Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 9/28/11: Better with Suburgatory

WHAT MATTERS:

• ABC saw post-premiere drops from all three of its week-ago shows, with The Middle probably the most unsettling of the three, but they still had a good night thanks to the very strong premiere of Suburgatory, which was up big from The Middle and was in a close race with Survivor for second at 8:30. That's a much better start than either of The Middle's previous companions in the 8:00 hour, Hank (2.1 on 9/30/09) and Better with You (2.5 on 9/22/10).

• Leading out of Modern Family (down just 7% from last week's average and just 5% from what it got in the 9:00 half hour) was the season premiere of Happy Endings, which scored a series high but dropped 46% from Modern Family. Not quite sure yet what to make of that performance and probably need to see more.

• At 10:00 ABC had Revenge, which dropped much less than expected (18%) considering its lead-in was three full points weaker. This is probably a very encouraging week two for the show. It was still within spitting distance of CSI and well ahead of Law and Order: SVU in the 10:00 race.

• NBC saw further drops from Up All Night and Free Agents, the latter of which is probably gonna get canned later today.

• The X Factor was down just three ticks from its 4.4 week-ago premiere. Not too bad, but the show remains a disappointment relative to expectations.

• The CDub was on the upswing with H8R tying its high. I wonder if there were baseball preemptions? Apparently not! Congrats to H8R!

FULL TABLE:

	Viewers	A18-49	Share	Skew	Last	Lead	LeLa	Avg	Rank	TRUE
The Middle	8.68	2.7	8	40%	-13%	n/a	n/a	-13%	2/2	2.80
Suburgatory	9.81	3.3	9	43%	n/a	+22%	n/a	n/a	1/1	3.38
Modern Family	13.45	5.7	15	54%	-7%	+73%	+6%	-7%	2/2	6.14
Happy Endings	7.25	3.1	8	55%	n/a	-46%	n/a	n/a	1/1	2.31
Revenge	8.54	2.7	7	40%	-18%	-13%	-49%	-18%	2/2	2.31
Survivor	10.71	3.2	9	38%	+0%	n/a	n/a	-4%	2/3	3.36
Criminal Minds	12.58	3.6	9	37%	-12%	+13%	+0%	-12%	2/2	3.51
CSI	11.76	3.1	8	34%	-3%	-14%	-12%	-3%	2/2	2.62
Up All Night	5.32	2.1	6	51%	-13%	n/a	n/a	-31%	3/3	2.10
Free Agents	3.07	1.0	3	42%	-23%	-52%	-13%	-41%	3/3	0.77
Harry's Law	7.63	1.2	3	20%	+0%	+20%	-23%	+0%	1/2	1.18
Law and Order: SVU	7.24	2.1	5	37%	-13%	+75%	+0%	-13%	2/2	1.97
X Factor Wed	11.86	4.1	11	44%	-7%	n/a	n/a	-7%	2/2	4.24
H8R	1.37	0.6	2	56%	+50%	n/a	n/a	+20%	1/3	0.57
America's Next Top Model	1.76	0.8	2	58%	+14%	+33%	+50%	+0%	2/3	0.80

KEY (with much more detail at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page):

Viewers - The total number of viewers (age 2+, in millions) that watched the program.
A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Share - Adults 18-49 share. Percentage of US TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Skew - Percentage of the total audience that falls in the 18-49 demo.
Last - A18-49 percent difference from previous episode.
Lead - A18-49 percent difference from lead-in program.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Avg - A18-49 percent difference from the show's average demo for previous original episodes this season.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.
TRUE - True Strength, a metric developed last summer that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in.

(R) - Repeat.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.