“Melrose Place” Disappoints in Premiere

The series premiere of The CW’s “Melrose Place” remake made little impact in the ratings department.

With 2.3 million viewers, the show did a mere 1.7/3 household rating. Though The CW has touted its performance in key demos–1.3/3 in 18-49 and 2.5/7 in women 18-34–the show simply failed to make a mark and got the network off to a disappointing start. Worse, it lost a portion of its viewership over the course of the hour.

In the show’s defense, reduced interest in the “90210″ remake certainly hurt its breakout potential. The second season premiere of “90210″ provided a 1.8/3 lead-in with 2.56 million viewers; up against little in the way of competition, the show was still markedly down from its bow last year.

But regardless of where one places the blame, it is clear that “Melrose Place” was unsuccessful in making a splash outside of the core CW fanbase. While curiosity in last year’s “90210″ series premiere brought a wider range of eyeballs to the network, the revived “Melrose Place” operated firmly within the network’s viewership constraints. With word-of-mouth coming in well below spectacular, the show could very well lose viewers for next week’s airing.