ABC’s “Dancing” Wins First Night of New TV Season

Posted Sep 22, 2010 by Walt Belcher

Updated Sep 22, 2010 at 10:23 AM

  The first night of the new 2010-2011 TV season was good for ABC. “Dancing With the Stars” dominated the ratings in the and 8 and 9 p.m. timeslots. However, the series premieres of CBS’ “Mike & Molly” and “Hawaii Five-O” and NBC’s thriller “The Event” had decent ratings.

But Fox had the biggest loser when “Lone Star” was DOA in the competitive 9 p.m. time period.

Bristol Palin impressed on DWTS and MTV reality star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino also may have been a draw.

DWTS was up 22 percent among younger viewers over last year’s September premiere. The romantic cop show “Castle” which followed did well coming in second in the 10 p.m. timeslot against CBS’s new “Hawaii Five-O.”

The season opener of “House” on Fox was second in the 8 p.m. time period behind DWTS but it also was down 40 percent from last season’s debut. And even worse for Fox, new series “Lone Star,” despite being critically acclaimed, could only muster a 1.3 rating (about 4 million viewers) in the 9 p.m. time period. It can’t survive on that number.

CBS was also down about 7 percent from last season on Monday night thanks in part to the absence of “The Big Bang Theory” which moves to Thursdays. The premieres of “How I Met Your Mother” and “Rules of Engagement” at 8:30 p.m. were solid while “Two And a Half Men” was up 5% year-to-year.

New CBS series “Mike & Molly” lost 20 percent of the audience following “Men” which is not a good sign.

NBC’s “Chuck” was not impressive coming in fourth place ar 8 p.m.  But “The Event” which followed almost doubled the audience. “The Event” was heavily hyped (all those “House” viewers must have switched over to NBC at 9).  NBC’s new “Chase” was also lackluster at 10 p.m.