Big Picture
Kim & Kourt Take Bev Hills Plus, Daniel Radcliffe works his magic and Bruce Jenner blasts to the past. Get the latest pics!
MORE PHOTOS +Most Commented
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: Vote in the Final Round! (2036)
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: This Round Is Closed, Please Stand By (698)
- Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart Photos Galore! New Pics From Their Post-Twilight Flicks! (606)
- Afternoon Mail! Are Gleeks Having More Sex Than Vamps? (586)
- TV's Top Couple Tournament: And the Winner Is... (504)
- Beyoncé and Jay-Z Share First Photos of Baby Blue Ivy! (398)
- Whitney Houston Dead at 48 (396)
- Life After Breaking Dawn?! Maybe, Says Studio Head! (226)
- Morning Mail! Céline Dion Talks Whitney Houston's Tragic Death (222)
- Blind Vice! Nevis Divine's Sad Past (214)
Top 10 Stories
- Kevin Costner? Aretha Franklin? Bobby Brown? Latest Details on Whitney Houston's Funeral
- Diddy Remembers Whitney Houston: "She Was So Full of Life"
- Royal Feud Shocker! Sean Penn Slams Prince William's "Unthinkable" Deployment
- Real Housewives' Michaele Salahi & Journey's Neal Schon: Tareq Salahi Is the One Tormenting Us!
- Angelina Jolie Tears Up—Watch Her Get Emotional
- Josh Duhamel Not Coming Back for Transformers 4: Is Anyone?!
- Spoiler Chat Daily: A New Girl Baby on the Way?! Plus, Scoop on Vampire Diaries, Glee and More
- Jersey Shore Sneak Peek: Pauly D Pulls a Fast (and Dirty) One on Deena
- American Idol: Did Tent Girl Get Better? Who Passed Out Onstage? And Who's Headed to Vegas?!
- Survivor: One World Insider: Chivalry Is Dead, Y'All
Fashion Police
Leighton's Valentine's Look Plus, Ashlee Simpson and Cate Blanchett. Rate the highs and lows!
MORE PHOTOS +
Our Partners
"Seinfeld" Curse Broken "Up"?
No, Jason Alexander's not George Costanza anymore. But, he can be grateful he's not Bob Patterson anymore, either.
Alexander's latest post-Seinfeld sitcom, Listen Up, got off to an okay start Monday night, before 11.8 million viewers, per Nielsen Media Research.
The series won its 8:30-9 p.m. time period, and outdid its lead in, Still Standing (11.1 million), making it CBS' top-rated hefty-guy-married-to-a-skinny wife sitcom of the night.
Listen Up finds Alexander cast as sports columnist/ESPN personality Tony Kornheiser's easily excitable alter ego. Sister Act's Wendy Makkena is the trim spouse.
San Francisco Chronicle critic Tim Goodman didn't find a lot to get excited about, calling the show "ill-advised." "Either [Alexander] can't get the right material or he really is as annoying as George Costanza," Goodman wrote.
USA Today's Robert Bianco was even harsher. "So why doesn't it work?" he asked. "Jason Alexander."
Mike Duffy of the Detroit Free Press offered a kinder, gentler assessment--although it seems unlikely his finding of the comedy as "perfunctory" will be recycled as ad-blurb material.
Listen Up is Alexander's second sitcom following his hall-of-fame run as George Costanza on Seinfeld (1990-98).
Bob Patterson, with Alexander as an easily excitable motivational speaker, never found its voice during the 2001-02 TV season on ABC, debuting to 9.8 million and averaging 8.1 million before being canceled. In all, it aired just five times.
Fellow Seinfeld costars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards previously bombed with Watching Ellie and The Michael Richards Show, respectively.
Those two shows, both airing on NBC, got off to faster starts than Listen Up--the Louis-Dreyfus sitcom bowed before a Joey-esque 17 million in 2002; the Richards vehicle took its pratfalls before 13.2 million in 2000.
But big debuts didn't guarantee big runs. Ellie lasted 19 episodes over two seasons; Richards was gone after eight episodes.
Listen Up is the least hyped of the post-Seinfeld sitcoms--a factor that may work to its advantage.
Despite Alexander's heft, CBS isn't expecting his comedy to do the heavy-lifting on Monday nights. That's what Everybody Loves Raymond and Two and a Half Men are around for.
On Monday night, Raymond began its ninth--and final--season with 18 million viewers in its living room; Two and a Half Men saw 16.4 million check out the start of its sophomore season.
The ratings star of the night was CSI: Miami, opening its third round of corpse-filled adventures in front of 22.5 million, and stiffing time-slot rival LAX, which fell to 8 million viewers for NBC, down nearly 40 percent from last week's top 20 debut.
