Ratings: 'The Mentalist' beats 'Dancing With the Stars' on Tuesday
Freshman series The Mentalist continued to deliver good numbers for CBS last night, according to preliminary ratings data. The procedural (which just received a full-season order) averaged 14.9 million viewers (down only 3 percent from last week) and actually bested the Dancing With the Stars results show (14.4 million) in the 9 p.m. hour. Along with NCIS — the night’s most-watched show with 17.9 million viewers — The Mentalist helped CBS win the night in average viewership. It was Fox, however, that overwhelmingly won the ratings crown for the coveted adults 18-49 demographic. The network’s young-blood favorite House continued its week-to-week viewership gains with a 12.8 million average, while new series Fringe tallied an additional 9.5 million.
Over at NBC, The Biggest Loser: Families, which dipped to 6.3 million last week, climbed up to 7.5 million viewers last night — pretty close to its 7.9 million season premiere on Sept. 16. Law & Order: SVU lost viewers from its last episode (9.4 million from 10.2 million), but saw its audience grow by 9 percent throughout the 10 p.m. hour.
ABC’s season 2 premiere of Eli Stone averaged 8.8 million viewers. That’s up considerably from last season’s 7.2 million average, but the singalong lost a whole quarter of its audience by the second half hour. (Perhaps Katie Holmes fans tuned in for a glimpse of their Broadway gal only to realize she’s actually guest-starring on next week’s episode, not this week’s season premiere.)
More TV news:
The Mentalist gets full-season order
addCredit(“Cliff Lipson”)