TV Ratings Thursday: Deep End Underwater; Bones High; CSI, Mentalist, Grey's Series Lows

Scoreboard
rating/Share: Adults 18-49	3.4/9	3.1/8	2.8/8	2.2/6	1.4/4	1.4/4
Rating/Share: Adults 18-34	3.3/9	2.6/7	1.7/5	2.3/7	1.6/5	1.5/4
Total Viewers (million)	9.795	9.415	11.968	5.149	3.241	3.657

The premiere of ABC's The Deep End managed only a 1.8 rating for adults 18-49, that's completely underwater. Without new CBS competition, Bones had its best rated night in over a year, while Grey's Anatomy, CSI and The Mentalist all had series low ratings.

The Deep End premiere was left gasping for ratings. Its 1.8 adults 18-49 rating was 14% below the lowest rated FlashForward in the same timeslot. Grey's Anatomy might have taken a hit because of it, as Grey's was down 4% from last week to a 4.6 rating, a series low for an original broadcast. Private Practice settled back to earth with a 3.6 rating, down 14% from its crossover last week, but near its season average.

Bones was up 6% from last week to a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating, its highest rating since 11/12/08. Fringe was flat vs. last week with a 2.6 rating, but that's much better than it was doing in the fall, and it had full broadcast competition last night.

With repeats at 8pm, the CBS later hours suffered, CSI was down 6% to a series original low 3.1 rating, as was The Mentalist, down 9% from last week to a series low 3.1 rating.

NBC's night was little better, as Community fell 13% from last week to a 2.1 rating. and Parks & Recreation fell 5% to a 2.0 rating. The 2010 debut of The Office may have surprised some viewers, falling 12% from its last original episode to a 3.7 rating (Edit: Since it was a clip show, your ratings comparison mileage may vary). But with an Office lead-in, 30 Rock was up 22% from its poor showing last week to a 2.8 rating. While Conan's ratings soar, The Jay Leno Show was up just a tenth from last Thursday to a 1.4 rating.

I'll get more details on the CW target demos later, but the return after an extremely long hiatus wasn't kind to Vampire Diaries as its 1.6 for adults 18-49 may have tied a series low (checking now) in that demo. Supernatural fared better, its 1.3 adults 18-49 rating was slightly above its season average for new episodes.

Edit: In the CW target demo, Vampire Diaries scored a 2.5 rating for women 18-34, tied for second in the timeslot. Supernatural had a 1.5 rating for women 18-34, well back in fifth among English broadcast. I will let the CW crack PR team provide the annual comparisons in its press release.

In Late-Night Local People Meters Thursday night:

• Conan O'Brien (2.6 rating in 18-49 in local people meters) out-rated CBS's Late Show (0.9 rating) in Nielsen's 25 local markets with People Meters.
• At 12:35 a.m., Jimmy Fallon (1.0 rating in 18-49 in local people meters) tied CBS's Late Late Show (0.5 rating).

Today's graphic made at Wordle.

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You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.

Definitions:

Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.

Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.

Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)

Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.

For more information see Numbers 101.