Ratings Results for the Week of Oct 25th: No Home Run for FlashForward
November 1st, 2009Categories: John J. Joex, Ratings Results
By John J. Joex
FlashForward’s numbers have been on a downward slide since its rather impressive premiere, and this last week the series took a pretty series hit when competing with the World Series. The show managed only a 2.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic and just under nine million viewers, season lows in both categories. Of course the audience for FlashForward is a similar demographic to the one that would watch baseball, and the show will likely see some significant gains in DVR viewing for this week. Still, the ratings trend it has experienced is not a healthy one. ABC has already ordered a back nine episodes for the series, but it needs to see a turnaround in the numbers if it wants to live beyond its first season.
Heroes continues to show slight gains in its numbers, though there are rumors that NBC has told the writers to start working toward a series finale for that show. Eastwick actually saw a slight improvement this last week, though that will certainly be too little too late. Vampire Diaries continues to build up its audience as it saw season highs last week of a 2.0 rating and over four million viewers. With that as a lead in, Supernatural has started to build up its anemic numbers and managed to pull a 1.3 rating for the week. Fringe got pre-empted for a second week in a row which is a bad thing for a series already struggling with its numbers.
On Friday, Smallville continued to improve its numbers and Ghost Whisperer and Medium took back number one in their slots without baseball to compete with. The bad news for Dollhouse, which is on break until December, is that a House repeat did better than any episode that has aired so far this season, pulling almost double the total number of viewers that the Joss Whedon show has been averaging this season.
Here is the full breakdown of the numbers for all of the Science Fiction and Fantasy shows that aired on the broadcast networks this past week:
| Title | Night/Time (EST) | Net | TS Rank | Repeat | Rating (18-49 Demo) | STD Avg | Total Viewers (Millions) | Cancellation Alert |
| Heroes | Monday 8 PM | NBC | 4th | No | 2.5 | 2.5 | 5.86 | Medium |
| Eastwick | Wednesday 10 PM | ABC | 2nd | No | 1.8 | 2.1 | 5.06 | Elevated |
| FlashForward | Thursday 8 PM | ABC | 3rd | No | 2.7 | 3.3 | 8.98 | Low |
| Vampire Diaries | Thursday 8 PM | CW | 5th | No | 2.0 | 1.8 | 4.19 | Low |
| Fringe | Thursday 9 PM | FOX | n/a | No | Preempted | 2.4 | n/a | Low |
| Supernatural | Thursday 9 PM | CW | 5th | No | 1.3 | 1.2 | 2.88 | Low |
| Ghost Whisperer | Friday 8 PM | CBS | 1st | No | 2.0 | 2.0 | 8.28 | Low |
| Smallville | Friday 8 PM | CW | 5th | No | 1.2 | 1.1 | 2.60 | Low |
| Dollhouse | Friday 9 PM | FOX | n/a | No | On Hiatus | 0.9 | n/a | Medium |
| Medium | Friday 9 PM | CBS | 1st | No | 1.8 | 2.0 | 7.69 | Low |
Source: TV by the Numbers
Previous Results: Heroes Gains Some Momentum, Dollhouse Loses It
For more on the Cancellation Alert for each show, see our Cancellation Watch column
