The Question, Wednesday 9/26/12: Who Ya Got in Sitcoms vs. Singing Round 2?

The second of the big showdowns between a primary night of a singing competition and a potent two-hour sitcom block goes down tonight, as week three of The X Factor duels with the return of ABC's Wednesday comedy block. This could end up a pretty tight three-way race for #1 from 8:00 to 10:00, with ABC and Fox probably somewhere in the low-to-mid-3's and CBS lurking in the shadows with Survivor and a premiere of Criminal Minds that's coming off a strong finale for that show. It's round two of Sitcoms vs. Singing. Who ya got? That's The Question for Wednesday 9/26/12.

ABC Wednesday Comedies (P/Avg/F)	The X Factor This Season
3.1/2.60/2.0 (The Middle) (+6% yr-to-yr) 3.3/2.60/1.8 (Suburgatory) 6.1/5.05/4.1 (Modern Family) (+14%) 3.1/2.71/1.7 (Happy Endings) (+56%)	3.4 (Wednesday 9/12/12) 3.6 (Wednesday 9/19/12)
Criminal Minds (Premiere/Avg/Finale)	Survivor This Season
4.1/3.39/3.6 (-2%)	3.2 (Wednesday 9/19/12, -6% year-to-year) -6% (Fall 2011 week two drop)

This time, I'm setting an over/under and if you take the "over" you need only one network to get above that mark to win. Three networks have a shot; I think they'll all fall short, but I only have to be wrong once! Fox is a longshot; they would need The X Factor to hold up completely against the arrival of full-fledged competition, but maybe not facing a repeat of The Voice is just that big a deal. If Survivor holds up week-to-week and Criminal Minds is about even year-to-year, CBS could sneak in there with a 3.6... but that too seems unlikely. I think ABC has a shot, but how much of one given the sitcom results on the first couple days? They blew away this number last year with a one-hour The Middle (3.1) and a one-hour Modern Family (6.1) averaging a 4.6. They've got the one-hour The Middle again, but 9:30 should take a huge hit even with an optimistic prediction for The Neighbors. Plus, it's hard not to think Middle and Modern are gonna be down.

Over/Under: 3.5 for the #1 network from 8:00 to 10:00. (If "over," feel free to let me know which one(s) is over, but that's not required.)
 
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