Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 10/17/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• Start with the good: the CW's Arrow had a very promising week two, holding its week-ago demo rating completely and staying ahead of NBC's comedy duo. Back-nine time.

• The bad? Almost everyone else. Nashville took a huge 29% tumble in week two. It's not Truly as bad as it looks because its lead-in was more than two full points weaker; the final True2s say it was down about 15%. But it's still pretty discouraging, because Revenge didn't drop nearly this much with a week two lead-in drop. ABC also underwhelmed at 9:30 with the premiere of Suburgatory, which had a seemingly better slot but was down more year-to-year than the other ABC comedy premieres. I'd argue the 20%+ drop from Chicago Fire was even worse than what Nashville did, though it too had little lead-in help as Law and Order: SVU lost a couple ticks from last week. Both shows fell well behind CSI at 10/9c even though that was down as well.

• Both of the 10/9c newbies also lost head-to-head with FX's American Horror Story premiere (2.2), which was a relatively close second behind CSI. AHS is yet another buzzy cable drama on the rise, but unless it grows post-premiere it looks to remain a bit behind Sons of Anarchy on the FX totem pole. (Sons has settled at approximately this low-2's level this season.)

• The weak new show results came despite a chaotic Wednesday on Fox, where they had rain-delayed baseball, a Ben and Kate repeat, an hour of original The X Factor and a partial The Mindy Project repeat before returning to baseball. The ratings for X ended up at only about two thirds of typical levels, but I wouldn't read much into that mess.

FULL TABLE:

Info			Show				Timeslot		True2
	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
The Middle	8.39	2.5	+4%	n/a	2/4	-14%	+4%	-14%	2.23
The Neighbors	6.53	1.9	-5%	+4%	3/4	n/a	-5%	-39%	1.63
Modern Family	12.28	4.7	-4%	-60%	4/4	-20%	-2%	-19%	4.04
Suburgatory	7.54	2.8	n/a	n/a	1/1	-15%	-43%	-13%	2.03
Nashville	6.74	2.0	-29%	-43%	2/2	n/a	-27%	-25%	1.72
Survivor	10.43	2.8	+0%	n/a	4/5	-13%	+0%	-14%	2.50
Criminal Minds	11.81	3.1	+3%	+0%	1/3	-18%	+2%	-18%	2.64
CSI	10.63	2.3	-12%	+3%	3/3	-12%	-12%	-12%	1.94
Animal Practice	3.85	1.1	+0%	n/a	3/4	n/a	+0%	-48%	1.02
Guys with Kids	4.41	1.4	+0%	+0%	4/5	n/a	+0%	+0%	1.44
Law and Order: SVU	6.25	1.6	-11%	+0%	3/3	-24%	-9%	+39%	1.58
Chicago Fire	5.85	1.5	-21%	-11%	2/2	n/a	-23%	-29%	1.44
Ben and Kate (R)	3.46	1.2					-60%	-52%	1.11
The X Factor Wed	6.34	2.3	-34%	n/a	6/6	-32%	-37%	-15%	2.20
The Mindy Project (R)	4.70	1.7					-53%	-50%	1.54
Arrow	3.55	1.3	+0%	n/a	1/2	n/a	-4%	+271%	1.23
Supernatural	2.13	1.0	+0%	+0%	1/3	+25%	+0%	+18%	0.84

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.