Reason number six thousand not to bet the house on the overnight metered market ratings: CBS’ 8PM test run of “2 Broke Girls” was not quite as spectacular as first thought.
Make no mistake–the freshman comedy performed admirably, proving it can self-start even as ratings for most show are fading for the holiday season. In that sense, it most likely did not shake CBS’ confidence that “2 Broke Girls” can play heavily into CBS’ 2012-13 schedule, should it indeed move forward with an extra hour of comedies next year.
At the same time, CBS’ performance this Monday can also be used as evidence that might want to think twice about messing with its Monday schedule–it works best when everything is intact.
“2 Broke Girls” opened the evening with a 4.1 adult 18-49 rating and 12.5 million viewers, an impressive showing (particularly in total viewers), albeit with a demo performance below what “Mother” has been averaging at 8PM this season. A “2BG” re-run followed with a 3.3 and 10.3 million viewers.
Clearly, a re-charged “How I Met Your Mother” has played a key role in driving the massive momentum in adults 18-49 this season.
So thanks to that lack of momentum–or perhaps the shockingly-atrocious idea of revealing that Walden was raised alongside a gorilla–“Two and a Half Men” slipped to a 4.6 rating and 14.7 million viewers.
Granted, it is hard to worry too much about “Men”–ratings for many comedies have been down as priorities shift to the holidays, and its lead-in was a re-run, not an original of the red-hot “Girls.” But the latter factor really proves why CBS would need to think long and hard about moving “2 Broke Girls” or even “How I Met Your Mother” to Thursdays (which would be the most likely options if it opened a second comedy hour that night)–avoiding a viewer drop-off at 8:30PM (which was often the case with more modest performers like “Rules of Engagement”) is a key to assuring “Men” performs as well as possible, which in turn drives a better performance for 9:30 comedy “Mike & Molly” (down to a 3.9 with 12.8 million viewers).
Disclaimer: Some will argue that a week-to-week comparison is unfair, since there was far more competition this week than last. Though true, “2 Broke Girls” and “Two and a Half Men” consistently delivered better numbers earlier this fall, when the competition–thanks to “Dancing with the Stars”–was even steeper.