Paris Is Burning up Ratings and a rundown on the

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,13070,00.html

 

Paris Is Burning up Ratings

 

by Joal Ryan

Dec 9, 2003, 5:05 PM PT

 

Paris Hilton is booked.

 

The platinum-haired hotel heiress, currently drawing computer-screen crowds for downloads of her boudoir antics, launched her legit prime-time career in fine fashion last week, with her new reality series, The Simple Life, becoming a fast top 25 hit for struggling Fox.

 

Last Tuesday's premiere, in which Hilton and partner-in-obscene-wealth Nicole Richie, daughter of Lionel, were removed from their Beverly Hills bubbles and deposited in Arkansas' Ozark Mountains was watched by 13 million people who missed the show the last time around when it was called Green Acres. According to Nielsen Media Research, the first episode was the 21st-most watched prime-time broadcast of the TV week ended Sunday.

 

The following night's installment, in which the young ladies took a job at a dairy and called out the bovine employees for their "fat asses," did even better--13.3 million, 19th place.

 

In response, Fox, which finished a distant fourth again last week, averaging just 7.6 million viewers, is adding as many airings of The Simple Life to its schedule as it can to kill the hours until American Idol returns next month.

 

A so-called "bonus" new episode of Simple Life will air December 17, with rerun marathons set for Wednesday (the first two episodes) and December 30 (the first four episodes).

 

Still, Hilton's show needs to go some ways before it can match the attention received for her much-downloaded videotape costarring ex-boyfriend Rick Salomon. On Tuesday, a Google search of "Paris Hilton" and the word "video" turned up 215,000 results, seemingly most variations on the indelicate theme "Paris Hilton famous porn video!" A Google search of Hilton's name and the words "simple life" turned up 11,200 results.

 

The phrase "Tracy Morgan Show," meanwhile, produced just 6,230 Google returns, or about 90 percent fewer than the expression "dead on arrival."

 

Up against a rerun of CBS' JAG (13 million viewers, 22nd place) and the umpteenth rebroadcast of ABC's A Charlie Brown Christmas (33rd place, 11.2 million), NBC's heavily promoted Tracy Morgan Show debuted before just 9.9 million viewers (45th place).

 

Even more ominous, a second episode, airing right after the 8 p.m., Tuesday premiere, but going up against Fox's The Simple Life, lost 1.2 million viewers--59th place, 8.7 million.

 

NBC got better results from a Thursday outing--31st place, 11.7 million. Still, nearly 3 million viewers deserted the Peacock in the half-hour the Saturday Night Live alum's self-titled sitcom aired, apparently attending to assorted tasks in the downtime between reruns of Friends (11th place, 14.6 million) and Will & Grace (12th place, 14.2 million).

 

Yet a fourth airing of Tracy Morgan, on Saturday night, helped NBC avoid going to test patterns on a little-watched night, but accomplished little else--91st place, 4.5 million.

 

Elsewhere:

 

Some 4.2 million watched Sunday's premiere of the first half of HBO's miniseries adaptation of the epic play, Angels in America. By comparison, just over a million watched the premiere of The Reagans on Showtime the week prior.

The penultimate episode of NBC's Average Joe, in which bachelorette Melana Scantlin donned Gywneth Paltrow's fat suit from Shallow Hal, scored with an above-average 14.1 million viewers (13th place).

The penultimate episode of ABC's Trista & Ryan's Wedding, in which now-former bachelorette Trista Rehn adopted Gywneth Paltrow's teary Oscar-night demeanor, was attended to by 13.2 million (20th place).

Trading Spaces's Ty Pennington traded up to prime time with ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The premiere was a hit with 12.1 million putterers (26th place).

NBC's Christmas at Rockefeller Center was a solid seasonal arrival--32nd place, 11.3 million.

The CBS TV-movie, Undercover Christmas, made 17.3 million merry, good for fifth place.

ABC's new Tuesday crime drama, Line of Fire, acquitted itself respectably--48th place, 9.4 million.

Once again, ABC couldn't find a kind word to say in its weekly ratings recap about The Practice (64th place, 8.2 million). On the upside, at least the network aired the show, which is more than Rob Lowe got out of NBC for The Lyon's Den, his once-again benched lawyer series.

 

CBS, led by Survivor: Pearl Islands (first place, 22.2 million), was the week's most-watched network, averaging 13 million. NBC trailed with 10.6 million, followed by ABC (9.8 million) and Fox.

 

In addition to pouring on The Simple Life, Fox sought to improve its standing by canceling the undersized Wanda at Large, which was averaging 4.1 million viewers.

 

The WB got a frog's leg up on UPN thanks to a broadcast of 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz (83rd place, 6 million). Overall, the WB averaged 3.7 million viewers to UPN's 3.1 million.

 

Here's a rundown of the 10 most-watched shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

 

1. Survivor: Pearl Islands, CBS, 22.2 million viewers

2. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 22.1 million viewers

3. ER, NBC, 20.7 million viewers

4. 60 Minutes, CBS, 18.7 million viewers

5. CBS Sunday Movie: Undercover Christmas, CBS, 17.3 million viewers

6. Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS, 16.8 million viewers

7. Law & Order, NBC, 16.6 million viewers

8. NFL Monday Night Football, ABC, 16.4 million viewers

9. CSI: Miami, CBS, 15.5 million viewers

10. Cold Case, CBS, 15.4 million viewers

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

Well...at least now she can lay claim to doing something other than being the daughter of someone who actually did something

[Mole 0]

The ratings went down from last week though.

[Youth N Asia 0]

I didn't' think that many people still watched Survivor.

 

The Simple Life...I watched the first ep and that was it. What can I say, I hate rich people that are that stupid. It just bugs me that they couldn't take care of themselves if they had to, and would be dead in the gutter if they actually had to fend for themselves.

 

And I like Tracy Morgan...but his show isn't very good.

[starvenger 0]

I didn't' think that many people still watched Survivor.

Oh yeah. Survivor/Friends/ER/CSI... these are generally four of the highest rated shows when they're first run...

[Guest Ghettoman]

Tracy needs to get away from the "real humor" of sitcoms. I think he's great and have yet to not like something he's done, but it's obvious he just doesn't fit in the sitcom world. Stick with outrageous sketch like comedy.

 

And why does CBS totally kill in these things? I find there shows just so bland and aside from CSI unwatchable.

 

Hopefully ratings for the simple life go down the shitter and we can have more note worthy, quasi celebrities, like that guy who got beat up by the cops for being fat....

[OldSchoolWrestling 0]

Hopefully ratings for the simple life go down the shitter and we can have more note worthy, quasi celebrities, like that guy who got beat up by the cops for being fat....

That guy died.

[sfaJack 0]

Hopefully ratings for the simple life go down the shitter and we can have more note worthy, quasi celebrities, like that guy who got beat up by the cops for being fat....

That guy died.

Death = Ratings