Overall TV Viewership Is Down

The first full week of new television programming is over and the numbers prove what many have felt was the case — overall network television viewership is down significantly over last year’s numbers, and those numbers from a year ago were not all that impressive in the first place.

The good news for NBC is that they are in a head-to-head fight with ABC for the top spot. The peacock network hasn’t had the honor of a fight for number one in nearly a decade, so even though the overall totals are down, the network does have something to spin in their favor.

Of all the new shows coming out of the gate only two look like they are going to be bonafide hits and will, no doubt, be returning next season. NBC’s “Bionic Woman” is a winner with fans and ABC’s “Private Practice” is also doing quite well in the standings.

NBC also got good news about its new police drama titled “Life.” It did very well following “Bionic Woman.” Other NBC newbies, however are on the fence. “Chuck” has fair, but not overwhelming numbers and “Journeyman” still is floundering. The show is actually quite good, but should probably be moved from its current 10PM ET Monday night position to a more viewable time and night. Even though it follows “Heroes,” which, again is a huge hit with the 18-49 crowd for its season two return. I know that I’m usually ready to turn off the set for some other form of distraction after sitting through two full hours of television before the airing of “Journeyman” with its endless supply of commercials.

CBS faired the least in the standings. Its new comedy “The Big Bang Theory,” while doing just OK in its debut, fell off in its second showing after critics and fan’s alike boo-hoo’d it. “Moonlight” did well for the network and the return of “Ghost Whisperer” also held firm to its Friday night spot. However, except for these two bright spots is was a poor week for the Eye network. Good news for CBS will be this week’s return of “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation.”

Over at Fox - well, what can we say except that “House” is in the house and still rules.

The two returning shows that did the worse were CBS’s “CSI: Miami” and NBC’s “ER.” The medical drama, once the king of Thursday night primetime programming, has been slipping significantly over the last three years, even though the stories have actually gotten better and big name actors like Sally Field and Stanley Tucci have made frequent appearances. NBC has hinted that this 14th season of the long running hit show will likely be its last. Some of the better known names in entertainment got their big breaks on this show, including George Clooney, Maura Tierney, Noah Wyle, Anthony Edwards, Eriq La Salle, Julianna Margulies, Mekhi Phifer and Goran Visnjic.

The good news for fans of some of the lesser LIVE-watched shows is ad executives are holding off until they get the full picture from the live-plus-7-day data, which takes into account DVR and TiVo viewership, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It’s nice to see the advertisers taking the recording audience seriously in their overall decision of which shows to advertise on since the difference in the percentage of DVR/TiVo homes in the Nielsen sample is shown to be up to around 20% — a 9% climb over last year’s figures.