CBS Wins Monday with Season-High Tune-In for Charlie Sheen’s Two and a Half Men
Kathy Bates' drama "Harry's Law" premieres in second place in its time slot, giving NBC its biggest non-Olympic viewer tune-in since Sept. 2009; "The Cape" plummeted 31%.
Originals of Monday comedies powered CBS to a win for the night averaging a 3.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 11.6 million viewers from 8-11 p.m. The net marked season highs in total viewers for all four comedies: How I Met Your Mother (3.9, 10.5 million), Rules of Engagement (3.2, 9.8 million), Two And A Half Men (4.6, 15.5 million) and Mike & Molly (3.8, 13 million).
With new episodes of House (3.6, 10.5 million) and Lie to Me (1.8, 5.9 million), Fox was second for the night averaging a 2.7 with 8.2 million viewers from 8-10 p.m.
ABC was third (2.3, 7.7 million) with The Bachelor averaging a 2.7 with 8.7 million viewers from 8-10 p.m. a decline of 4 percent week-to-week.
NBC slid in at fourth for the night (2.0, 7.7 million). At 8 p.m., a new episode of Chuck was flat week-to-week (2.0, 5.9 million) while The Cape (1.8, 6.1 million) tumbled 31 percent compared to its series premiere on Jan. 9.
At 10 p.m., the series premiere of NBC's new Kathy Bates drama Harry's Law managed a second place finish averaging a 2.1 in the demo, while CBS' Hawaii Five-O won the time-slot with a 2.9, and a rerun of Castle on ABC notched a 1.4.
It's not a terrible start for Harry's Law, but the show is definitely skewing old. Harry's Law edged out Hawaii Five-O among total viewers (11 million versus10.6 million). And while it gave NBC its biggest non-Olympic total-viewer tune-in since Sept. 2009, it was still NBC's lowest ever in-season premiere for a Monday night among the 18-49 demographic that advertisers pay a premium to reach.
