'Mars' slips; 'Idol' improves; Couric flops

Wednesday night saw a possible ratings pivot for "American Idol," a Katie Couric primetime news experiment, the return of a freshman series and the second week performances of a couple key shows.

First, the return of ABC' "Life on Mars" to a new time period didn’t result in the surge of new viewers that the network had hoped.

“Mars” (6.5 million, 2.3 preliminary adults 18-49 rating and 6 share) hit a season low and was down 18% from its Thursday average when it aired after “Grey’s Anatomy.” Despite heavy promotion during “Lost,” the return of “Mars” placed last in the 10 p.m. hour.  The “Mars” transplant is the flipside of ABC putting “Private Practice” after “Grey’s” on Thursdays (a move that’s working out quite well). 

In their second weeks, “Lost” (11.1 million, 4.8/11) and Fox’s new investigative drama “Lie to Me” (12.1 million, 4.4/10) declined while airing head-to-head at 9 p.m. despite CBS’ airing a repeat. The shows were deadlocked during their premieres, but last night their ratings gap widened, with “Lost” now firmly in the lead. “Lost” fell a couple tenths, and “Lie” was down 10% (though "Lie" did better among total viewers -- retaining 98% of its premiere).

The “Lie” drain comes despite lead-in “American Idol” (27 million, 10.1/25) improving. After some worrisome slippage last week, Tuesday’s “Idol” matched last Wednesday’s. And now last night’s has climbed 3% above that number. The “Idol” performance ties the singing competition’s same night last year. If the number improves slightly in the nationals, like Fox expects, it means that despite all those “’Idol’ has declined” headlines, that for first time this season an “Idol” episode will be higher-rated than last year.

Fox won the night, followed by ABC (which also aired a “Lost” repeat at 8 p.m. that includes those distracting “pop-up-video” style “ 'Lost’ for Dummies” plot explanations).

NBC was third with “Knight Rider” (6.1 million, 1.9/5), a repeat, and then “Law & Order” (8.9 million, 2.6/7). "Order" won 10 p.m. despite having the hour's weakest lead-in.

CBS was fourth, starting the night with “The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" (5.7 million, 1.2/3).

The Couric special has been billed as the first-ever primetime edition of the show. It allowed CBS to see how the anchorwoman's struggling newscast might fare as inexpensive counterprogramming. Yet "Evening News" easily ranked as the lowest-rated original program of the night (and under-performed most repeats, as well). CBS says the event was always meant to be a one-time thing, merely a primetime sampling opportunity for the newscast. 

“We were able to achieve our objective of exposing ‘The CBS Evening News’ to an incremental audience, and hopefully attract more viewers to our 6:30 broadcast,” said Sean McManus, president of CBS News and CBS Sports, in a statement. “We are pleased that viewers are responding to the quality of the newscasts that Katie and the team are producing in each and every night.”

CBS followed the newscast with encores. The CW aired repeats.

UPDATE: In the nationals, "Idol" climbed to a 10.2 as expected. "Lost" went up a tenth, to a 4.9, while "Mars" sank further, to a 2.1. Couric dropped to a 1.1. "Lie" was unchanged.

Comments

[covadonga@covad.net]

Should have kept DIRTY SEXY MONEY.

[Debi]

So Couric went up against American Idol of all shows to see if unscripted would stand up to a pop phenomenon? Despite it lagging in ratings as of late - American Idol is still a pretty formidable opponent on the TV grid. Strange that CBS would use that time slot to test anything. Or maybe not. What do I know?

[Daniel K]

Well, you can look at it this way: it was an experiment to see how little money they could lose in that slot. After all, they're obligated to program SOMETHING. Maybe NBC will fare better with Leno in primetime.

[marc]

Mr, Hibberd, let's be fair here. LOST virtually kept its entire 18-49 score from last week. LIE TO ME had a huge lead in and dropped from last week and dropped at the half way mark. It's not as if LOST and LIE To ME did about the same. One had a 1.7 as a lead in.

[James Hibberd]

I'm not beating up a show for dropping 10% for episode two when its premiere was the highest-rated all season, especially with total viewers hanging around at 98% of premiere.

Coming out of "Idol," you're going to get a lot of noncommittal viewers stuck to the couch, so one would expect plenty to drop by the wayside.

Now, do I suspect "Lie" would hit the floor without "Idol"? ... maybe ... tough to know ...

Here's a question: How would "Lost" perform with an "Idol" lead in? This late in the show's story, would it make much of a difference?

[smokeybear]

Lie to Me was excellent last night!

[Heradite]

Better Question:

What would happen if Idol was before the Mentalist?