Girls Like Dolls

Where the Pussycat Dolls go, the boys with follow? Not necessarily.

Young women and teen-age girls were the biggest boosters of the apparent feminist role models' new CW series, which got off to a relatively strong start per the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings.

The headhunting mission that is the Pussycats Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll averaged nearly 4 million viewers on its opening night (97th place).

The audience was smaller than that of the CW's reality standard-bearer, America's Next Top Model (90th place, 4.5 million), but bigger than that of the premiere for Britney & Kevin: Chaotic (3.7 million), pop star Britney Spears' 2005 foray into unscripted television.

The Search for the Next Doll, featuring the pop group of "Don't Cha" fame, played especially well with women aged 18-34, averaging 1.1 million of those prime Pussycat Doll candidates.

By comparison, the show only averaged 347,000 fans of the male 18-34 persuasion.

The trend held among teenagers. The premiere averaged 521,000 girls aged 12-17, compared to 154,000 boys.

The Pussycat Dolls' new show tells the story of nine young women vying for one high-profile opportunity to sing and dance while wearing next to nothing.

Former Spice Girls were not eligible.

Here are some more ratings highlights from the TV week ended Sunday:

• The American Idol women's mostly on-key performances, as featured on Wednesday's show (first place, 28.6 million), outdrew the men's mostly off-key performances, as inflicted on Tuesday's show (second place, 27.9 million).
• Sundance Head's employment plea—"I need a job"—was evaluated by more than 27.5 million potential bosses on Idol's Thursday results show (third place). 
• If you sat through Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (fifth place, 20.7 million) for a second straight week, the answer is, no, probably not.
• CSI (eighth place, 15.5 million—for a repeat) finally beat Grey's Anatomy (38th place, 8.5 million—ditto). Now, if only it could keep the ABC show in reruns forever...
• Lost (19th place, 12.5 million—for a new episode) finally beat CSI: NY (22nd place, 11.8 million—repeat). Now, if only it could keep the CBS show in reruns forever...
• David E. Kelley's new Fox series, The Wedding Bells (21st place, 12.3 million), rocked in its Wednesday premiere. Then it got rolled in its Friday debut (101st place, 3.6 million—for a repeat of the opener).
• NBC's Law & Order (49th place, 7.4 million) and/or Law & Order: Criminal Intent (51st place, 7 million) may be forced to cut costs and cast members in order to stay on the air next fall, Variety says.
• NBC's higher rated Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (32nd place, 9.1 million) isn't said to be facing a similar ultimatum.
• Come April, Scrubs (65th place, 5.8 million) and 30 Rock (83rd place, 5.2 million) will switch Thursday time periods as part of an apparent NBC experiment to see which comedy can do worse at 9 p.m.
• In cable, 4.1 million romantics witnessed the spurning of 12 Pack on VH1's I Love New York.
• Talk about slow news days: Absolutely nobody—nobody that Nielsen could measure anyway—watched Friday morning's edition of BBC World News on BBC America. 
• ABC Family's eight-hour Supernanny marathon of tantrums and time-out corners did much better than coverage of the boring old Iraq war, averaging 1.5 million viewers on Sunday.
• In the evening news race, NBC (9 million) edged ABC (8.9 million). So as to insert itself into the conversation, distant-third CBS (7 million) fired Katie Couric's executive producer.

With the February sweeps over and reruns everywhere, Fox's mix of Idols and new episodes of House (fourth place, 24.4 million) and 24 (16th place, 13 million) helped the network to big wins in total viewers (14.1 million) and the 18-to-49-year-old demographic.

CBS (10.8 million) ran second in both races. Both NBC (7.9 million) and ABC (6.8 million) trailed by quite a bit.

The CW (3 million) is glad for its Dolls collection.

Here's a look at the 10 most watched prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 28.6 million viewers
2. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 27.9 million viewers
3. American Idol (Thursday), Fox, 27.5 million viewers
4. House, Fox, 24.4 million viewers
5. Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, Fox, 20.7 million viewers
6. Deal or No Deal (Monday), NBC, 18.4 million viewers
7. Without a Trace, CBS, 17.5 million viewers
8. CSI, CBS, 15.5 million viewers
9. Cold Case, CBS, 15.45 million viewers
10. Heroes, NBC, 14.9 million viewers