So, what has been going on with our favorite TV shows since the return to new episodes.  Well, it seems that ‘24′ may be reaching it’s end.  It has slipped by 4.2M viewers and 42% in adults 18-49. Ouch!  Looks like ‘24′ may be burning out and Jack Bauer, this time for good, may end up having to hang it up and retire. I do still watch it and love it, but I do get how it could be fading.  It’s the same thing over and over again really.  I mean , how much more can they actually do with the show.  We’ll have to see how this seasons ratings play out and whether we will have another 24 hours of Keifer.

‘Castle’ fans will be happy to know that it pulled in a respectable 9.09M vierws for as second place finish.  It is one of the shows on the “bubble” of cancellation.  ‘Chuck’ is at around 6.31M viewers leaving it still in the bubble zone.  ‘Trauma’ did 4.78M and 4th place finish.  Actually, that is not bad for a show that had no promotion for it’s return to the line-up and for one that most of us, myself included, thought was canceled.  But, still not enough to warrant a pick up for a second season. Oh well. 

‘The Marriage Ref’ did approx 7.71M viewers and second place.  I’m kind of kickin myself because I wanted to DVR that show, as i had sen the promos and it looked like fun.  But, duh, I forgot to check my DVR and the schedule (actually I’ve been lazy laterly.. a lot going on). I’ll be sure to catch it this week.

On Wednesday, ‘Mercy’ is not really fairing very well with only 6.04M viewers.  It too is a bubble show, but it’s not looking good for renewal.  ‘Cougar Town’ dipped in the ratings and only retained 67% of the audience out of ‘The Middle”. Why, I don’t know. It has been a ratings winner and is such a good show. But then again so was Samantha Who (which was nominated for an Emmy even) and that was cancelled. 

Man, the powers that be at networks are fidgety, panicky people aren’t they. So quick to hit the ‘cancel’ trigger these days.

I’m looking forward to the return of ‘V’, the second installment of ‘Parenthood’ and the second new episode of ‘Southland’ and I’m curios as to how they will all do in the ratings.  Stay tuned.

Which brings me to the title of my blog today. I have been a stay-at-home mom for the last 4 years (well, I did make SOME money here and there). Well, now that divorce is imminent, I must once again go out and get work that pays (I was trying to do that anyway, just so you know). But, in divorce, the courts usually order the money making spouse to keep the wife in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. For me, the one luxury I refuse to give up is access to Cable TV and , of course, the coveted 2 DVR’s. I do NOT want to have to decide which two shows to record and which two shows to axe from my repertoire when there are 4 on at the same time. That being said, in my new place I will have what I’ve always had and I’m not going to feel any shame about it!  It is so worth the $113/month that the internet/cable bill will cost me! Hell, I don’t need Gucci or Prada.. but this one luxury I do need!

And now, back to the regularly scheduled blog about, you guessed it, how our TV shows are fairing in the new year.

We finally received the first new episode of the former NBC and now TNT’s ‘Southland’. I have been waiting a long time for these episodes to air. I was not disappointed. Love the show. Unfortunately, however, it did very modestly with only 2.5M and 1.0 in adults 18-49. Man, that really bites because TVbythenumbers.com is already predicting we will not get a third season. Ugh..could it be that another good show bites the dust.

We also finally saw the premiere of NBC’s ‘Parenthood’ which was supposed to have aired in the beginning of the fall 09′ season, but, as I’ve blogged about before, it was pushed till March due to an illness by Maura Tierney (and subsequent re-casting of the part). Well, it premiered last night (I have not watched it yet, so I can’t comment) to a modest 8.6 ratings in 18-49 and approx. 8.1M viewers. It won the 10pm hour, however, these numbers are the same as the cancelled ‘Southland’ and ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ from last season. Yikes man. That’s not positive.

Then again, TV was pretty slumped all night last night. ‘Lost’ dipped approx 13% (and I hear from some Facebook friends that it was an awesome episode) and ‘The Biggest Loser’ dipped 11%. Important to note, however, is that ‘Parenthood’ retained 97% of the viewers from ‘The Biggest Loser’. ‘NCIS:LA’ fell 24% and ‘The Good Wife’ 13%.

