Cavemen No Do Bad

Wed., Oct. 3, 2007 12:49 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

Cavemen is not going the way of the dinosaurs just yet.

ABC's much maligned sitcom debuted Tuesday with decent enough numbers for a much maligned sitcom, averaging an estimated 9 million viewers, preliminary Nielsen Media Research stats show.

The comedy was the second most watched show in its 8-8:30 p.m. time slot. Even more impressive, it ran first among 18- to 49-year-olds, tying with the first half hour of CBS' NCIS.

Cavemen, about three big-browed fellows trying to make it in the world of Homo sapiens, may still become extinct, but it'll always have Tuesday—a decent launch for a project that was belittled for being based on prehistoric pitch characters for Geico insurance and for a pilot that was branded "astoundingly awful" last spring by an Ain't It Cool News mole. (The Cavemen episode that aired Tuesday was not the pilot, though it didn't exactly get raves, either.)

Advertisers showed so much, or so little, faith in Cavemen ABC was selling 30-second spots for $100,000 a piece, Adweek reported. Only Carpoolers, Cavemen's time-slot companion, which enjoyed an even bigger debut (9.02 million viewers) than its lead-in, was being offered at a lower price to sponsors, $90,000 per half minute of ad time, according to the magazine.

By comparison, 30-second commercials on Private Practice, another new ABC show, albeit one that's a spinoff of Grey's Anatomy, were going for about $255,000 each, Adweek said.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Fox's House dominated, scoring as the night's most watched (17.3 million) and highest rated show. The medical drama tripped up ABC's Dancing with the Stars (15.7 million), which sent home model Albert Reed, and fell to second in the 9-10 p.m. hour in both categories.

The CW's Reaper (2.8 million) had a rough second outing, rating lower in the network's prized 18-34 demographic than a Univision telenovela. CBS' Cane (9.2 million) followed its so-so debut with an outright bad performance, running last in the 10-11 p.m. hour in total viewers and way last in the 18-49 demo.

Overall, Fox was the most watched and highest rated network of the night. ABC placed second among ad-friendly young adults, who presumably might inspire advertisers to take a second look at Cavemen. Struggling CBS placed second in total viewers.

The Geico gecko, meanwhile, wants the creative community to know he's available for pilot season.