Again, as with Tuesday, I didn't watch any series premieres on Wednesday. During Criminal Minds I thought about setting the DVR for Revenge, but didn't do it at that moment I thought about it, and so what happened was after CM I turned straight to Paranormal Witness and totally forgot about Revenge.

The X Factor
A18-49 - 4.4/12
I totally called this one, but after the big(ish) night FOX had Tuesday I was starting to wonder if maybe I was wrong, but nope American Idol is still the ratings King. Of course, The X Factor is a hit in and of itself, but it's clearly not the ratings monster that is American Idol. Still I suspect FOX is not terribly pleased with this, say what you want, but I think they expected this to do better - no, they probably wasn't expecting American Idol ratings, but I'm betting they expected The X Factor to at least reach a 6.0 or higher for its first outing.
(And just this once I'll mention overall viewers, because I've heard that Simon was quoted as saying anything under 20-25 million is a failure, and that makes the overall viewers relevant - 12.49 million, not exactly 20 million. Oops!
Though, to be fair, this is reality, and reality unlike scripted can sometimes grow over time in viewers.)

H8R
A18-49 - 0.4/1
Honestly, I'm starting to doubt H8R will eek out a full season, because even for cheap reality on the CW a 0.4 A18-49 rating is not good.
Obviously, I haven't been watching this one so I can't say for sure, but I think the biggest problem here is that they (the promos) sorta made this show look like the title was actually "famous people are awesome! Shame on you for hating them." Seriously, most of the ads made it seem like there was never a good reason to dislike a famous person. So, perhaps if they'd have at least framed the show more neutrally in the promos it could've at least got a better sampling.

Free Agents
A18-49 - 1.3/4
Again, so far so good when it comes to my prediction.
Oops, that's what I get for c/p'ing. This isn't exactly good for my prediction, because my prediction was that this one would eek out a full season, and depending on what NBC has benched for mid-season this one could end up canned sooner rather than later.
But not so good for the show or NBC.

Up All Night
A18-49 - 2.4/7
So far so good when it comes to my prediction.
Though ratings wise I'm sure NBC wishes it was a little better, but beggars can't be choosy.

Revenge
A18-49 - 3.3/9
This one started about where I thought it would, so even if it drops a bit next week my prediction seems on track. And even if it drops more then expected it'll probably still eek out a full season at least.

And since I mentioned (ranted on) CSI earlier, even though I followed the "don't like/don't watch" rule I decided to note the rating here anyway: A18-49 - 3.2/9. A decent sampling of Dansons first episode, so if people liked Dansons addition and come back next week CSI should be fine. If not... Well, it'll probably eek out at least one more season either way.


So, I've been thinking about this for awhile, but never really felt up to actually making a post on the subject.

Anyway, just about any where you go on the internets you'll find people bitching about reality TV, and that almost always leads to someone blaming young people for watching and therefore keeping reality TV alive. However, the CW, which is the youngest skewing network, has shit luck when it comes to debuting any reality show - not just keeping one on the air, but actually getting people to sample it. Seriously, the only "successful" (more historically successful then it has been for the last few seasons) is America's Next Top Model (and their big all stars thing seems to have failed right out of the gate), and that's actually a left-over from UPN and not a CW original reality. So, the actual young skewing CW just cannot get a reality program of its very own off the ground.

And that says to me that it is not actually young people keeping reality TV alive. Sure, I'll grant that most reality does well in the advertiser coveted demo (A18-49), but I've long suspected that it is the upper end of that demo (lets say A30-49) not the younger end (A18-30) thats keeping all the reality TV alive. Because seriously it's not like the young (except for me, cause I ain't young anymore) CW audience is even sampling then rejecting the reality programs they just ain't even sampling it in the first place. So, I really think the young are being unfairly blamed for supporting reality TV across the board.