The new five first-run strips debuting in syndication last week entered the new world of expectations – holding the lead-in and at least matching the year-ago time period share.
The five programs are Deal or No Deal from NBC Universal Television Distribution; The Doctors from CBS Television Distribution; Family Court with Judge Penny from Program Partners; The Bonnie Hunt Show from Warner Bros.; and Judge Karen from Sony Pictures Television.
Courtesy of both TV Week and Marc Berman’s Programming Insider from Mediaweek, here are the week one results:
Show | RTG/SHR w/o 9-8 |
Lead-in | TP Avg 9/07 |
Bonnie Hunt | 1.0/3 | 1.3/5 | 1.1/4 |
Doctors | 1.4/4 | 1.7/5 | 1.8/5 |
Deal or No Deal | 1.2/3 | 1.3/3 | 1.3/3 |
Family Court | 0.8/3 | 0.8/3 | 0.8/3 |
Judge Karen | 0.9/3 | 0.9/3 | 1.0/3 |
Sources: TV Week, PI Feedback.com, Nielsen
Of the five, The Doctors has the best stories, since the program debuted with the highest rating and is winning a handful of timeslots in several cities; on the other hand, its 9 a.m. clearance in New York on WCBS-TV isn’t helping the show’s ratings much; Deal’s ratings seems to be doing well on the nine NBC O&O stations that carry it (especially at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles); but the program has an unconventional time period clearance in St. Louis (10 p.m. on KDNL-TV) against local news; Bonnie Hunt isn’t doing well in the top markets (including her hometown of Chicago), but retains its lead-in in key female demos; Judge Karen is off to a roaring start here (at WCIU-TV) but sputtering in L.A. (at weak UHF indie KDOC -TV, where it’s a point away from a hashmark); and Family Court is settling in well at a few stations, but could suffer when the national ratings come out because of its lack of clearances in other major markets.
Starting Monday (Sept. 22), Debmar-Mercury’s Tyler Perry’s House of Payne enters syndication, as does the company’s new game show Trivial Pursuit: America Plays while Litton’s Punk’d (from MTV) enters the following week (Sept. 29.)