TV Ratings: ABC, CBS dance, do the splits Tuesday

Im surprised that ABC didnt get better rating on the Dancing with the Stars Season Finale. I cant believe how CBS keep the No 1 position overall. Apparently NCIS LA is the new best show on TV.
Good for them.

Gee DWTS' finale doesn't bowl over the competition like it used to. Maybe people are getting sick of this lame show or have finally figured out that it is a reality show and Osmond was chosen as the winner before the show even began to be filmed. It was decided at the time of his negotiations.

Nice to see V's ratings hold. It's a good show (maybe not epic) but I applaud ABC for coming up with interesting shows like V and Flash Forward rather than simple spin offs.

ABC does need to rename "Dancing with the Stars" to "Dancing with the Has-beens or Never was". Those "stars" are C-list at best. Quite frankly, the dancers are more famous than most of them. That show must make ABC a ridiculous amount of money.

What V has going for it the most is that it is an update that improves on the original in nearly all areas, but most especially in terms of acting. The original had some absolutely atrocious actors (Marc Singer being the worst of the bunch), whereas nearly every role in the current V is filled by people who seem to know how to emote without sounding like fifth graders on Ritalin. The production values are better, as well, but it would be difficult to make a 21st century remake look worse than its 20th century counterpart. I think these two reasons are why V has done well, even if the plotline is now old hat (Cylons diguised as humans, to give a recent example). So as long as the hiatus is not too long, V should do well when it returns in the spring.

As for DWTS, the ratings were nowhere near as good as past finales. Perhaps ABC would be wise to put the show back to being a summer event only, rather than cluttering up the schedule with it during the regular season. Given that the ratings for 18-49 were higher for NCIS:LA, I imagine the ageist blatherers saying that CBS shows are only for the elderly will have a hard time explaining how it beat DWTS in that "all-important demo."

DWTS's improvement in the second hour just proves what I've thought of such shows all along--that most people will watch the first couple episodes, then abandon the show until the last hour when the winner is announced. I'll admit to being one of those, since I find the show tedious, but I did want to see who won the whole thing. I suppose now we'll have to put up with another few months of Osmond Family overload. *sigh*

Anyone notice the irony that a show titled "The Biggest Loser" is on the network that is the biggest loser?

Anyone else think the producers of "MyGodWeAreStillOnTheAir Place" must have pix of the CW CEO with a goat or something? There's no other logical reason this is still being broadcast.

Sorry, A*S*S*...oh, sorry, Ace, but you forgot to say please. Now f*u*c*k* off.

Although 9.2M is a lot less than the 20M that NCIS pulled in, hopefully the numbers are good enough that we will indeed see V return in March. Since they apparently won't be even filming new episodes till the new year, if the last episode had tanked, they'd probably have just cancelled the thing.

You have no class Aaron R, Ace was correct to tell you to shut up. Aaron you are worse than Rena, know it all.

Maybe ABC should get Paula Abdul to compete on DWTS the next season. And put it up against American Idol. It should be a very interesting ratings race then. Don't you think?

@AaronR: It's always good to read your thoughts, even when I disagree (as I do with V). :)

Hahn once again repeated the ABC line that stabilizing at a lower level is inherently a victory of some sort.

In reality, ABC has yet another new show that is failing to get to the 10 million viewers mark, and that's really too bad because ABC did do the right thing by introducing a whole slate of new shows.

But when you try so hard to pass off shows that don't get 10 million viewers as "hits", you know you've got a big problem picking the shows.

@AaronR, Alan69, OCGirl and all the valued contributors:

I was wondering if there isn't another reason why the networks are now holding on to their losers a lot more than they used to do (and a lot more than they should to maintain viewership levels).

To wit, the networks are now allowed to own the shows they broadcast. That means that they partake, not just in the upside, but also in the downside of the deficit.

Typically, the maximum point of losses is the third year (after which syndicated sales may start to kick in and foreign sales start taking a bite out of the deficit).

Knowing that, executives looking for the CYA factor of pretending they had hits by renewing shows they shouldn't, quickly get to the end of the second season where it's easy to argue that in two more seasons, you'll get to a better financial result.

I'm not sure if I was entirely clear, but I think it definitely explains why a show like Heroes, which should have been quickly closed after year 2 or 3, is still around even though it is now helping drag NBC to ever lower levels.