"PILOT"

10/03/2013 (09:01PM - 09:31PM) (Thursday) : IT'S A WHOLE NEW WORLD FOR SEAN - SERIES PREMIERE - Sean (Sean Hayes) is a divorced dad who juggles a lot � his successful but demanding career, offbeat employees, pushy mom, Lorna (Linda Lavin), and weekends with his teenage daughter, Ellie (Samantha Isler). So when his 14-year-old bundle of joy moves in full time, the parenting books come out in full force. From keeping his boss, Max, (Thomas Lennon) happy, employees motivated and enduring his mother's tactless "advice" to raising a smart, grounded and healthy kid, it's going to be a growing experience, to say the least. But if anyone can handle it all, it's Sean. Megan Hilty and Echo Kellum also star.

Sean Hayes may want to start clarifying: The “Sean Saves the World” star says one reason for the show’s low ratings is the network that airs it. But that network, NBC, is currently in first place.

“Sean,” meanwhile, is dragging it down with the lowest ratings of any NBC show this season that has not been cancelled.


“To me, [the show] is working,” Hayes told The TV Page in a story posted Wednesday. “It’s just the struggle of the elephant in the room, which is, ‘How do you get viewers to NBC?’ NBC programs great shows, it just doesn’t have the eyeballs CBS does.”

In fact, four weeks into the 2012-13 season, NBC is the top-rated network in the key 18-49 demographic, with a 3.2 rating to CBS’s 2.6. Hayes is right that CBS gets more viewers overall. It averages 11.4 million to NBC’s 9.9 million. But NBC is still ahead of ABC and Fox.

The only lower-rated show for NBC this season was the canceled “Welcome to the Family,” which led into “Sean” and had only a 1.0.

Hayes can blame some of his low ratings on his lead-in — but not all of them. “The Michael J. Fox Show,” which follows “Sean,” has managed to score a 2.2 despite the 1.3 lead-in from “Sean.”

Hayes also told The TV Page that both he and NBC executives are “confident” in the show. Hayes’ good track record with NBC may be one reason his show is still on the air: Besides breaking out on the network’s “Will & Grace,” he also produces NBC’s “Hollywood Game Night.”