Bubble shows update: 'Lipstick' and 'Stone'

>> There's some leaked ABC midseason schedules floating around online. Though they confirm this previous post, ABC insiders insist the schedules are rough drafts.

Case in point: last night's "Eli Stone" dropped to match its series-low 1.6 rating in the nationals, despite lead-in "Dancing With the Stars" rising. The latest leaked schedule shows "Stone" continuing through the spring. Though nothing is decided yet, last night's "Stone" performance makes a full-season pickup less likely (particularly if "Dirty Sexy Money" does decent tonight). ABC takes their time on making these announcements for a reason.

So does that mean "Pushing Daisies" might still have hope since the network has remained quiet on the show's fate?

Probably not. Waiting to make a decision re: "Daisies" is more likely a function of ABC's media strategy, which typically involves an all-in-one-shot announcement. That way the exciting headlines ("Grey's Anatomy" paired with "Private Practice"!) bury the disappointments ("'Show X' isn't coming back").

>> The "Lipstick Jungle" salvation campaign continues and Brooke Shields is sounding pretty adamant: “Women are in uproar over this … they’ve tried to kill us before and we have refused to die. If we were meant to be off the air, we wouldn’t have made it as far as we have. Everything that could possibly go wrong with a show has happened with us. They recast us, they reshot the pilot and we changed showrunners. We had our second-season premiere up against a presidential debate, and then, when they moved us to Friday nights at 10 [a typically doomed time slot], our first night at the new time was Halloween. Of course those numbers were down”

Candace Bushnell, echoing Ben Silverman in the NY Times the other day, played off the now-boilerplate claim that "Lipstick" grows 50% from DVR use: "These kinds of serial shows tend to be what people TiVo and then watch all in a row on a Saturday morning. Over 50 percent of our audience is not accounted for in the numbers."

The lowdown: For the first five episodes, "Lipstick" averaged a 23% gain from DVR use. That puts it among top DVR gainers. On the show's first episode airing on Fridays, Halloween night, the show dropped to a below-the-floor .96 in the demo, then climbed to a still-atrocious 1.5 when adding DVR -- for a 56% gain. That's where that 50% number comes from. So now, including the Halloween episode, “Lipstick” averages a 27% bump, making it the biggest percentage gainer from DVR use on broadcast. So "Lipstick" is a strong DVR performer, but 50% was an outliner due to NBC moving the show, not a typical representation of the show's unsung audience.

> Footnote: Showtime says this report about the premium network doing a call girl reality show is not true

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