Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 3/2/11: New Show Rallies Sunny or Suspect?

OK, I'm switching it up again. I'm gonna just do the "what matters" portion based on prelims and then paste in/format the table once the finals come out. This will hopefully end up being basically the same amount of work in total yet I get to say something earlier.

WHAT MATTERS:

• To answer the question in the headline, I'm going "suspect." Mr. Sunshine moved up a couple ticks from last week's 2.2, but that's nothing special considering the drastic drop in competition. (Its competition number was 12.6 last week.) It faced Traffic Light (2.8) this week rather than Idol (which averaged a 7.9 and was certainly higher than that by 9:30). And Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior also gained two ticks, but it can thank both the SVU repeat competition (1.6 vs. last week's original 2.5) and the even larger increase in lead-in (Criminal Minds was up from 3.2 to 3.6 week-to-week).

• Traffic Light retained a measly 36% of the average demo from Idol (7.7), predictably doing about a half point worse than Raising Hope did with a similar lead-in yesterday. It does become the fourth new show to exceed its premiere demo, but that's no real achievement.

• CW ratings lately have been pretty tough to watch, and this was another brutal day. Top Model (0.9) dropped two-tenths from its already soft premiere to an outright series low, while Shedding for the Wedding (0.4) shed one of its measly five-tenths from premiere week.

	A18-49	Share	Lead	Last	LeLa	Comp	HUT	bcShr	Avg	Rank
The Middle	2.3	7	n/a	-4%	n/a	12.9	34	15	-12%	15/17
Better with You	1.7	5	-26%	-6%	-4%	12.9	34	12	-22%	17/17
Modern Family	4.1	11	141%	0%	-6%	12.8	36	24	-11%	15/17
Mr. Sunshine	2.4	7	-41%	9%	0%	7.8	35	24	-15%	3/4
Off the Map	1.7	5	-29%	0%	9%	4.2	33	29	-10%	6/8
Survivor	3.3	10	n/a	6%	n/a	11.6	34	22	5%	1/3
Criminal Minds	3.6	10	9%	13%	6%	10.0	36	27	4%	5/17
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior	2.6	8	-28%	8%	13%	3.3	33	44	-9%	2/3
Minute to Win It (R)	0.9	3	n/a	-40%	n/a	14.0	34	6	-40%	2/2
Minute to Win It	1.0	3	11%	0%	-10%	12.6	36	7	-40%	10/12
Law & Order: SVU (R)	1.6	5	60%	-6%	-41%	4.3	33	27	5%	5/9
American Idol Wed	7.8	22	n/a	-1%	n/a	7.8	35	50	-11%	7/7
Traffic Light	2.8	8	-64%	75%	225%	7.4	35	27	71%	1/4
America's Next Top Model	0.9	3	n/a	-18%	n/a	14.0	34	6	-18%	2/2
Shedding for the Wedding	0.4	1	-56%	-20%	-18%	13.2	36	3	-20%	2/2

KEY
A18-49 - From Nielsen. Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Share - From Nielsen. Adults 18-49 share. Percentage of US TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Lead - Calculation. Percent difference from lead-in program.
Last - Calculation. Percent difference from previous original episode.
LeLa - Calculation. Percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous original episode.
Comp - Calculation. Competition. Total rating of all broadcast programs airing against it.
HUT - Calculation. Phrase commonly known as "Households Using TV," but in this case it's actually "Adults 18-49 Using TV." Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 who are watching any TV in that timeslot. A rough approximation based on all ratings/shares in the timeslot. More on this later.
bcShr - Calculation. Broadcast share. Percentage of US national big-5 broadcast TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Avg - Calculation. Percent difference from the show's average demo for previous original episodes this season.
Rank - Calculation. The rating's rank among the show's original episodes that have aired so far this season.

(R) = In-timeslot repeat. These are ranked/averaged as if they were normal shows.
(oR) = Out-of-timeslot repeat. These are not ranked/averaged in any way.

Will probably develop more disclaimers if this develops further, but the one that jumps out for now is that the stats in blue will be less accurate because for now I'm counting every program as if it maintains that same rating throughout each half-hour of the broadcast. That is almost always not the case in reality.

More Wednesday Spotted Ratings.