PUSHING DAISIES (ABC)
Scheduling history: Season one and the vast majority of season two of Pushing Daisies aired in the lead-off role on an ABC Wednesday night of three new dramas. ABC burned off the last three episodes of the show on Saturday in early summer 2009.
When there was hope: The premiere of Pushing Daisies provided a lot of promise. Daisies led off on October 3, 2007 with 13.03 million viewers and a 4.3 demo rating. Just six new scripted shows in the 2007-08 season had a bigger demo premiere than Daisies, and most of those had huge lead-ins helping them. The show then hit a still very good 3.7 for each of the next two weeks, but Pushing Daisies never really seemed to stabilize in season one, dropping in several big bunches over the subsequent weeks. The December 12 season finale managed just a 2.4 demo. ABC opted not to order any Pushing Daisies episodes immediately following the WGA strike that season, but they did pick up a 13-episode second season and returned it to the same timeslot for fall 2008.
When hope was lost: Coming off hiatuses of nearly ten months, the three once-promising new dramas on ABC Wednesday couldn't find anything near those ratings in their fall 2008 runs. Pushing Daisies' season two premiere on 10/1/08 hit just a 2.0 demo, down more than 50% from the year-ago series premiere! With the exception of one big uptick (a 2.3 demo on 10/29/08), it mostly just trickled down from there, settling at a 1.6 for each of its three episodes in December. ABC totally blew up their night of sophomore dramas at midseason, axing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money and sending Private Practice to Thursday. The last three episodes of Pushing Daisies wouldn't be seen for another six months plus, returning to the schedule to kick off a Saturday burn-off theatre that would later include fellow sophomores Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone. The three Daisies eps on Saturday pulled 0.7 -> 0.8 -> 0.6.
Adults 18-49 info by season:
| Seas | Year | Timeslot | Avg | y2y | Lo | Hi | Results | Grade |
| 1 | 2007-08 | Wednesday 8:00 | 3.22 | 2.2 | 4.3 | |||
| 2 | 2008-09 | Wed 8:00, Sat 10:00 | 1.53 | -52% | 0.6 | 2.3 |
Historical-adjusted ratings by season:
| Seas | Year | A18-49+ | Label | Now15 | y2y | Lo | Hi | Premiere | Finale |
| 1 | 2007-08 | 97 | marginal | 1.64 | 66 | 130 | 130 | 72 | |
| 2 | 2008-09 | 51 | flop | 0.86 | -48% | 20 | 76 | 66 | 20 |
| AVERAGE: | 74 | marginal | |||||||
| CAREER: | 148 | blip | |||||||
For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.