What happened last night? Did everyone forget that our regularly scheduled TV programs were returning this week? Let’s hope they remember in time to watch ‘Flash Forward’ and ‘V’, both of which are on the hump of cancellation and need the numbers in order to remain.

‘American Idol’ was a clear ratings winner last night as it received double the shares in 18-49 viewers. NO surprises! I have yet to be wowed this season by any one contestant. Well,unless you count that rendition of ‘Straight Up’ we heard during Hollywood week. That was amazing!

I,for one, am glad to have our regular TV back with no repeats. It serves as a great distraction from the drama in my own life. Tonight, after my son is safely tucked into his bed, I will lay down, relax and catch up on ‘Parenthood’ and if I’m not too tired, I’ll watch ‘American Idol’ or ‘Mercy’ tonight. I’m not worried if I don’t see them now for I know, like a trusted friend, they will be there for me to watch tomorrow thanks to my good friend the DVR!

I have to say , I’m happy for the return of 24 and Keifer Sutherland. But, as I watched, I kept thinking ‘ poor Jack Bauer. The man just can’t seem to get away from the mayhem that is CTU’. As my brother put on his FB status, same formula ; arrogant CTU head that doesn’t listen to Jack, Jack being chased by police and pretty much going rogue with Chloe as his inside at the now new (and I must say very swank with the technology) CTU. But still , it’s a very captivating show. Monday’s two hour show pulled in approx 11M viewers. Sunday was a little lower, but then again it was against the Golden Globes.

Over at ABC ‘The Bachelor’ is doing well. I have to say, I was glad to see that one seemingly psycho chick leave. She just came across too emotional and desperate on the show. I’m a little upset with myself, however, because my DVR only recorded the second hour of the two hour episode. My husband programmed his ‘Antique Roadshow’ that somehow took precedence over the Bachelor (insert rolling eye emoticon here..LOl). It started at the end of the group date that apparently was a crazy night. The promos had some chick telling him she was pregnant and apparently we missed what that was all about. I supposed I’ll have to see if I can find the episode on the internet. It does seem that this Bachelor will be a short season given all the early exits. We shall see. Poor guy is not having the best of luck,  I must say. But it does make for good TV.

Caslte is doing well out of ‘The Bachelor’ with a second place and 9.44M viewers.

As for ‘Chuck’ it is doing a very modest fourth place with 6.66M viewers and 2.4/6 in the 18-49 share. Now, I’m a little upset because before I went on my weekend excursion I had the episode of ‘Chuck’ on my DVR that aired on Sunday, the one where he flunks out of Spy school. I started watching the first ten minutes, but then was busy so couldn’t finish it. When I came back, it was gone. So I completely lost that whole first episode and have not been able to get into it or have had time to watch what is on my DVR.  The question is, is the viewership enough to keep ‘Chuck’ on air for another season?

To wrap up this short (cause I”m short on time) blog, Southland premiered at 1.977M viewers and a .7 in 18-49 ratings. Even fora cable TV show that seems a little low, BUT this was the re-airing of the pilot and the first few episodes will be ones that originally appeared on NBC last season. I didn’t even watch it because I was so busy I forgot to set my DVR and still haven’t made sure it’s set right and not overlapping with other programs. However, the urgency isn’t quite there yet since I’ve seen all of the first episodes that will be airing. I am looking forward to the remaining original 13 ordered by NBC that never aired! Personal note to self: Check the DVR before you go to bed tonight to make sure that ‘Southland’ is set to record.

Well, I must draw this blog to a close.  I didn’t comment on the whole Leno thing, but I will try to put my thoughts into words on the next blog installment.

I spent the two weeks watching the full season 1 of ‘True Blood’. Now I just need to watch all of Season 2. Perhaps I’ll have to wait till next holiday season to have a TV watching marathon? Let’s hope not.

I also managed to catch up on ‘Big Love’ on HBO and am ready for Season 3.

