'Bionic Woman' Beats 'Criminal Minds' Wednesday

The new NBC series from "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer David Eick, pulled in the third biggest audience on television Wednesday night behind "Dancing With the Stars" and "Private Practice" on ABC earning an 8.4 rating/13 share, according to Nielsen Media Research. While it was beat by "Dancing," which pulled an 11.1/18, it edged out "Criminal Minds" on CBS for the 9 p.m. hour, which earned an 8.2/13, according to Zap2it.

"Bionic Woman" actually did better than the highly-publicized second season premiere of "Heroes" Tuesday night on NBC, which picked up an 8.1/12 on the night. However, "Bionic Woman" had its own level of buzz going over the summer which not only included the use of a pop-culture name from the 1970s (a la "Battlestar Galactica") but also from the stunt casting of ousted ABC actor Isaiah Washington, who won't appear until later in the season for a multi-episode arc. Washington was dumped from the ABC show "Grey's Anatomy" last summer after repeatedly using a gay slur against a cast member.

Unfortunately, the rest of the fare didn't do as well for NBC, including "Bionic's" lead-in of "Deal or No Deal" and its lead-out of "Life" which earned a 5.6/9 and a 6.5/11 respectively. NBC finished the night in third place with a 6.8/11 behind ABC (9.4/15) and CBS (7.0/11). Fox was in fourth place with a 3.8/6, just ahead of The CW.

In terms of audience demographics, however, "Bionic Woman" was a big winner, according to Variety. In the key demographic of adults 18 to 49, "Bionic" was a big winner with a whopping 5.5/14, the best rating in that timeslot since the premiere of "The West Wing" in 1999.

"Bionic Woman" clearly won the night in the key demo categories, even beating out "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff "Private Practice," and was able to build on a poor lead-in from "Deal or No Deal," which has seen better days.

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.

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