Sampling: The 3.6 demo for the premiere of NBC's Outsourced tied The Event for the largest on NBC, but it's not as impressive as The Event's was because of the 4.4 demo from lead-in The Office. It's still one of the largest premiere numbers of the week, but the pressure is a little higher with the big lead-in, so it won't want to drop too far. It did two ticks worse than Community's 3.8 premiere in the half-hour last season, and The Office was a bit weaker (4.1) last year.
Retention: It dropped to a 2.8 demo in week two, meaning a decline of 22%. That's a fairly disconcerting percentage drop, although as with the just blogged $#!* My Dad Says it's worth noting that the show's lead-in also took a big week-to-week drop, with The Office posting just a 3.7 compared to a 4.4 last week (-16%). A 2.8 is still a bit ahead of 30 Rock's average in the half-hour last season even with The Office's 3.7 a couple ticks below its 2009-10 average.
Prognosis: I'm gonna hesitantly say that despite a worse premiere and a slightly bigger percentage drop than the just-blogged $#!* My Dad Says, we're gonna see Outsourced defy the odds, torture the Parks & Recreation fans hoping that show will take Outsourced's spot early on, and make it into a season 2. Of course, NBC is much weaker than CBS in the comedy arena, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. But so far this program is pretty closely resembling the early performance of Community, and Community was one of just three new shows in 2009-10 to drop 20%+ in week two and get renewed. Outsourced will keep the post-Office timeslot on a longer-term basis than Community did, which is good for ratings but means the pressure will be a little higher. I think if it can settle in at 30 Rock numbers or even a little below, the net will keep it around. Some detractors may say there's no way that'll happen, and you could very easily be right. But I'm going for it.
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