Spotted Ratings, Friday 10/26/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• For the first of two straight Fridays, the majority of the excitement will take place in the 8/7c hour. NBC did well by my way off-base standards with the pilot of Mockingbird Lane. Good number, but I kinda doubt it's eye-popping enough to reverse NBC's passing on the show. Shark Tank remained on top in the hour and absolutely mowed down the return of Kitchen Nightmares, down by nearly half year-to-year.

• The much better lead-in and the Halloween theme vaulted Grimm atop the night. It tied the show's biggest number of the season and was its biggest Friday number since the pilot exactly 52 weeks ago.

• It remains troublesome in CW land as America's Next Top Model dropped to 0.4 for the first time in a couple months and Nikita ticked down to zero point TWO.

• The finals were a big help to CSI: NY and Blue Bloods, each of which were up double digits to at or tied for season-high levels. Undercover Boss joins next week, but it's noteworthy that those shows sure did a lot better airing after NCIS than after Hawaii Five-0.

FULL TABLE:

Info			Show				Timeslot		True2
	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
Shark Tank	6.84	1.8	-10%	n/a	2/7	n/a	-10%	+57%	1.75
20/20	5.27	1.3	-7%	+20%	6/8	+8%	-13%	-30%	1.45
NCIS (R)	7.17	0.9					+20%	-28%	1.14
CSI: NY	10.09	1.5	+25%	+13%	1/5	n/a	+25%	-19%	1.77
Blue Bloods	11.06	1.5	+15%	+25%	1/5	n/a	+20%	-14%	1.76
Mockingbird Lane	5.47	1.5				n/a	+131%	+150%	1.72
Grimm	6.11	2.0	+33%	+150%	1/9	-5%	+33%	+90%	2.21
Dateline Fri	4.52	1.4	+8%	+33%	1/7	+8%	+4%	+47%	1.57
Kitchen Nightmares	2.65	0.9	n/a	n/a	1/1	-44%	-42%	-33%	1.14
Fringe	2.55	0.9	-10%	+13%	4/4	n/a	-55%	+64%	1.11
America's Next Top Model	1.12	0.4	-33%	n/a	7/9	-50%	-33%	-38%	0.47
Nikita	0.81	0.2	-33%	-33%	2/2	-67%	-43%	-75%	0.23

KEY (click to expand)

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.
Last - A18-49 percent difference from previous episode.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.
y2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to its rating a year ago.
TLa - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one week ago.
Ty2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one year ago.
True2 - The second edition of True Strength, a metric that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in. PRELIMINARY CALCULATION. For finals, see SpotVault.

(R) - Repeat.

Much more detail on these numbers at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.