TV Rant

Outside of Mad Men and now Rubicon, the only TV shows that Mrs. and I watch regularly are 30 Rock and The Office (and Community if we're home in time, and Parks and Recreation when NBC ends the silly Outsourced experiment). Anyway, I know a lot of people who also watch the Thursday night lineup on NBC. And that’s why I find the TV ratings for Thursday so puzzling.

According to the Nielsen ratings for last Thursday’s premieres:

8pm (eastern) – 9pm

NBC - Community: 5 million viewers
NBC - 30 Rock: 5.85 million
CBS - The Big Bang Theory: 13.95 million
CBS - $#*! My Dad Says: 12.5 million
ABC - My Generation: 5.4 million
FOX - Bones: 9.8 million

I’m sure The Bing Bang Theory is a fine show, but three times as many viewers as Community, really? And I can only assume that the 12.5 million viewers for the series premiere of $#*! My Dad Says were simply people who watched The Big Bang Theory and were too lazy to change the channel. So of course my question is: Are people really too lazy to change the channel!? Look, I think that Community is most likely a better show than The Big Bang Theory (having never seen the latter), but I KNOW that 30 Rock is vastly superior to its CBS counterpart (I don't even need to see the the latter). And twice as many people watch Bones? Who are these people? What is this show even about? Heck, as many people tuned in to ABC’s new show My Generation as the NBC shows. I can only assume they wanted to catch a glimpse before it’s cancelled in two weeks. I can’t rationally discuss this any further, let’s quickly look at the next hour.

9pm (eastern) – 10pm

NBC - The Office: 8.4 million
NBC - Outsourced: 7.4 million
CBS - CSI: 14.6 million
ABC - Grey’s Anatomy: 14 million
Fox - Fringe: 5.8 million

Ugh, Grey’s Anatomy, really? Even though I don’t understand why, I realize it's a popular show, so I guess it’s not surprising that it gets viewers. Same goes for CSI (which isn’t a bad show). What actually surprises me is how many people watched Outsourced. I watched the first few minutes and let’s just say I think that less than 7.4 million will tune in next week. And I should also note that as many people watched Fringe as 30 Rock (although they obviously aren’t up against each other). I don’t know anyone that would admit to watching Fringe.

And don't even get me started on the 20 million people who tune in to Dancing With The Stars earlier in the week.