Dancing Defeats Heroes

NBC superhero series records least-watched season premiere; ABC dancing show keeps the beat—and its big audience

Those poor superheroes. They never had a chance against Cloris Leachman.

On the first night of the fall TV season, Dancing With the Stars' two-hour season opener ruled with 21.1 million viewers, per Nielsen Media Research estimates.

Dancing's success helped defeat Heroes, which recorded its least-watched season premiere ever.

The NBC show, now three seasons old, averaged 9.9 million for back-to-back new episodes. Last year, the show started off with 17 million viewers, thanks in part to NBC's plumping up of the numbers with a special Saturday-night repeat.

Even if NBC hadn't cooked last year's numbers, last night's numbers wouldn't have looked great in comparison. Heroes' unaltered second-season premiere scored about 14 million viewers—about 30 percent more people than tuned in last night.

Elsewhere, CBS' CSI: Miami (16.9 million) launched its seventh season, and pulled off that rarest of ratings feats: Its numbers were better than a year ago (15.1 million).

If estimates hold, ABC's Dancing With the Stars will just about run even with last fall's opener (21.2 million). Most interesting, the show with the night's oldest star—that would be the cleavage-baring, judges-wooing 82-year-old Leachman—was the night's most-watched show among prized 18- to 49-year-olds. Even among kids, ages 12-17, Dancing ran first in the 8 p.m. hour, and a close second in the 9 p.m. hour. (Hannah Montana's Cody Linley, more than Leachman, probably deserves the credit for that last stat.)

Heroes, which lost the second half of last season to the writers' strike, was competitive in the 18-49 battle. It ran second in the demographic in both the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. hours.

The Fox and CW shows that got a jump-start on the season held up OK. Gossip Girl (3.4 million) pulled in more 18-34 women than any 8-9 p.m. show save Dancing With the Stars. One Tree Hill (3.1 million) did its thing from 9-10 p.m.

Despite the premiere competition, Prison Break (5.8 million) and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (5.9 million) were both actually up in viewers over last week. But both ran dead last among the big four networks in the 18-49 demo. Even among 18- to 49-year-old men, the shows ranked fourth, or last. (Both shows, especially Terminator, had better luck among 18- to 34-year-old men.)

CBS' premiere night wasn't as flashy as ABC's or NBC's, but it was still big.

CSI: Miami was the night's second most-watched show. Two and a Half Men (14.9 million) was up 1.3 million viewers over last fall's premiere. How I Met Your Mother (9.7 million) was up 1.6 million viewers.

The weakest link in the network's lineup was the premiering comedy Worst Week (11 million), which squandered Two and a Half Men's audience in total viewers and 18- to 49-year-olds. Most telling, the show rated only a cursory mention in the network's daily ratings recap.

Overall, CBS' lineup was consistent, and even improved over last fall's. Accordingly, the network scored its first Monday night win among 18- to 49-year-olds since 2002, edging ABC, which fell to second when Boston Legal (9.4 million) tanked in the demo in the 10 p.m. hour.

Dancing was big enough to compensate for Boston Legal, and led ABC to a win as the night's most-watched network (17.2 million), ahead of CBS (13.1 million) and way, way ahead of Heroes-laden NBC (9.9 million).

Oh, that Leachman is a powerful one, indeed.

(Originally published Sept. 23, 2008 at 12:07 p.m. PT.)