Martha Up; Her TV Boss Down

Fri., Oct. 7, 2005 1:00 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

Repotting, as Martha Stewart would attest, is vital to plant growth. It's not bad for struggling TV shows, either.

Debuting in its new 9 p.m. time slot Wednesday, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart sprouted new viewers. Its 6.3 million total was the most since the reality series meekly debuted on NBC on Sept. 21.

In Friday's Los Angeles Times, Mark Burnett, the reality TV maven behind the Apprentice and Survivor franchises, categorized the showing as "decent growth," achieved "despite very few promos."

Burnett's dig at NBC underscored the producer's general peevishness at the network for the handling of the series, on track to be the highest-profile bust of the fall season.

Even on the ostensible upswing Wednesday, the Stewart-fronted Apprentice ran fourth in its hour among total viewers, ran fourth in its hour among demographically desirable viewers aged 18-to-49, and dropped NBC to its worst performance in the hour since the new TV year began.

Conversely, NBC scored its best showing of the fall in Stewart's former flowerbed, thanks to E-Ring. The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Pentagon drama, which flip-flopped time slots with The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, was granted access to 8.5 million viewers, its most-watched outing since premiere week.

By trading places, E-Ring won't have to worry about losing suspense fans to ABC's Lost (22.4 million viewers on Wednesday night) at 9 p.m., and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart won't have to worry about losing young female viewers to UPN's America's Next Top Model (4.8 million on Wednesday night) at 8 p.m. Or so goes the scheduling theory.

Burnett sees the time-slot switch in more practical terms. "Clearly, the move is designed to save E-Ring," he told Times.

Indeed, E-Ring benefited more by moving out of Lost's way (its ratings shot up 10 percent), than The Apprentice: Martha Stewart benefited by moving into Lost's way (up three percent).

In the Times, Burnett complained that the war-room-centered E-Ring "isn't a good lead-in" for the conference-room-centered Apprentice. "I've never understood the connection between the two," he said, "but I'm not a scheduler."

If Stewart's prime-time project doesn't take to its new pot, Burnett might not be the producer of two Apprentice series, either.

In other TV tidbits:

UPN is feeling the love for Everybody Hates Chris (5.7 million viewers on Thursday night), giving the sitcom a full-season order. Approval ratings remain high for ABC's Commander in Chief--16.9 million viewers on Tuesday night, up three percent from its debut. The West Wing, NBC's lame-duck White House drama, goes the Will & Grace stunt route with a live broadcast Nov. 6. The episode, to be performed twice (once for the East Coast time zone, once for the West Coast), will feature a debate between Jimmy Smits' and Alan Alda's presidential candidates. Some good news and bad news at the WB: Supernatural has been given a full-season order of 22 episodes, but the Don Johnson-fronted Just Legal has been permanently adjourned after just three barely seen episodes. MTV has reupped Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County for a third season, and announced an early 2006 launch for 8th & Ocean, a Laguna Beach-style reality show about 10 models lying in "a bed of insecurity, uncertainty and apprehension" in Miami. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is basking in its second-season pick-up from FX; the controversial Starved has been cut off by the same network. Litigious types, take heart: Judge Judy is contracted to remain on the TV bench through 2010.