Spotted Ratings, Friday 11/2/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• Pretty good news on all the broadcasters, but it must start with ABC, where Last Man Standing returned very well, a couple notches above last season's post-DST level on Tuesday, then the series premiere of Reba's Malibu Country also did big business with the expected multiple-tick growth at 8:30. The latter ended up tying Shark Tank, which picked up even more steam in its debut at 9/8c and (along with Malibu) did the best numbers for any Friday entertainment show since the Undercover Boss debut in February. All three of those shows were up at least 100% year-to-year in their timeslots. So far so good for ABC Friday.

• Against remarkably heavy 8/7c competition, Undercover Boss was back in reasonably respectable fashion, though it was near the low end of last season's numbers. If it fades throughout the season as is Boss tradition, look out, but I don't know that CBS could've expected much more considering how last season ended.

• NBC found yet another strong option in its patchwork Friday 8/7c plan, this time going with a last-minute Hurricane Sandy benefit concert; it was sustaining programming so it won't count in official averages, but preliminarily it did somewhere in the mid-1's, fairly Mockingbird Lane-esque numbers. That helped keep Grimm pretty high, though it did come down a bit from last week's Halloween surge.

• Even some of the usual ratings losers of Friday night were on the upswing, with Kitchen Nightmares and Nikita each picking up a tick.

FULL TABLE:

Info			Show				Timeslot		True2
	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
Last Man Standing	8.07	2.0	n/a	n/a	1/1	-44%	+18%	+100%	2.29
Malibu Country	9.13	2.3	n/a	n/a	1/1	n/a	+21%	+130%	2.22
Shark Tank	7.44	2.3	+28%	n/a	1/8	n/a	+70%	+100%	2.27
20/20	5.35	1.5	+15%	+92%	3/10	+36%	+3%	+30%	1.36
Undercover Boss	7.96	1.5	n/a	n/a	1/1	-50%	+67%	+58%	1.62
CSI: NY	10.05	1.5	+0%	+67%	1/6	-6%	+0%	+36%	1.56
Blue Bloods	11.05	1.3	-13%	+0%	4/6	-38%	-13%	-7%	1.30
Grimm	5.64	1.8	-10%	+0%	3/10	+0%	-8%	-16%	1.88
Dateline Fri	3.79	1.1	-21%	-10%	6/8	-8%	-24%	-15%	1.06
Kitchen Nightmares	2.85	1.0	+11%	n/a	1/2	-33%	+11%	-81%	1.09
Fringe	2.58	0.9	+0%	+11%	4/5	-31%	+0%	-88%	1.06
America's Next Top Model	1.26	0.4	+0%	n/a	7/10	-50%	+0%	-33%	0.45
Nikita	1.14	0.3	+50%	+0%	1/3	-50%	+50%	-57%	0.33

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.

(R) - Repeat.

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

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.