Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 1/10/12 (FINALS)

WHAT MATTERS:

• Hey, it really was a flop all along! (Or, if you believe the media, it magically "became" a flop this week.) Work It dropped a larger-than-usual 25% in week two, putting it behind all Man Up! ratings in the timeslot. So this is obviously not going to be around a whole lot longer, but perhaps more unsettling for ABC was that Last Man Standing posted a new low. And Glee isn't even back yet!

• With Fox sitting out yet again, CBS cruised despite a strangely huge drop from Unforgettable.

Spotted Ratings, Monday 1/9/12 (FINALS)

WHAT MATTERS:

• It's the first of two relatively calm evenings before the midseason storm resumes on broadcast on Wednesday. That's mostly because of people getting out of the way of ESPN's BCS National Championship (8.7), down double-digits from last year's 10.1 but obviously still a beast.

• The only original show that wasn't here last Monday was Castle, which actually did slightly better than struggling The Bachelor for the first time ever and was a couple ticks stronger than its original against the big game last year.

Spotted Ratings, Sunday 1/8/12: Firmly Flopped (FINALS)

WHAT MATTERS:

• Yeah, so, in case you haven't heard, Tim Tebow gets big ratings. The game as a whole was massive with 42.37 million viewers and a 15.3 demo, but it got even more ridiculous near the end; the 7:30 half-hour averaged 51.3 million viewers and a ridiculous 18.4/45 demo for CBS. Needless to say, that lead-in was pretty helpful to the rest of the CBS evening. 60 Minutes got (according to my records) its best demo ratings since November 2008, The Good Wife hit its best demo since March 2010 and CSI: Miami had its best since March 2011.

• It was an encouraging fall for new shows, but midseason sure isn't off to a good start. NBC's The Firm was totally dead on arrival. That tied A Gifted Man as the weakest premiere on the big four this season to date, and it was ahead of just a few of the huge flops of 2010-11 (Lone Star, Chaos, The Paul Reiser Show). With 22 episodes ordered for the co-production, this is a pretty daunting result for NBC. Perhaps in Thursday 10/9c we have just found our new timeslot for Awake?

• Perhaps the biggest surprise on this Sunday was the rebound for Once Upon a Time, which completely reversed its alarming December trend and got all the way back up to within a tenth of the level it had so admirably maintained in its first four weeks. This came despite having to face the end of Tebow Time in most of the country. Things soured from there for ABC, though. Desperate Housewives was also up from the last original, but not by nearly as much as its lead-in, and Pan Am returned for its final run of episodes two tenths below any previous result.

• On Fox, The Simpsons got absolutely snowed under by Tebow Time and tied a series low, and things didn't improve much across the rest of the animation evening.

Spotted Ratings, Saturday 1/7/12 (FINALS)

WHAT MATTERS:

• NBC's NFL Wild Card matchup between New Orleans and Detroit outrated all of their Sunday Night Football games this season and easily won the primetime week. It also about quadrupled its combined broadcast competition. Not that this really means anything, but the game and the kickoff show also posted the rarely-seen quadruple-digit timeslot improvement (though I'm not really sure what originals they're even being compared to).

• As primary season heats up, ABC went with a Republican debate in New Hampshire. It slightly outrated the only other broadcast primetime debate of the season, CBS' South Carolina debate on 11/12/11 (0.9).

The True Top 25, Week Ending 1/8/12 (2011-12 Week 16)

NBC's Sunday Night Football may be over, but NBC and the NFL teamed up for one last victory in the True Top 25, this time on Saturday night. The Lions/Saints Wild Card matchup outrated any of NBC's Sunday night games this season.

Other than that, it was a relatively slow week. ABC was mostly all new, and most of those programs were up from their previous original, but TRUE mostly wasn't too impressed because of the general combination of high viewing and little competition. With no The Big Bang Theory this week, the top scripted honors went rather comfortably to Modern Family, and NCIS and the big return of Grey's Anatomy actually outdid the entire soft-returning CBS Monday lineup. 2 Broke Girls once again outdid Two and a Half Men in TRUE, and it's pretty close to making the pass in raw 18-49 ratings now.

SpotVault - The Firm (NBC) - 2011-12

The Firm

Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC

SpotVault - Winter Wipeout (ABC) - 2011-12

Winter Wipeout

Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC

SpotVault - The Biggest Loser (NBC) - Spring 2012

The Biggest Loser

Tuesdays, 8/7c, NBC

SpotVault - Mobbed (Fox) - 2011-12

Mobbed

Wednesdays, 9/8c, Fox

SpotVault - Celebrity Wife Swap (ABC) - 2011-12

Celebrity Wife Swap

Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC