Prime-Time Metered Market Wednesday Ratings: Fox Rules; Strong Showing for Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate on ABC

-Losing Steam:
America's Next Top Model (CW)

-Yesterday's Losers (Excluding Repeats):
Big Brother 9 (CBS), ‘Til Death (Fox), Back To You (Fox), Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious (CW), Men in Trees (ABC)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
With American Idol in the mix, there is no stopping Fox, which beat second-place ABC by an average of 1.7 rating points in the Wednesday metered markets. Third overall was CBS, followed by NBC and the CW.

American Idol, of course, stood well above anything else on Wednesday, with a 14.0 rating/21 share in the overnights from 9-10 p.m. Comparably, that built from relocated lead-in Back To You (#3: 4.4/ 7 at 8:30 p.m.) by a mammoth 218 percent. Leading off the night for Fox was relocated ‘Til Death at a disappointing (and also third place) 3.9/ 7 at 8 p.m. On average, ‘Til Death and Back To You trailed a repeat of year-ago occupant Bones (6.2/10 on April 18, 2007) by an average of 33 percent.

As for American Idol, while the departure of Kristy Lee Cook comes as no big surprise, pouting Brooke White has just got to go. Each week she seems to get more obnoxious.

ABC got plenty of mileage out of the Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate, which averaged a very respectable 8.8/14 in the overnights from 8-10 p.m., with the half-hour breakdown as follows:

Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate
8:00 p.m. 8.1/14 (#1)
8:30 p.m. 9.3/15 (#1)
9:00 p.m. 9.1/14 (#2)
9:30 p.m. 8.4/12 (#2)

Despite the inflated lead-in support, hiatus-bound Men in Trees dipped to a last-place 4.2/ 7 at 10 p.m. Comparably, that put the retention for Men in Trees out of the last half-hour of the Presidential Candidate Debate at just 50 percent.

CBS fell to the atypical No. 3 spot in the Wednesday overnights with its combination of Big Brother 9 (#4: 3.8/ 6), Criminal Minds (#3: 8.4/12), which built from Big Brother by a hefty 121 percent, and CSI: NY (#1: 8.7/14). As for Big Brother, Natalie is gone. Hallelujah!!! Too bad that Sharon did not win HOH, though.

Next up was NBC with its line-up of Deal or No Deal (#2: 6.1/10), a repeat of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (#5: 3.3/ 5), and a repeat of Law & Order (#3: 5.0/ 8). And last was the CW with its non-scripted roster of fading jewel America's Next Top Model (#5: 3.0/ 5) and Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious (#5: 1.6/ 2). What concerns me about Top Model is the year-to-year erosion of 33 percent (3.0/ 5 vs. 4.5/ 7 on April 18, 2007). Should the CW be concerned?

Wednesday 4/16/08

Household Rating/Share
Fox: 9.1/14, ABC: 7.4/12, CBS: 6.9/11, NBC: 4.8/ 7, CW: 2.3/ 4

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-Percent Change From the Year-Ago Evening (Wednesday, April 18, 2007)
ABC: +42, CBS: +11, NBC: - 2, Fox: -25, CW: -32

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

-- Marc Berman

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