TV ratings: CBS, 'Criminal Minds' lead a quiet Wednesday

Ironic:Meow couldn't spell cat if you gave her the C and the T

Looks like Modern family and Cougar Town are becoming atour de france to recon with on Weds. Great acting, writing, and demographics. Its like give these two shows the golden globe for the best comedy show this year. Feel bad for the award show voters, since its going to be a dead heat of a ty between these two great shows. So much better than the generic crime show spin offs on cbs and not even sure if nbc had programming on, with their reality show marathon all the time who really cares.

Nice to see more people are discovering the Melrose Palce return on CW. And a renual sure shows the CW confidence in tv legend diva heather lockeleer returning to her roots on NOVEMBER 17th. Can believe a few years has passed, but heather still looks great, its like is this woman even 30 yet. Great example to all woman that alil gym goes a long way and heather sure sets a great example in that department.

Looks like Wednesday Night will soon be the place networks send shows to die.

Sadly, zap2it seems to think that insulting people is perfectly all right and actively wants this board to become filled with flame messages.

I actually enjoy Eastwick, but I wouldn't say it's exactly setting the country on fire.
I do think this excess of praise has had very bad consequences in real life with more and more timeslots being abandoned for lack of resources stemming from too many poorly performing shows being kept on as long as they garner good press.
CBS and ABC are the only two real networks left standing at this point (and with Saturdays not being programmed I may be a little lenient) and I'd very much like ABC to remain a real network.
Praising a bad development season, while it may get journalists an invite to the Xmas party and keep those executives on the payroll another year doesn't do the long-term health of the company any favors.
Why do company boards rely more on press clippings than actual numbers, one may ask..?
I agree it doesn't make any sense, but clearly that's what's been going on at NBC, FOX, CW and to a lesser degree at ABC and CBS and the result has been few interesting shows for all and more unemployment in the film business.

Meow: i know you're trying to sound like "everyman," but please... you keep repeating 'tour de France.' You mean 'tour de force.' The former is a bicycle race; the latter is a spectacular achievement or adroit maneuver. And by the way: typeing like thees to trie and uppear as if u are unbiased and just have run-of-the-mile things to stay doesznt' work1!!!! (all typos on purpose there)

The equation about ratings is a lot more complex than 'good ratings = good shows" as you have to take into account the amount of promotion, the lead-in, the lead-out, the trajectory of the ratings etc...
For instance, I really do not think that low ratings mean a show is automatically bad. A lot of shows get no meaningful promotional push and can languish in the ratings because of that as not every show is as brilliant as CSI used to be to get the amazing word of mouth that propelled it to the top in spite of not being launched with much fanfare.
When a show is launched with a lot of muscle, however, it IS a sign that something is very wrong with it creatively when it doesn't work in the ratings.
That doesn't mean that you (or I) won't enjoy it in spite of those weaknesses (I enjoyed "Life" quite a bit in spite of the creative problems that made it an also-ran as I related to its strengths in character depiction and tried not to mind the weaknesses so much). I'm sure you have examples like that.
However, I do object to being told that a show with no ratings even though it's been launched again and again is somehow brilliant in the face of audience rejection. This, to me, smacks of snobbery etc...
If you keep reading what I post here (if this board does not descend into total miasma which is sadly not unlikely :( ) you'll notice that there is a lot more to it than the raw ratings numbers (to give another example, the original Leno numbers were a tribute to its marketing campaign and you needed to wait a couple of weeks to see the real creative strength of the show manifest itself in the ratings).
I can't help but be shocked by how much worse the board has been since it has moved from Topix. I'm glad to see, BTW, that I'm not the only one who thought their response was insulting. Their e-mail to me was even more so (at least in my opinion :) )

@Meow.... "atour de france to recon with" ???????

Rena, do you have a life at all? I mean it seems everyday you have several comments on everything. It does not matter what day it is or shows are on you got something to say and create alot of the insulting yourself or at least start it by the way you disagree with others. This is my first and last post so if you see my name on anything else it's not me.

@Kayla, feel free not to read what I have to say if you don't find it interesting.

I want what I post to be about the meat of the topic, not about me.

My only claim to fame is to have followed ratings for a long time. Everything I know you can know too by following the numbers and analyzing them.

I hope you'll want to do that and enjoy it. :)