Actually, this has been a pretty solid year for ER. Better than the past 2-3.

Can news get any worse for NBC? Uh, yes

NEW YORK (AP) -- The news keeps getting worse for NBC, which set a low-water mark for prime-time viewership for the second straight week.

One week after NBC averaged 6.8 million viewers -- its smallest in-season audience since at least 1987, and probably well before -- the network sank to 6.2 million last week, according to Nielsen Media Research.

"They are just in a complete mess," said Marc Berman, a television analyst for Media Week Online.

NBC notes that TV viewership in general is lower, with all of the broadcast networks down 10 percent from last year over the past three weeks, and that the network has been airing several reruns to hoard original series episodes for the May ratings sweeps.

But the network had only three shows among Nielsen's 30 most popular last week -- two of them editions of the game show "Deal or No Deal." None of the week's top 16 shows were on NBC.

Aging franchises "Law & Order" and "The Apprentice" aren't helping, Berman said. NBC's Thursday comedy lineup, while critically acclaimed, hasn't broken through to a mass audience with shows such as "The Office" and "30 Rock."

An original episode of "Scrubs" last week drew only 5.6 million viewers, Nielsen said.

"They coasted on Thursdays for over a full decade and they can't do it anymore," Berman said. "What are they going to do now? They're in a lot of trouble."

One bright spot on Monday was the return of "Heroes" from a hiatus with 12 million viewers and first place in its time slot among youthful viewers. Still, the series had been averaging 14.8 million viewers before going on a break.

Despite the tough prime-time circumstances, NBC's "Nightly News" held off ABC's surging "World News" to win the evening news competition. NBC's victory came primarily because it won on the evening of the Virginia Tech shootings and on the night when it first aired pictures sent by the campus massacre's shooter. For the week, NBC averaged 8.6 million viewers (6.0 rating, 13 share), ABC had 8.5 million (5.9, 13) and the "CBS Evening News 6.6 million (4.7, 10).

Fox won the prime-time ratings race, averaging 10.3 million viewers (6.3 rating, 11 share). CBS had 9.6 million (6.3, 11), ABC 9.5 million (6.2, 10), NBC 6.2 million (4.2, 7), the CW 3 million (2.0, 3), My Network TV 810,000 (0.6, 1) and the ion network had 590,000 (0.4, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.8 million viewers (2.1 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 920,000 viewers (0.5, 1), TeleFutura 530,000 (0.3, 1) and Azteca 150,000 (0.1, 0).

A ratings point represents 1,114,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 111.4 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

I never like things that are very popular. NBC is about the only network I watch and Thursday night is my favorite. Too bad I don't have a Neilson box to help them.

Hockey Takes Another Fall

Ratings for NBC's coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals, which fell to a record-low 2.6 rating and a 4 share a year ago Monday, slid even further -- to a 2.2/4 for the comparable game this year. The tiny ratings impacted the rest of NBC's schedule, which averaged a 1.7/3 for the rest of the night, which translates to just 3 million viewers. Meanwhile, the third season of Hell's Kitchen on Fox cooked up a 6.3/10. But CBS's series debut of the Claymation comedy Creature Comforts got off to a slow start with a third-place 4.7/8. The top-rated show of the night was a rerun of Two and a Half Men, which drew a 7.6/12 in the 9:00 p.m. hour.

NBC’s New Thursday Night Comedy Lineup Is a Complete Ratings Disaster

ABC's Once Upon a Time in Wonderland got off to a weak start and the Glee tribute to Cory/Finn gave the show a huge Nielsen boost, but the biggest ratings news Thursday was the complete collapse of NBC's already weak comedy lineup. First, Parks and Recreation kicked off the night poorly (3.2 million viewers and a 1.2 rating among viewers under 50) by tying its series low demo rating. Then NBC's new Mike O'Malley half-hour Welcome to the Family (2.5 million viewers, 0.8 demo) fell 27 percent in its second week to numbers below those of comedy reruns on cable nets such as TBS and Adult Swim. At 9 p.m., the Sean Hayes–led Sean Saves the World (3.8 million viewers, 1.0 demo) did better than its flat-line lead-in, but still dove 29 percent from its premiere last week. And after doing okay numbers its first few weeks, The Michael J. Fox Show (3.8 million viewers, 1.2 demo) fell back 29 percent to its worst ratings yet. Overall, NBC notched a mere 1.0 demo rating from 8 to 10 p.m. last night, its worst in-season Thursday ratings with first-run, regularly scheduled programming since at least 2004*, when Friends went off the air, and likely ever. Oy.
It's certainly true that there was unusually tough competition last night, between the baseball playoffs and the Glee special. But any preseason hopes NBC execs had of a comedy turnaround pretty much died last night. Welcome to the Family will almost certainly be gone by the start of the November sweeps, if not by next week (perhaps replaced by Community), and while NBC will likely be patient with Sean and Fox, the network has to be thinking about whether comedy still makes sense on the Night Formerly Known As Must-See.
As for Thursday's other big events, ABC execs might be forgiven for crawling into a rabbit hole today: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (5.7 million viewers, 1.7 demo) opened surprisingly weak, below even last fall's disappointing Last Resort (which premiered with a 2.2 demo). In fact, Once was barely above the ratings for ABC's dead-on-arrival 2010 Thursday drama My Generation. Given the huge marketing push behind the show, the numbers are incredibly disappointing for ABC execs, who have to wonder whether they should've stuck to an early plan to make Wonderland a bridge show between arcs of classic Once. It will be interesting to see how Wonderland does in DVR data; it's possible many families could simply be saving the show for later viewing. Still, it's a very rough start for one of ABC's biggest fall hopes.
The Glee tribute to the late Cory Monteith did very, very well, as it seems everyone who's ever watched the show came home to say good-bye last night: 7.4 million viewers watched the emotional hour, and the show averaged a 2.8 in the demo (tying ABC's Grey's Anatomy for the lead in the 9 p.m. hour). Ratings were up 75 percent versus last week's near record-low numbers for the show. Meanwhile, the best news of the night might have belonged to CBS, as new comedy The Millers is holding up very well: It held on to 94 percent of its premiere ratings last night, better than any new show so far this season. And while The Crazy Ones is still losing viewers (down 17 percent versus last week), it still doubled the demo number of NBC's top comedy and would've almost certainly beat Glee had it not been a special. Don't be surprised if CBS orders more of both new Thursday comedies very soon.