Not A Good Start For 'Jericho'

The resurrected CBS post-apocalyptic series earned a 4.2 rating/7 share Tuesday night in its highly publicized return, enough to take last place in the 10 p.m. hour behind a rerun of "Law & Order: SVU" on NBC and a new "Boston Legal" on ABC. Those numbers are according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research.

That gives "Jericho" the lowest turnout for a genre show premiere this season among shows on major networks, the closest premiere coming from "Moonlight," which premiered with a 5.8/11 for CBS at the beginning of the season.

However, the numbers may not be entirely viewers' fault. "Jericho's" lead-in, the reality series "Big Brother 9," earned only a 4.6/7 in the previous hour, according to Zap2it, as it was beaten up on by "American Idol" on Fox and "The Biggest Loser" on ABC. "Jericho" lost just under 9 percent of the audience that tuned in for "Big Brother," which isn't terribly bad for a lead-out show.

At the same time, "Jericho's" premiere rating -- if it doesn't fall too low in coming weeks -- will end up being in line with "Chuck" on NBC. Unfortunately, it could fall just slightly and be pulling in "Bionic Woman" numbers, which would not be good for the show.

Thanks to a strong repeat of "NCIS" against "American Idol," CBS finished second for the night with a 5.5/8, well behind the 16.7/25 earned by Fox. NBC was third with 5.1/8 while ABC managed only a 3.7/6.

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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