The Ratings of Summer, Sunday

Previous Ratings of Summer entries: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday/Saturday

BROADCAST
ABC
Scoundrels/The Gates - Including these two summer dramas together because I don't have much unique to say about them. Both are cost-controlled scripted summer efforts on broadcast. Scoundrels is about a family of criminals, and The Gates is about a really weird gated community. They premiere next Sunday and, rather than put them after decently-rated reality shows, ABC has stuck this block on cable-crowded Sunday night out of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition repeats. So the odds of success are pretty low.

CBS
Of course, 60 Minutes will always be new in the 7pm hour, and it'll lead into yet another night of CBS reality show Big Brother.

NBC
NBC will have some new episodes of newsmagazine Dateline on the night, while Law & Order: CI will be "new to NBC" in the 10pm hour.

Fox
Fox has a couple more burnoff episodes of canceled sitcom 'Til Death and several more of Sons of Tucson. 'Til Death has aired many, many episodes in the 7pm hour this season, the vast majority of them falling below the 1.0 demo threshold. Expect Sons to continue that tradition.

CABLE
HBO - 364 days ago, season 2 of True Blood premiered, and suddenly the show became something more than the respectable player by HBO standards it was in season 1, when it averaged around a 1.0 demo. A cable power player was born, starting at a 2.0 and skyrocketing in the second half of its season to a dazzling final three weeks at 2.8, 2.9, 2.9. Riding its coattails then is the comedy block of Hung and Entourage, which spent most of their post-True Blood run in the mid- to upper-1's, still quite good by any cable standard.

Lifetime - Another cable scripted block of note is Drop Dead Diva and Army Wives on Lifetime. Both got a 1.0 demo last week when Diva's second season premiered, and Army Wives has been around a 1.0 for the most part in this season to date. Drop Dead Diva was a little lower than Army Wives last year, so this was a good start for that show, and we'll see how it develops.

Other - I just spotlighted the two-hour blocks for which I had some ratings info, but this is one crowded night on cable. Next Sunday, TNT brings modest success Leverage to its third different night, now a Sunday show. It's been another in-the-1.0-vicinity show, generally speaking. Also making a Sunday debut after years on multiple other nights is TBS comedy My Boys, which seems to appear out of the blue every 18 months or so for a nine-episode order and then disappear again. This could be the last time it appears, since two of its regulars including the lead are now on NBC shows. I don't have specific ratings info on that one, but it's never been much of a performer, thus the sporadic scheduling. A&E will have a new police procedural called The Glades on July 11, and Mad Men returns to AMC for season 4 on July 25. At 9/8c on AMC will be a new conspiracy thriller called Rubicon. There's plenty of reality on the night as well, from Food Network's The Next Food Network Star to E!'s Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami to History's Ice Road Truckers.