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Anchorwoman Joins Elite TV Club
2007-08-29
Well, at least the anchorwoman still believes in Anchorwoman. Staying cool after starring in the TV flameout of the summer, Anchorwoman star Lauren Jones has blogged that she still holds out hope for one of TV's rare one-and-done shows. "Voice your opinion, and let Fox know how you feel," Jones wrote on her MySpace page, "because nothing in this world is permanent." But, alas, Anchorwoman's demise appears pretty permanent. Fox yanked the reality show—which plunked down Jones, a former Price Is Right model, into a real-live TV newsroom in Tyler, Texas—from its schedule last Thursday, less than 24 hours after the series' Wednesday night premiere. The show averaged just 2.66 million viewers, ran fourth among the broadcast networks in the 8 to 9 p.m. time slot, and took a beating from a Univision telenovela. In the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings, it placed 88th for the TV week ended Sunday. While Anchorwoman was not the lowest-rated new show of the week, it was the most expendable: Fox made its On the Lot bed with Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, and had to lie in it until the very, very, very end (last week's episode—93rd place, 2.4 million viewers—was the last, finally); ABC had to air something on Saturday night, hence the latest barely watched installment of Masters of Science Fiction (101 place, 2.1 million). But where Anchorwoman was concerned, Fox could, and did, plug its Wednesday slot with 'Til Death reruns. And so the series was shown the door, joining the likes of Heather Graham's Emily's Reasons Why Not, Glenn Frey's South of Sunset and Fox's The Rich List in the TV record book as shows canceled after one episode. "The thing that stinks about this is that Anchorwoman is such a great show, and gets better and more fun with each episode," Jones wrote of the critically panned series. For now, Fox has made unaired Anchorwoman episodes available through its on-demand site. As Jones blogged, no show is ever really, truly gone. Why, over at ABC, the still Google-able network Website for Emily's Reasons Why Not, which premiered and died on Jan. 9, 2006, notes the airdate for the second episode is "TBD." Of course, maybe the initials stand for "totally beyond dead." Other ratings highlights for the TV week ended Sunday, per Nielsen Media Research stats: • What a dummy. The Terry Fator-crowning America's Got Talent finale (first place, 13.9 million) helped the NBC series to its biggest-ever audience.
• All told, the usually lowly NBC placed three shows in the Top 10, including The Singing Bee (seventh place, 8.9 million) and a Sunday night preseason NFL game (fifth place, 9.2 million).
• CBS' most watched new show was Wednesday's Power of 10 (eighth place, 8.7 million); while ABC's was Just for Laughs (13th place, 7.7 million). With its hit summer reality series wrapped, On the Lot dying and Anchorwoman DOA, Fox had nothing much in its bag of tricks save for a Thursday night preseason NFL game (30th place, 6.2 million).
• Power of 10, by the way, didn't look nearly as powerful on Tuesday night (32nd place, 6.1 million)—not opposite America's Got Talent, anyway.
• Good news for map-babbling Miss Teen USA contestant Lauren Caitlin Upton! The NBC-aired pageant only averaged 4.3 million viewers (55th place), down 25 percent from last year, and the worst-ever numbers for the scholarship competition. (The bad news for Upton is that at least one of those 4.3 million taped the broadcast and uploaded her vapor-lock moment to YouTube.)
• Fox's Teen Choice Awards parodied High School Musical, but didn't get High School Musical ratings. It averaged 4 million viewers (59th place), the least ever for the awards show, and was down 15 percent from last year.
• In cable, TNT's The Closer (7.7 million) led the way, followed by—what else?—a Thursday night rerun of Disney Channel's High School Musical 2 (6.4 million). (On Sunday night, Disney Channel extracted 3.3 million more viewers for yet another replay of the original HSM.)
• A Sunday night episode of Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack and Cody (4.2 million) was cable's most watched comedy series; TBS' Tyler Perry's House of Payne (3.9 million) was cable's most watched comedy series not starring identical tween brothers.
• Other top-rated cable series: USA's Monk (5 million), Psych (4.2 million) and Burn Notice (4.1 million), TNT's Saving Grace (4.7 million) and Lifetime's Army Wives (4.1 million). In the network prime-time races, CBS was the most watched broadcast network (averaging 6.9 million), followed by NBC (6 million), which perked up to second place. Disney Channel was the most watched cable network (3.5 million), followed by USA (2.8 million) and TNT (2.6 million). Here's a look at the 10 most watched broadcast network prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research: • America's Got Talent, NBC, 13.9 million viewers
• CSI, CBS, 10.4 million viewers
• Without a Trace, CBS, 9.3 million viewers
• Two and a Half Men, CBS, 9.25 million viewers
• NBC NFL Preseason (Philadelphia v. Pittsburgh), NBC, 9.2 million viewers
• 60 Minutes, CBS, 9 million viewers
• The Singing Bee, NBC, 8.9 million viewers
• Power of 10, CBS, 8.7 million viewers
• Cold Case, CBS, 8.4 million viewers
• Criminal Minds, CBS, 8.3 million viewers
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