ABC's 'Daisies' crushed by a political ad

How bad are things for ABC's whimsical second-year drama "Pushing Daisies?" Well, on Wednesday night, it got trounced in the ratings -- by Sen. Barack Obama's infomercial.

ABC, of course, chose not to run the political ad, evidently in hopes of giving "Daisies" room to grow by putting it opposite weak competition.

Whoops.

During its first half-hour, "Daisies" did manage to round up 6.8 million total viewers, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research. The only problem is that "Barack Obama: American Stories," the heartstring-tugging half-hour spot paid for by Sen. Obama's presidential campaign, delivered a much better number on each of the networks that did air it, including CBS (8.6 million), Fox (7.9 million) and NBC (9.8 million). (The Obama spot ran on seven networks; on the three English-language broadcasters plus Univision it delivered 30.1 million viewers.) The Obama spot also pulled better numbers than "Daisies" in the crucial adults aged 18 to 49 demographic.

Fairness -- and our fondness for the good folk in ABC's PR department, who have to spin this stuff -- compel us to point out that "Daisies" did hit its highest ratings this season.

And yet ... we'll try to avoid the groaner puns on its title, but clearly this show is in deep trouble. ABC executives are puzzled "Daisies" isn't doing better, especially given its warm critical reception last year. But they have to make a decision soon -- probably before the show returns to the lineup Nov. 19, after two weeks of preemptions because of "Dancing with the Stars" results and the CMA awards show.

Star Kristen Chenoweth told the National Ledger that production on the episodes ordered wraps Nov. 12. ABC would likely need to order more installments by then to avoid a production shutdown.

Otherwise, "Pushing Daisies" will be ... well, you know.

-- Scott Collins

Comments

[Charles]

The ratings for Pushing Daisies actually increased by almost a million viewers last night, and for a struggling boutique show that's good news.

Nobody really expected the show to offer serious competition to the historically important Obama or pull millions of people away from his televised message, so to say that Daisies was "crushed" by the Democratic political ad is a bit misleading. Anything would have been. The charming little show held their core audience and grew a tad. It wasn't crushed.

[Jen]

What can we do to save his wonderful show?

[Ann]

I love Pushing Daisies....I don't want to see it canceled!

[Caroline]

Charles - thank you for seeing this information with a little bit of brainpower.

OF COURSE Obama's half-hour was going to get better ratings, in what world would Pushing Daisies hope to compete. The news in the story is that Daisies' ratings were better than it's previous weeks, which is good news for the show.

But all stories like this do is put a nail in the coffin - thanks a lot, Scott.