So, let’s talk about TV last night which included Heroes, The Bachelor and Conveyor Belt of Love (the name along brings a chuckle). The Bachelor landed on PIfeedback.com’s winner list last night with a total of 9.54M viewers and a 3.3/8 among 18-49 year olds. Yes, I watched it. Even more surprising, however, was that my husband was watching it too. We had fun making comments about the show. I have to ask, though, do the producers encourage or coax people into being that cheezy? I mean some of the lines that these woman were coming up with were outright.. well just plain cheese! Ah.. but it’s fun. But, the silly (and yes completely hot) bachelor didn’t give a rose to two of the ladies I thought would be good for him. ——SPOILER ALERT———- I’m referring to the Captain in the DC National Guard and the Blonde Commercial Airline Pilot. He did keep the one that seemed somewhat emotionally unstable (I mean get a grip, you are breaking down now on day one, geez woman!). Ed and Jillian even advised that she needs to go.

The cheese continued with ‘Conveyor Belt of Love’. To tell you the truth, when I saw it on the schedule I had no idea what the heck it was. I don’t remember seeing any promo about the shows at all. I did forget to record it, but I was finished watching Bachelor on my DVR and it switched to live TV in the middle of the program. And, my husband and I couldn’t help but watch. It’s TV that is so bad, it’s good. More cheese! Good thing I’m not lactorse intolerant! I’m not surprised, however, that it landed on the ‘loser’ list for last night with an average 6.53M viewers, a significant drop off from ‘The Bachelor’.  It’s not going to last and what did they expect with such little promotion.

The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (football.. who cares) was #1 of course.  Blah.. I don’t like football.

Heroes had only 4.93M viewers. Ouch.  It’s been dubbed by pifeedback.com as a “likely to be cancelled”.  Ah.. I liked it in the beginning, but it is getting a little tired.

I’m looking forward to a new ‘Biggest Loser’ and the return of  ‘The Good Wife’ tonigh.

My last blog spoke about how ‘Raising the Bar’ on TNT was cancelled, but that there were three more episodes that were going to air. Imagine my surprise when , on Christmas Day, I looked and my DVR had three new episodes (because it’s programmed to tape only new episodes) back to back. Apparently TNT gave fans a little Christmas present. I say that because it was a surprise as I saw no promos for those episodes. It’s only a gift, however, if you had a season pass and didn’t delete it.

Speaking of delete, even though a show has been cancelled, if 13 episodes had not been aired yet, I would leave it on your season pass. You never know when the networks will start burning off remaing episodes like they did over this past summer. ‘Three Rivers’ will most likely just magically pop up, as there are 5 episodes that haven’t aired and it appears that it is no longer on CBS’s schedule, for now.

TNT also gave us a very short (only 3 episodes?) of ‘The Closer’ leading up to Xmas. Thank you, TNT, but next time can you do more than three episodes please? We also saw ‘Men of a Certain Age’ air. Great show. A little slow, but still excellent, in my opinion. It wsa #29 on the Cable TV Programming list with 3.69M viewers on 12/21 and 3.123M on 12/28. As TVByThenumbers.com puts it, the dip could be one of two factors or the combination of both the fact that it’s the holiday season and it didn’t have the Closer as a lead in. All in all though, it seems like respectable numbers. It’s debut was 5.4M and that was opposite Monday Night Football.

We also had Eastwick on during the Xmas week. I kind of find that odd. Most shows are running repeats. That , to me, is a strong indication that the network has given up on the show and is burning off the episodes to get to the end of it’s run sooner. It basically bombed in it’s numbers. I still haven’t watched them and they are sitting on my DVR now.

So, let’s take a look at who is on the most likely to be cancelled list;
Ugly Better
Better Off Ted
Eastwick
The Forgotten
Scrubs (this show seems to have a couple of lives, but I think it’s out of lifelines)
Cold Case
Trauma
Mercy
Till Death
Dollhouse
Brothers

Riding the ratings Bubble; in otherwords, it may be cancelled;
Fringe (it will be airing after House on January 11th – lets hope it’s ratings improve and House lifts it)
The Middle
Castle
Flash Forward (this has been trending down and it’s not looking good. Shame, it was a hit out of the gate, but what is happening to it now? eek)
New Adventures of Old Christine
Accidentally on Purpose
The Good Wife (Yes folks, it’s on the bubble. It is performing slightly less than CBS’s average, which puts it in danger. As TVbythenumbers has indicated, at any other station like NBC or ABC, this show would be a hit and NOT in danger. I’m surprised by this one. It’s such a great show it would be a shame to lose it simply because of the network it’s on rather than the number of viewers it actually gets)
Gary Unmarried
Numbers
Law & Order
Parks & Recreations
Community
Heroes

