBS comedies. It's not even a contest. Yeah, so what if Knight Rider wasn't actually supposed to be funny but it was almost like a spoof of the 90's syndicated shows like V.I.P. and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. There were a couple of moments that were CLASSIC bad TV.

On the bright side, they couldn't have spent that much money. The opening looked like a YouTube video and the effects were on par with a straight-to-DVD movie.

[Carlo Boccaccio]

I liked the new Knight Rider. The girls are cute and the guys seem to be smart. And the MUSTANG!!!! That is one AWSOME car!! I hope it stays on the air and its rating improve. Since when is being No.3 in a time slot considered a "flop"?

[GUS]

This was the same episode that was shown earlier in the week. I enjoyed the show as well the movie. They should have played a new episode, not the one that was available a week to watch on NBC website. I turned as soon as I saw it was the same episode from Saturday night. It was basically a rerun! Next week the rating will rise!

[JIM WHITTAKER, Hemet, CA]

Network eposodic television is laughably pathetic.

It's destroyed more brain cells than crack cocaine.

Infantile shows for infantile minds!

[Tre Gibbs]

one word - DUH !!

[zipper]

Yes, Moonlight was a heck or lot better that the childish Knight Rider knock off.

[KRfan]

I'm sure KR would have gotten better ratings if the Cable Company wouldn't have lost their NBC HD Feed quater wat through the broadcast...

[the1tv]

I'm not surprised, I was fairly disappointed.