CBS may not have done a good enough job getting the word out about “Jericho,” its famously uncanceled show’s return. While Tuesday night’s season two premiere fared better than the first-season finale, it was still off from the show’s first-season average and finished second in its new timeslot.
The show’s second season, which debuted this past Tuesday on CBS, averaged a 2.5 adults 18-49 rating in the 10 p.m. Tuesday slot, according to Nielsen overnights, up 19 percent over last spring’s finale, when it aired at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
However, that was still 11 percent off the show’s 2.8 average last season and down 22 percent from a 3.2 for its first-season premiere. “Jericho” finished very close behind a repeat of NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” in the timeslot, though its rating did remain steady from its first to its second half hour and it did come in second place overall for the night…not really too shabby considering CBS again did little on its own to promote the show during prime time over the last few weeks before its return.
The show was revived last spring after its initial cancellation following a campaign by rabid fans that resulted in CBS being buried under 20 tons of peanuts. CBS will issue its verdict on a possible third season sometime after the 3rd or 4th episode of this shortened 7 episode season.
I agree that CBS did not do a good job of promoting the second season of the show. I caught the SciFi channel marathon of the first season and I am hooked. I am a new fan and would have loved to catch the second season premiere had I known it was coming up.
I am hoping that the notoriously inaccurate Nielson ratings don’t sink the rebirth of this enthralling series.
Arturo