The old cornerstone programs of CBS, ‘Survivor’, ‘Criminal Minds’ and ‘CSI’ wear on the public well and on this third Wednesday of the 2013-14 television season, they won every time slot and carried The Tiffany Network to the top in household view. ‘Survivor Blood vs Water’ carried the 8P period with 9.46 million viewers, 1.3 million ahead of their closest compeition. ‘Criminal Minds’ brought in the biggest audience of the evening with 10.9 million viewers, edging out ABC’s ‘Modern Family’ by 470,000 viewers. At 10P, ‘CSI’ easily won with 8.78 milion viewers, nearly 3 million viewers ahead of their closest competition.
ABC finished #2 as ‘Modern Family’ was their only program that topped 10 milion viewers but each of their programs finished second in their timeslots with the exception of ‘Back in the Game’, which dropped to third with only 6.44 million.
FOX rebounded from Tuesday and with ‘The X Factor’ drawing 7.14 million, the Animal Network came in #3 for the evening.
NBC’s programming block, ‘Revolution’ (5.37 million), ‘Law and Order: SVU’ (5.37 million) and new comer, ‘Ironside’ (5.23 million) could only manage a fourth place finish. It appears that ‘Revolution’ is not doing the job leading off the evening. Having said that it was the only program during the entire evening to increase its time slot over a year ago, up 20% (last year the programs were ‘Animal Practice’ and ‘Guys With Kids’). Both ‘Law & Order: SVU’ and ‘Ironside’ had excellent episodes on this evening but very few viewers to sample. Too bad. The performance Blair Underwood gave in Wednesday’s episode was Emmy worthy. If the Peacock Network can carry tired programming well past their prime, they should be able to have this program prove that it has a message for the disabled even though this community has brought on some controversy. Disabled actors spoke out against having a non-disabled actor play this role. But the producers wanted to have flashbacks to build the background. Wednesday’s episode could not have been accomplished without a non-disabled actor in the title role. The compassion that Underwood portrayed in this episode was exceptional.
The CW premiered two of its big programs on Wednesday and were rewarded with solid performances with ‘Arrow’ winning 2.68 million viewers and ‘The Tomorrow People’ pulling in 2.34 million viewers.
TBS pulled in a strong 6.090 million viewers for the Major League Baseball Divisional Playoffs while A&E averaged 4.254 million viewers watching ‘Duck Dynasty’. It’s 10P episode drew a cable high for the evening of 7.403 million, the sixth biggest program of the evening on all of television.
For the record, CBS drew 9.713 million viewers for a 6.2 rating and 10 share. ABC was second drawing 7.229 million with 4.6/8; FOX was third and right behind ABC with 7.141 million at 4.4/7; NBC #4 with 5.614 million viewers and a 3.7/6; TBS finished #5 with 6.090 million viewers; A&E was #6 with 4.254 million; Univision was seventh with 3.1 million viewers and a 1.7/3; The CW #6 with 2.682 million viewers and a 1.6 rating and a 3 share while Telemundo captured seventh for the evening with 1.3 million viewers at 0.7/1.
In a very competitive late night, NBC’s ‘Tonight Show with Jay Leno’ 2.6/7 finished slightly ahead of CBS’ ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ (2.4/7) and ABC’s ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ with 2.5/7. Late late night had ABC’s ‘Nightline’ finishing with a 1.8/6 and NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ 1.45. CBS’ ‘Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson’ had a 1.3/5 NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly’ finished with 0.8/4.
It was an interesting night where the top dog (‘Modern Family’) was knocked off by an old dog (‘Survivor’) as viewers were….
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