Series premieres of 'Knight Rider' and 'Gary Unmarried' sink
Wall Street's financial crisis upended the presidential campaign Wednesday, and also threw a curve at the third night of the new TV season.
President Bush's 15-minute address about the economy was carried live at 9 p.m. Eastern time (6 p.m. in Los Angeles), and therefore some program times were pushed back. The early ratings from Nielsen Media Research were rough estimates.
But overall, it was a good night for CBS, led by the season 5 premiere of "CSI: NY," which commanded the 10 p.m. slot with 15.6 million viewers. The fourth-season rollout of "Criminal Minds" (15.1 million viewers) was up a remarkable 20% in adults aged 18-49 (4.2 rating/11 share) compared with last year's premiere. But the network struggled with its plan to kick off Wednesdays with comedy: On its new night, "The New Adventures of Old Christine" fizzled (6.7 million), and the series premiere of "Gary Unmarried" (6.8 million) elicited a collective yawn from viewers.
ABC started off well with the results show for "Dancing with the Stars" (15.5 million), but then left itself hanging with illusionist David Blaine's latest stunt, the two-hour "Dive of Death," which averaged a not-so-amazing 7.7 million.
The premiere of NBC's remake of "Knight Rider" (7.3 million) lost more than half its young-adult audience compared with the special two-hour movie that aired as a pilot in February, and "Lipstick Jungle" (a very weak 6.1 million) was likewise down compared with its February premiere. Fox's night, meanwhile, suffered because of its underachieving comedy block of "'Til Death" (1.7/4) and "Do Not Disturb" (1.4/3).
-- Scott Collins
