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Weak Premiere for New NBC Drama Series on a Bad Night for Broadcast in General

Jun 24, 2013  •  Post A Comment

Viewer numbers were soft for two new summer broadcast series and a season premiere Sunday night, with a new show from NBC faring especially poorly. The Peacock’s two-hour opener for the cop drama “Crossing Lines” generated only a 0.7 average rating in the key 18-49 demo, based on Nielsen overnight reported by TVbytheNumbers.com.

“Crossing Lines,” starring William Fichtner and Donald Sutherland, opened against ABC’s one-hour series premiere of the reality competition “Whodunnit?,” which managed a 1.3 in the 18-49 demo. But both new shows finished behind a couple of animated reruns on Fox in the 9 p.m. hour — “Family Guy” (1.5 average) and “American Dad” (1.4).

“Whodunnit?” fared even worse than the NBC premiere in total viewers, averaging 4.04 million to 4.37 million for “Crossing Lines.”

Meanwhile, ABC’s summer premiere of “Celebrity Wife Swap” matched “Whodunnit’s” 1.3 average in viewers 18-49, equaling “Swap’s” all-time low and off 19% from the show’s most recent original installment, back in May. It was down a hefty 46% from the winter premiere in February.

With an all-repeat lineup, Fox managed to finish in a tie with ABC for first place in the 18-49 demo for prime time overall. Fox and ABC averaged 1.1 ratings, followed by NBC (0.8 average), Univision (0.7) and CBS (0.6). CBS, which also aired all reruns, turned it around in total viewers, finishing first with 4.9 million, followed by NBC (4.2 million), ABC (4.0 million), Fox (2.5 million) and Univision (2.1 million).

One Comment

  1. I don’t know about the Nielsen crowd, who decide who and what we watch, but I DVR everything anymore in HD. I have a 2T hard drive so I can store quite a bit.
    My point is that sometimes a show can come and go before I even get around to watching it. I just got done with The Secret Circle from CW a week ago and it has been cancelled for over a year. It was a great series by the way!
    My point is that if I and others are that far behind on our viewing habits, yea I have the last (2) seasons of Hawaii 5-0 and Person of Interest still to watch, then shows like this may be gone before I even hear it was on.
    I guess I will set my DVR for Crossing Lines!! lol

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