The CW's Sex and the City prequel The Carrie Diaries got off to a disappointing start, opening its run on January 14 with 1.61 million viewers and a 0.6 demo rating. That was better than what 90210 averaged in the slot during the fall (0.48), but not by all that much. It faced a full-fledged slate of winter-time broadcast competition: The Bachelor, How I Met Your Mother and a high-rated The Big Bang Theory repeat, The Biggest Loser and Bones.
WEEK TWO
The Carrie Diaries downticked in week two to a 0.5 demo. That's a 17% drop, but since the number is so low, it's potentially very influenced by rounding. (It could be virtually even if it's 0.550 to 0.549, or it could be -31% if it's 0.649 to 0.450.) So I also tend to look at the total viewer number just for a little more clarity. It was pretty close to the same: -21% to 1.27 million.
PROGNOSIS
If you're into putting Carrie on the network totem pole at this point, the rest of the week did not go well; Hart of Dixie beat it (0.6 on Tuesday), Beauty and the Beast beat it (0.7 after TVD) and Nikita tied it at 0.5 in a tougher Friday slot. But it is still a network with very little depth, and I have an inkling they really want to renew this considering the positive critical reception. I'm leaning toward cancel, but it's very tough to parse numbers as small as the ones that make up the CW bubble, so I'm gonna give this another week and just hope something makes the call abundantly clear. Defer.
WEEK THREE/PROGNOSIS
Carrie stayed at a 0.5 in week three and added 110,000 viewers (while CBS went into repeats). Its relative standing actually improved a bit with Hart of Dixie dropping (0.5) and Nikita dropping (0.4) this week. I was slightly leaning cancel last week, and those things don't quite take me all the way to lean renew. They basically just take me to 50/50. I still really have no idea on this one. Since it's just a tick away from being almost completely dead, I'm going Cancel and just hoping that means I won't be wrong on both this and Beauty and the Beast. This is not one I'm going to beat myself up over if I miss it.
"First Two Weeks" is my look at... the first two weeks of a new scripted broadcast show's ratings. I also line up all of the premiere and week two drop numbers together.
