Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 9/20/11: A New Girl in Town

WHAT MATTERS:

• It just may be time to start getting optimistic about this season's new shows. The series premiere of New Girl was the night's overall top program and beat last year's premiere of Raising Hope in the half-hour by over 50%. That comparison is even more stellar when considering how big a year-to-year fall lead-in Glee took. New Girl becomes the second new scripted show already this season (joining last night's 2 Broke Girls) to outdo any of the scripted premieres from 2010-11. Meanwhile at 9:30, Raising Hope returned even with last year's premiere but, just like last year, it took a big dip from the lead-in.

• Get used to it: NCIS beats Glee in 18-49. This gap will probably widen as the season progresses. A 4.0 is obviously still a nice number for a primetime program, but Glee's 29% year-to-year drop is making the show look well on its way to a four-year flameout.

• The eye also got nice work out of NCIS: Los Angeles and a decent showing out of the Unforgettable series premiere. Unforgettable was four ticks ahead of last year's Good Wife premiere and at least three ticks ahead of all Good Wife airings last season. But as with last year's Wednesday newbie The Defenders, which opened with a 2.9 out of a good lead-in, there's not a ton of margin for error.

• Body of Proof returned on ABC way down from its March 29 premiere but still a touch ahead of some of its late-season eps. We'll see if it can pick up anyone that falls away from Unforgettable.

• The stumbles continue for increasingly modest The Biggest Loser, down 21% from last year's premiere. (And that premiere was down 24% from the previous one.) Leading out was Parenthood, which lost just a tick from last week's post-Got Talent premiere.

• It's not a good start to week two on the CDub, with Ringer losing a quarter of its already only OK premiere rating.

FULL TABLE:

	Viewers	A18-49	Share	Skew	Last	Lead	LeLa	Avg	Rank	TRUE
Dancing with the Stars Special	10.97	2.1	6	25%	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	2.10
Dancing with the Stars Tue	14.79	2.9	7	25%	n/a	+38%	n/a	n/a	1/1	2.64
Body of Proof	9.41	2.2	6	30%	n/a	-24%	n/a	n/a	1/1	2.15
NCIS	19.96	4.3	12	28%	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	4.62
NCIS: Los Angeles	16.71	3.6	9	28%	n/a	-16%	n/a	n/a	1/1	3.00
Unforgettable	14.09	2.9	8	26%	n/a	-19%	n/a	n/a	1/1	2.87
The Biggest Loser	6.17	2.3	6	48%	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	2.18
Parenthood	5.28	2.1	6	51%	-5%	-9%	-39%	-5%	2/2	2.11
Glee	9.21	4.0	11	56%	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	1/1	4.28
New Girl	10.28	4.8	12	60%	n/a	+20%	n/a	n/a	1/1	4.35
Raising Hope	6.73	3.1	8	59%	n/a	-35%	n/a	n/a	1/1	2.39
90210	1.47	0.7	2	61%	-22%	n/a	n/a	-22%	2/2	0.69
Ringer	1.94	0.9	2	59%	-25%	+29%	-22%	-25%	2/2	0.81

KEY (with much more detail at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page):

Viewers - The total number of viewers (age 2+, in millions) that watched the program.
A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Share - Adults 18-49 share. Percentage of US TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Skew - Percentage of the total audience that falls in the 18-49 demo.
Last - A18-49 percent difference from previous episode.
Lead - A18-49 percent difference from lead-in program.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Avg - A18-49 percent difference from the show's average demo for previous original episodes this season.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.
TRUE - True Strength, a metric developed last summer that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in.

(R) - Repeat.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.