If I didn’t mention it in this blog, then it’s on the most likely to be renewed list. I’ll also update the list on the sidebar for all my readers (how many of you are out there, I have no idea..LOL. )

And what do we have to look forward to in the New Year? Well, we have the premiere of ‘Parenthood’ that will follow episoded of ‘Chuck’ on NBC mid-season. We have the last season of ‘Lost’ to look forward to and the premieres of ‘Human Target’ and other new shows coming. We will have to wait and see what happens to NBC and all it’s programming once the deal with Comcast is done. According to an article I read the other day ( I can’t remember where) the days of “free” network TV may go the way of paid channels, as the Cable business model is fairing far better than the networks. Could 2010 be the year that TV changes forever?

At the close I want to say Happy New Year! I’ve spent the week between Xmas and New Years doing several things, including watching the ‘True Blood’ first season marathon.

At the same time things have slowed down since the start of the season.  I was fast and furious about writing on the status of the new shows in the beginning. By now we have a pretty good picture of a shows staying power.  The shows, for the most part,  have stayed around the same with exception to ‘Flash Forward’ which is now being dubbed a quasi hit. A  quasi hit because it was hot out of the gate but has been steadily declining the last few weeks and now is in some danger of that awful word cancellation.   It’s 18-49 ratings look like this ; 4.0, 3.7, 3.0, 3.1, 3.1, 2.7, 2.6, 2.6, 2.4 ( courtesy of tvbythenumbers.com) .  Oh, and this weeks episode has been leaked on the internet due to the fact that Australian received this weeks episode a week early, being that it wasn’t a holiday in their part of the world. That could hurt viewership numbers this week. We’ll have to see.

Speaking of internet viewing, next year is about to look a whole lot different in the ratings numbers! Nielsen expects to have internet viewing meters in households for the 2010 -2011 season!

‘V’ has been deemed somewhat of a quasi hit too. It dipped, but ticked to a 3.1 rating in the last two episodes (pretty much holding steady two weeks running). What really stinks is that it will be a little while before we get a new episode, which may hurt it being that we have not had many episodes to latch on to.   When it comes back, it’s ratings will tell whether it will be a keeper or not.  It was also helped by Live + 7 day DVR viewing.

I knew it was coming.   ‘Three Rivers’ was canceled and its remaining episodes will not air, at least not during the regular season.  I would keep your DVR’s season pass for the show because they will burn off remaining episodes like the did some shows this past summer.    Don’t expect to know when though, they never advertise dead shows. One day it will just magically appear on your DVR like a little present from the TV gods.

‘Raising the Bar’ on TNT was also canceled, as it’s ratings dwindled this past summer.  Too bad, I liked it.  There were three unaired episodes that were taped and I think TNT will air them. I think I read that they will air in March.

Well, we all know that the end of the year is the season of repeats and Christmas shows and specials.  I’m looking forward to watching Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman with my son as well as the new classics like Shrek the Halls (on last night) and the new one on ABC next week  .

Oh, and just a friendly reminder that TNT plans to air it’s new show ‘Men of a Certain Age’ starting next week.  It looks good, so be sure to check your local listing and set your DVR’s.

Until the next blog!

Let’s take ‘Flash Forward’ for instance. That show started out like gangbusters with 12.4M in viewers on it’s opening night. While it declined in the few weeks after, which is expected, it still remained a “hit”. In this blog, I thought for sure that Flash Forward could be called a season success with 10.74M viewers. By week 3, it was at 9.08M viewers and settling needed to occur.  On the 15th it seemed that ‘Flash Forward’ had settled and was 9.12M viewers and a 3.1/9 in the demo.  And on 10/22 it settled at 9.82M viewers.  But, then on 10/29 it dipped to 8.98M and a 2.7 share.  Okay, so what happened to 1M viewers in one week?  On 11/12 it  fell to a 2.6 share and 8.33M viewers.  Now there is talk of ‘Flash Forward’ being in some danger of cancellation with an uncertain future.  A status, by the way, that it seems a lot of shows are always in.  TV analysts are always very nervous  about numbers and any tick up or tick down spells out the future prospects for the show and it seems to always change on a dime.   I suppose we’ll have to see where ‘Flash Forward’ lands on the ratings list this week.