Maybe Jason Alexander can offer Heather Locklear an experienced shoulder to cry on.
Elsewhere:
Things that don't bode well for The Apprentice 2: Donald Trump and Co. got trumped by reruns. In the TV week ended Sunday, previously viewed episodes of CBS' CSI (first place, 22.3 million viewers) and Without a Trace (fifth place, 16.1 million viewers) booked more viewers from 9-11 p.m. last Thursday than an all-new Apprentice 2 (seventh place, 15.9 million) booked from 9:20 p.m.-11 p.m. on NBC.Things that don't bode well for The Apprentice 2, Part II: CSI and Without a Trace are back with new episodes starting this coming Thursday.
Why NBC will say it doesn't care: Trump's hair was the most-watched spectacle among viewers aged 18 to 49. Also, ABC's The Benefactor did much, much worse (59th place, 5.5 million).
Survivor: Vanuatu, the ninth edition of the CBS reality series, began its jungle antics before 20 million, good for second place, and bad for NBC's Joey (eighth place, 15.3 million), which lost nearly 20 percent of its premiere audience airing opposite Survivor's first 36 minutes.
Why NBC will say it doesn't care: "[Joey's performance] easily bests the typical week-two retention rate for Friends over the past six seasons." (We're still waiting for the translator to get back to us on that one.)
Jennifer Lopez's booty boosted the seventh-season premiere of NBC's Will & Grace--fourth place, 16.5 million.
Real Siegfried & Roy, featured in the NBC interview special Siefried & Roy: The Miracle (10th place, 14.5 million), proved bigger draws than CGI Siegfried & Roy, with their new NBC comedy, Father of the Pride, continuing its Whoopi-esque descent (27th place, 9.7 million).
Ratings for the 56th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were even scarcer than first estimated. ABC's three-hour-on-the-dot telecast averaged an all-time low of 13.8 million, for an 11th place finish.
ABC's pre-award-show special, Countdown to the Emmys 2004, averaged 5.9 million (54th place) from the red carpet.
A two-hour farewell to Barbara Walters on the season opener of ABC newsmag 20/20 attracted 10.8 million nostalgia buffs (16th place).
Other shows season premiering: NBC's Third Watch (23rd place, 10.1 million); the WB's 7th Heaven (44th place, 7.3 million); the WB's Everwood (54th place, 6 million); ABC's Primetime Live (63rd place, 5.1 million); and a pair of WB sitcoms, Reba (67th place, 4.8 million) and Grounded for Life (82nd place, 3.4 million).
Good thing newly crowned Miss America Deidre Downs has a fall-back career (she wants to cure childhood cancer)--her TV ratings were lousy. Historically lousy. To put it one way: More TV homes tuned in the Miss America Pageant on ABC 50 years ago (8.7 million) than tuned in the two-piece evening gown parade--sorry, scholarship competition--on ABC on Saturday night (7.1 million). To put it another: The telecast's average of 9.8 million viewers (27th place) was the lowest ever--down 5 percent from last year, and down nearly 50 percent since ABC began broadcasting the event again in 1997.
Outfit in resilient polyster or no, Fox's That '70s Show continued to fade--49th place, 6.6 million viewers.
Boxer Oscar De La Hoya got clocked in the ring last week--and so did his Fox show, The Next Great Champ (67th place, 4.8 million).
Some 6.3 million helped will Whitney Houston through a performance on the ABC telecast of the World Music Awards (50th place).
Fewer than 2 million watched Acie, a 22-year-old gentleman from Houston, declared the player in the season finale of UPN's The Player (101st place). But what does Acie care--he got a Cadillac Escalade out of the whole deal.
Overall, CBS won the week--the final one of the 2003-04 TV year. Its shows averaged 10.9 million viewers.
NBC, tops among the demographically chosen, trailed with 9.9 million, followed by ABC with 8.8 million. Fox, with no show placing higher than 40th, fell dangerously close to netlet levels, with 4.8 million.
Among the real netlets, the WB topped UPN, 3.7 million to 2.8 million.
Here's a rundown of the 10 most watched prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:
1. CSI, CBS, 22.3 million
2. Survivor: Vanuatu, CBS, 20 million
3. Monday Night Football, ABC, 18.8 million
4. Will & Grace, NBC, 16.5 million
5. Without a Trace, CBS, 16.1 million
6. 60 Minutes, CBS, 16 million
7. The Apprentice 2, NBC, 15.9 million
8. Joey, NBC, 15.4 million
9. NFL Monday Showcase, ABC, 15.3 million
10. Siegfried & Roy: The Miracle, NBC, 14.5 million
0 Comments
Now loading...