Last Week, NBC Had Its Worst Ratings In History (Probably)

April 19th, 2007

From digg:

“The network, which dominated television in the late 1990s and earlier this decade, averaged only 6.8 million viewers in prime time last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. That’s believed to be lowest weekly average that NBC has recorded during a TV season since the advent of Nielsen’s ‘people meters’ 20 years ago, and likely ever.”

This comes as little surprise to me. NBC doesn’t seem to get it. They still would rather throw together yet another season of The Apprentice than to come up with something someone might actually watch. ER is still one of my favorite shows, and one of the few NBC shows I will still take the time to watch. 30 Rock comes in second for me. Other than those two shows, I really never watch NBC anymore. There’s nothing that draws me to it. Thanks to CBS I became addicted to Jericho and CSI. Law & Order, while still good, just doesn’t hold the appeal to me it once did. Jerry Orbach passed away, and he was one of the better TV cops on that show. I do have to admit, I like the Law & Order: Criminial Intent shows that feature Vincent D’Onofrio. Why they split the series with him and Chris Noth, I’ll never know.

If NBC ever hopes to attract viewers back, they need to dump the cheap “reality” shows and go back to doing what they’ve always done best: drama.

Comments

Stop Complaining on April 20th, 2007 6:24 pm

I actually totally disagree with you - I think CSI is sensationalist unrealistic crap.

I also think adding Chris Noth and the other new cast members has definitely made Criminal Intent a much better show.

Actually the lowest rated CI this season has in fact been a Goren episode
VDO Vault on April 21st, 2007 11:40 am

I am blogging on whether CI and the original L&O (the mothership) are likely to get renewed…I really don’t think they are because they are costing NBC too much money and just not delivering on the ratings.

The split with Chris Noth on CI was done to lighten D’Onofrio’s work load (12 hour days 5-6 days a week is pretty brutal). That I thought was going to be a good thing (I liked Noth on the mothership and thought Dick Wolf gave him a raw deal so I was happy to see him get to come back to CI). Then NBC got all cheap and Dick Wolf let go the CI series creator (Rene Balcer) and a whole heck of a lot of the CI production team that made CI great and CI like. This season, with a new show runner and a bunch of other random people doing the writing and production and flailing around trying to make NBC happy, CI is suffering bigtime. I think the bad ratings are the ultimate proof of that.

The mothership has been uninteresting for me since about Season 7 or 8…it’s only on because Dick Wolf will do anything to beat the ‘Gunsmoke’ record (longest running primetime drama). I think the flunkies of the people who used to do the catering for the mothership back in the early days are running and writing for the mothership which is why it is worse than fanfiction.

Anyway I say let ‘em both go. It’s just painful to watch them now and remember how good they used to be.
The Vault
http://vdovault.wordpress.com
Jude on April 22nd, 2007 7:53 pm

I agree, I like the D’Onofrio episodes much better than the ones with Noth, but it was VD who asked NBC to take some of the load off of him after he collapsed from exhaustion a couple of times in 2004. That’s when they decided to split the series into two casts and they brought in CN. Better half the time than none, I guess.
Vincent's Gal on April 23rd, 2007 4:33 am

The show was split with Chris Noth after Vincent collapsed (twice) in 2004. He said he didn’t want to leave but he could no longer do 22 episodes with him in damn near every scene. Dick Wolf was the one who suggested bringing in Noth. As far as I’m concerned, ‘No Noth, No Vincent’ so we have to deal with the 11 Logan episodes to get to enjoy the 11 Goren ones :0)