TV Ratings: ABC's 'Dancing' crushes 'House,' 'Chuck,' Monday rivals

'Chicago Code' tops 'Law & Order: Los Angeles' at 9 p.m.

By Daniel Fienberg Tuesday, Apr 12, 2011 11:55 AM

Kirstie Alley of 'Dancing with the Stars'

Credit: ABC

Fast National ratings for Monday, April 11, 2011.

With the exception of The CW, the other networks brought out their big guns against ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" on Monday. And when the dust settled, "Dancing with the Stars" towered over the competition and pushed rivals like "House," "Chuck" and "How I Met Your Mother" to impressively low Monday numbers.

Among adults 18-49, ABC averaged a 3.9 rating for the night, far ahead of FOX's 2.5 rating and the 2.3 rating for CBS in the key demographic. NBC was fourth with a 1.4 rating, while The CW's repeats averaged a 0.3 rating in fifth.

Overall, ABC averaged an estimated 17.85 million viewers and an 11.3 rating/17 share. CBS was a distant second with 7.63 million viewers and a 4.8/7, edging out FOX's 4.5/7 and 7.46 million viewers. NBC stayed fourth with a 3.5/5 and 5.32 million viewers, beating the 0.5/1 and 686,000 viewers for The CW.

8 p.m. - "Dancing with the Stars" kicked primetime off in first with 19.35 million viewers and a 3.9 rating among adults 18-49, off from last week, but still commandingly leading the hour for ABC. FOX's "House" limped into second with 8.95 million viewers and a 3.2 demo rating. CBS was third with "How I Met Your Mother" (6.8 million and a 2.7 demo) and "Mad Love" (5.445 million and a 1.9 demo). "Chuck" was fourth, slipping again to 4.045 million viewers and a 1.3 rating in the key demo. The CW's repeat of "90210" averaged 782,000 viewers.

9 p.m. - The second hour of "Dancing with the Stars" averaged 21.585 million viewers and a 4.7 demo rating, again winning easily for ABC. CBS was second with "Mike & Molly" (7.92 million and a 2.5 demo rating) and a repeat of "Two and a Half Men" (7.33 million and a 2.0 demo). FOX's "Chicago Code" was third with 5.975 and a 1.8 demo rating. The first hour of NBC's two-hour reboot of "Law & Order: Los Angeles" was fourth with 5.54 million viewers and a 1.4 demo rating, which isn't great, but which is still better than "The Event." The CW's "Gossip Girl" repeat averaged 590,000 viewers in fifth.

10 p.m. - "Castle" dominated the 10 p.m. hour for ABC, averaging 12.645 million viewers and a 3.1 demo rating. CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" averaged 9.13 million viewers and a 2.4 demo rating in second. NBC's "Law & Order: Los Angeles" improved to 6.38 million viewers and a 1.6 demo in third.

All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change.

Daniel Fienberg
Executive Editor

A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.

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sandra

Wow! Those are just some bad numbers all around. But the Chuck fans can stop wondering, I really canâ€™t see NBC renewing it with a 1.3
April 12, 2011 at 12:06PM EST Reply to Comment
- mcspinelli No Doubt. Chuck had fan support and a nice run, but probably will be cancelled after this season.
  
  It annoys the hell out of me when the networks decide to take a month off right after taking 2 months off for the holidays and expect casual viewers to stick around. This type of thing kills shows. Also, in all honesty, the writing for Chuck keeps getting worse and worse. If Chuck was a 13 episode show, it could probably survive, but not with a 22 or 23 episode season.
  April 12, 2011 at 12:53PM EST
- sepinwall The scheduling certainly didn't help "Chuck," but at the same time, the numbers before the recent string of repeats and pre-emptions were pretty lousy, too.
  
  If the ratings don't trend up over the next few weeks, the show's likely done, yes. I'm just not sure what threshold it has to reach to survive. Daylight Savings Time always knocks its numbers down - just never this far.
  April 12, 2011 at 1:19PM EST
- Andrei The other side of that question, Alan, is does NBC have anything better it could put there? Have you heard of any promising pilots, or are they simply going to wave the white flag and put some ultra-low-cost reality garbage on then, like a Gary Busey / Meat Loaf buddy travelogue ("Busey Meats the Road")?
  April 13, 2011 at 8:52AM EST
john godwin

Chuck fans can't catch a break we have to go against the bachelor, the bacchelorette, dancing with the star's there was never a time during the season when we dont have to go up against these reality garbage that that masses drull over for no reason while a entertaining show like chuck suffers with long breaks between new episodes an 2 hour premeiers for shows that arent even on anymore. we've been loyal fans for four years,we support the advertisers an the other shows on NBC. we deserve a fifth season an syndication. With syndication they can sell the show to other networks lowering the cost to make the show an show a profit an reach more people
April 12, 2011 at 11:18PM EST Reply to Comment