All CBS’ midseason reality series The Job seems to have done is kill the momentum of Undercover Boss. Boss returned to CBS‘ schedule last night after a two-week break to make room for the quickly cancelled The Job with a 1.5/5 in 18-49 and 7.3 million viewers. That was down more than 20% from the shows last original, which posted series highs (1.9, 9.94 million). Still, Boss delivered a 103% improvement in the 8 PM hour vs. last week. The stronger lead-in didn’t help the ninth-season (and likely series) finale of CSI: NY (1.2/4, 9.4 million), which was flat with last week. Also matching last week’s performance was Blue Bloods (1.4/4), the most watched program of the night (11.06 million). CBS won the night in total viewers.
The top program on Friday among adults 18-49 was once again ABC‘s Shark Tank at 9 PM (1.8/6), even with last week. But its lead-in and lead-out were down — the 8 PM comedies Last Man Standing (1.3/4) and Malibu Country (1.1/3) were off by 7% and 8%, respectively, while 20/20 (1.4/4) slipped a tenth with a Robin Roberts special. Still ABC (1.5/5) edged CBS (1.4/4) for a No.1 finish in the demo.
NBC’s two-hour Dateline from 8-10 PM (1.4/4) was the only program last night to post week-to-week gains, up a tenth. Rock Center (1.0/3) was down a tenth. Fox’s Kitchen Nightmares (1.1/4) was flat. So was sophomore drama Touch (0.7/3), which once again ranked as the lowest rated program on the Big 4. No wonder star Kiefer Sutherland is already fielding pilot offers. After an encouraging uptick last week to match its season high, the CW’s Nikita (0.3/1) plunged 40%.
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