‘V’ is another example.  It came out like gangbusters as well on it’s opening night, having had the best ratings of any new show premiere to date (in regards to the demographic, not overall viewers). As I blogged last week , however, ‘V’ took a pretty steep decline from week one to week two. Not very unusual, but it was the deepest decline in a week two period of the entire season.  It’s numbers in week two were 10.56 and a 3.7/10 share.  This past Tuesday it slipped yet again to 9.5M and a 3.3 share.  It’s not in any cancellation danger yet, as it’ s numbers are still above the network average, but the fact that it declined for a third week in a row is not a good thing.  We do have the “level off” of week 4 to look forward to. I guess next Tuesday will give us a better picture of the future of ‘V’.  I for one hope that it sticks around. I am enjoying it and it was the most anticipated premiere for me this season.

‘The Good Wife’ , another prime example,  has now landed on the ‘In some Danger of Cancellation List’. Huh?  I have no idea why it would be on that list.  In defense of the list from tvbythenumbers.com it does not include results from this past Tuesday, which was 12.77M viewers and #1 in it’s time slot in the demographic.  I’m sure that will pull it off that list in a weeks time when it’s updated to reflect the new numbers.  It had one slow week (thanks to the world series, I guess) and it slipped.  See how reading all this information can drive you nuts? LOL

But while shows seem to go up, then down, then back up again all of the bouncing around with numbers can really give you a headache.  Turns out that just about everything, even the well established  hits  in the past few weeks are all down.  So I wonder where everyone is off to. Now granted, I’ve been very busy and so I have not been watching many of my shows live and my DVR is full of stuff I have yet to watch.

Basically you can drive yourself crazy analyzing all the data.  One week your favorite show is on the edge of cancellation danger, the next it’s in the safe zone. One bad week can slip it into the danger category. Some shows, like ‘Castle’ have managed to survive walking the edge.  Same thing with ‘Fringe’.  For fans of these shows it truly is a nail biter. Shows like ‘Fringe’ tend to have a loyal fan following.  TVBythenumbers.com has a headline article that ‘Fringe Fans Have a Long Time to Wait With Little to Go On’.  Yikes. The Gist of that article is that ‘Fringe’  is the only show on Fox’s line up that sits on the “in danger” list.  All the others that have fallen into the ‘danger” zone, have already been canceled.  Fox moved ‘Fringe’  to Thursdays, the most competitive night of TV and may feel it could do better on that night.  I say just move ‘Fringe’ to another night and try to find another hit that may or may not be able to compete with the already big hitters on Thursday.  But honestly, why do all the networks try to be #1. You have a great show with loyal fans, so just go with it.  Do you really think you’ll find something to beat the hottest shows on TV at this point?

I’ve updated the lists on my sidebar of the ‘In Danger of Cancellation’ , and the ‘Canceled’  so check it out.  By the way, while ‘Melrose Place’ did recieve a bump from Heather’s appearance it is most likely too little too late.

In other TV news ‘Dollhouse’ was finally canceled.  Seriously, I don’t know why it was renewed in the first place.

‘Melrose Place’ is still doing poorly in the ratings, but next week we see the return of Heather Locklear.  It will be interesting to see what that does for the ratings.

This is a short and sweet blog today, but I did want to share the news about ‘V’s rating. Here’s hoping it has hit it’s level and doesn’t drop further in week 3!

Surprisingly, ‘The Forgotten’ has been picked up for 5 more shows. That doesn’t mean it will be back next season. I’m kind of scratching my head at why the show received and order for more episodes. Meanwhile, word is out that ‘Eastwick’ will not be renewed and it’s questionalbe as to whether its  remaining shows will air. I called it. I think it’s cute and fun, but I just knew it wasn’t going to make it.

