Spotted Ratings, Thursday 1/17/13

WHAT MATTERS:

• Day two saw the prospects brighten somewhat for American Idol, down just 7% from the previous night's Wednesday premiere and just a tick below the year-ago Thursday premiere. Two obvious caveats: its most powerful competition, the CBS lineup, was in repeats this year and not last year (when The Big Bang Theory beat Idol head-to-head in the 8:00 half-hour in the 4th biggest TV ratings moment of 2012). Also, this was a two-hour telecast vs. just one last year. But the 8:00 hour comparison (5.4 vs. last year's 5.7) is not that much worse.

•  ABC was most affected by the return of Idol, with Grey's Anatomy down a couple notches and Scandal retreating a bit from last week's series high.

• NBC had a surprisingly strong night from a cameo-tatstic Parks and Recreation, which tied a season high in its return to 8:30. Week two of 1600 Penn, down 25% to well below anything Parks ever got at 9:30? Not so much.

• The highlights of a busy cable night:
• USA had a solid season premiere from Suits (1.24) in its first-ever regular season airing, again suggesting that the "buzzier" USA shows are the ones that hold up better in the winter months. 
• Suits had ever-so-slightly more 18-49 viewers than the much-hyped Lance Armstrong interview on OWN (1.23). It averaged 3.175 million viewers, falling shy of the network's record for the interview with Whitney Houston's family in March (3.5m).
• Meanwhile, it was a very mixed night for FX's comedy premieres.
• The good news was 10/9c animated comedy Archer (1.01), whose fourth season premiere set a new series high in the demo.
• But the return of Charlie Sheen's Anger Management (0.71 at 9:00/0.79 at 9:30) began its back-90 run on the low end of its numbers from last summer.
• And new Archer lead-out Legit (0.36) pretty much bombed.

FULL TABLE:

Info			Show				Timeslot		True2
	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
Last Resort	5.07	1.0	-17%	n/a	10/12	n/a	-17%	-46%	1.08
Grey's Anatomy	8.80	3.0	-6%	-17%	8/11	-14%	-3%	-13%	3.37
Scandal	7.93	2.6	-7%	-6%	2/11	n/a	-7%	+27%	2.43
The Big Bang Theory (R)	11.64	3.2					-50%	-40%	3.66
Two and a Half Men (R)	9.03	2.3					-45%	-34%	2.12
Person of Interest (R)	9.40	1.6					-52%	-51%	1.70
Elementary (R)	7.10	1.4					-42%	-53%	1.51
30 Rock	3.44	1.3	-13%	n/a	3/10	-19%	-13%	-19%	1.80
Parks and Recreation	3.92	1.9	+27%	-38%	1/10	+0%	+27%	+0%	2.13
The Office	4.15	2.1	-5%	+27%	4/11	-30%	-5%	-30%	2.24
1600 Penn	3.04	1.2	-25%	-5%	3/3	n/a	-25%	-37%	1.33
Rock Center	4.41	1.1	+0%	-25%	3/15	-15%	+5%	+22%	1.27
American Idol Thu	16.28	5.6	n/a	n/a	1/1	-2%	+522%	+41%	5.64
The Vampire Diaries	2.95	1.4	+8%	n/a	4/10	+27%	+155%	+22%	1.61
The Carrie Diaries (R)	1.14	0.4					-27%	-43%	0.30

KEY (click to expand)

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.
Last - A18-49 percent difference from previous episode.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.
y2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to its rating a year ago.
TLa - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one week ago.
Ty2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one year ago.
True2 - The second edition of True Strength, a metric that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in. PRELIMINARY CALCULATION. For finals, see SpotVault.

(R) - Repeat.

Much more detail on these numbers at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.