'American Idol' is Tuesday's Superstar - FOX easily wins night;...

David Archuleta of 'American Idol' Fast National ratings for Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008 Another Tuesday, another big ratings win for FOX and "American Idol," which once again beat back all comers.

[Big Joe]

"Quarterlife" flopped, huh? Another dismal failure from NBC? Even the cancelled-but-not masterpiece that was "Journeyman" (an intelligent, well-written, well-acted program) pulled TWO MILLION more people than "Quarterlife" did. Does anybody think the suits at NBC will ever pull their heads from their collective tushes and start giving intelligent shows like "Journeyman" the time they need to develop an audience!

[Nick]

Sad to see "Back to You" shed so many viewers from a powerfully rating lead-in.

[Alan 59]

Lord, I am tired of the incessant whining from "Journeyman" fans. Big Joe believes that NBC did not give the series "the time...to develop an audience." Let's review the ratings history of "Journeyman."

9/24/07.....5.9/10
10/1/07.....5.2/9
10/8/07.....4.5/7
10/15/07....4.5/7
10/22/07....4.0/6
10/29/07....3.8/6
11/5/07.....3.4/6
11/12/07....4.1/7
11/19/07....3.8/6
11/26/07....3.8/6
12/10/07....3.7/6
12/17/07....3.1/5
12/19/07....3.2/6

To be fair, this is a pretty typical curve for a non-hit show. It is sampled by a certain number of Americans, then sheds some percentage that decide, for various reasons, that the series is not for them. The show finds its level - in the case above, it's 3.8/6 - and maintains something like that number in the average week. The low numbers for the two-part finale can be explained by lower general viewing levels in the mid-December period leading up to Christmas.

But where is the evidence that "more time" would have helped this series? With the sole exception of the 11/12 viewing, there was no indication of growth, only dropping and leveling. One of the firmly-held beliefs of TV fans is that if you leave something on the air long enough, that Americans will eventually find it. That may have been true thirty years ago in a three network world, but the entertainment choices have grown exponentially. Nobody will watch anything simply because it's the least-objectionable program airing at the moment.

Programming executives know all of this, of course. Very few series increase in audience. The ones that do are promoted and nurtured. The others either generate an acceptable audience ("Deal Or No Deal" or "L&O: Special Victims Unit," to name two examples from NBC's current stable) or do not, and the latter group are cancelled, and replaced by programs that the network hopes will perform better.

I dearly hope that this is the last time that it needs to be written. "Journeyman" is dead, and it's not coming back. Had it not been for the writers' strike, you probably would not have seen all thirteen episodes, so I'd say that NBC gave the series more time to prove itself than they ordinarily would have. It made no difference.

[GURU OF GREATNESS]

handyman

[GURU OF GREATNESS]

snowgum