I thought it would be fun to look at my old post about Steve Sternberg’s new Fall TV  predictions. He called that ‘Trauma’, ‘Three Rivers’, ‘The Forgotten’ and ‘The Beautiful Life’ would all be misses. He was right about that. He was also correct about ‘Glee’, ‘Modern Family’, ‘Vampire Diaries’, ‘The Good Wife’ and ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ being winners. NCIS: Los Angeles already has a syndication deal (as does the Mentalist).

One show on his hit list was ‘Flash Forward’. As I blogged in the previous post, ‘Flash Forward’ has been steadily slipping the last two weeks. This week will be critical to it’s future prospects for renewal. If it slips even more, it’s future could be uncertain and probably bleak. If it remains at this current level (2.7) it’s right on the edge. If it goes up, well obviously it will remain safe. Geesh. Talk about a nail biter. Really love that show.

I’ll be looking at ‘V’s numbers tomorrow and blogging about them. Week two episode will air tonight, so don’t forget to watch or set that DVR!

Just for a wrap up;

Canceled
The Beautiful Life (canceled after 1 episode)
Trauma
Eastwick
Three Rivers
Cold Case

Happy TV watching tonight!

First, as I was reading some headlines, I realized that ‘Fringe’ did not record on any of my DVR’s last night. GRRR.  Is there a conflict somewhere I didn’t know about, or was the hubby messing with the DVR and set it to one of his shows he likes on A&E only to completely screw up my Thursday night line up in the bedroom?  He has been known to do that before (as well as tried to change the channel when it was recording two at a time and inadvertently canceling my recording).   They should have a ’spousal control’ feature on the DVR boxes for just that reason.

To boot, I also meant to cancel recording of ‘Ugly Betty’ on my downstairs DVR because it already records upstairs so that it will record ‘Monk’ on USA. Well, apparently the cancel I set last week didn’t take.  Thank goodness USA repeats the entire prime time line up into the wee hours.  I swear I must have little gremlins in my DVR this week.

Now onto some news about some ratings.  Apparently ‘Fringe’ performed horribly and dropped to a 1.7 among adults (from a 2.2 the previous weeks). Ouch.  As it turns out, while reading this information I discovered that the hubby was not at fault because the DVR screwed up (I must mentally forgive him. Good thing he’s asleep or I would have accusingly asked if he was the culprit). Heck , it wasn’t even the device itself really . It was just that the programming on the digital TV Guide was never updated by the station (or whoever does the updating) and it thought that the Baseball game was on (because had there been a game 7 indeed it wouldn’t have beenon).  Let’s hope that that mix up was why the ratings were so abysmal for ‘Fringe’ yesterday. No one knew it was on! We’ll have to see how it fairs next week to determine if, indeed, it was the little mix up.   Thank goodness for internet though (that is if I can catch the full episode at the website. I’ll have to check that out.)

Slightly alarming is the slow slide in the ratings that ‘Flash Forward’ is taking. It was at 8.7M and a 2.6/7 last night. The week before it was at 8.98 and a 2.7/8 share and  the week before that it was 9.82M and 3.0/9 share.  What is up with that? I mean I don’t think it’s in any cancellation danger zone but it is sliding.  Last week there was the game, but what was last nights decrease over last week excuse? This show is getting even better every week, so I don’ t quite get it.  It hasn’t made pifeedback.com’s winners list, but it hasn’t made the loser list either. Mabye it’s just a fluke.

According to tvbythenumbers.com Cancel/ Renew index, ‘The Good Wife’ has slipped to ‘in some danger of cancellation list’.  I think I’ll move on from that and just blame it on baseball and the fact that we had a week off from the show which, tends to throw people off  including myself.  I don’t really understand why because it did pull over 12M viewers last night.  Probably because of the dip the repeat may have taken last week landed it on that list. I expect it will be back on the safe list soon enough.

So what lesson have  I learned this week The first is not to have blind faith in your DVR and to check it to make sure there are no hiccups. Second lesson is . even though there may not be anything to write about in the ratings, always check because there just might be something to write about.  Lessons learned!

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