WB Tuesday slate rates
Weblet hits new high with 'Creek'-'Buffy' combo
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" bit into a 5.2 rating, 8 share -- the best single-program rating ever for WB -- and "Dawson's Creek" followed with a 4.8/7, which matched the third-best WB rating ever.
For the night, WB averaged a record 5.0/8, breaking the old mark of 4.4/7 equaled the night before, Jan. 19, and first achieved Oct. 9, 1996, when the Big Three preempted regular programming for the vice presidential debate.
Tuesday also brought WB records in teens and the adult, men and women demos in the 18-34 and 18-49 categories.
With a huge promotional push behind it, big things were expected of the new WB Tuesday schedule, and some industry speculation has the lineup actually falling short of WB projections, but a weblet spokesman said the new lineup's 5.0 rating shattered the guarantee made to advertisers of a 3.8 rating.
"Buffy" played the key role in the two consecutive nights of WB records. The netlet made successful use of a two-part "Buffy" to woo viewers in record numbers from the show's old Monday timeslot to its new home on Tuesday, where WB is trying to establish a fourth night of primetime programming.
"Dawson's" failed to hold the entire "Buffy" lead-in, a surprising development given the buzz surrounding the teen soap, perhaps the most eagerly anticipated new show in the history of either WB or UPN.
Still, "Dawson's" managed an awesome 11.3/36 with its target audience, female teens. That tops, for example, results for last week's episodes of "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Party of Five," which scored, respectively, a 9.8/32 and 8.8/31 among female teens.
WB clobbered UPN's special anti-WB-tailored Tuesday competition, "Real Vampires ... Exposed!" (2.1/3) and "Alien Abduction" (2.3/4) and also beat out CBS in a variety of important demos, including teens and adults, men and women in the 18-34 and 18-49 breakouts.
The hot Tuesday start suggests WB could accomplish something virtually never seen before: add a night of programming to a schedule without dragging down the network's overall ratings. Keys now will be to hold that Tuesday lineup's inevitable post-premiere falloff to a minimum and hope the new Monday series "Three," which replaces "Buffy" on that night, can hold most of the audience "Buffy" has staked out for WB.
The Tuesday households race went to NBC and its 11.0/18, but ABC slipped ahead in adults 18-49 with a 6.8/18. WB's 18-49 average was a 2.9/8, which eclipsed the previous night's record 2.8/7.
Each household rating point represents an estimated 980,000 homes, or 1% of the country's TV homes. Each adults 18-49 rating point reps 1.23 million viewers, 1% of the U.S. total. A share is the same sort of percentage, except it's measured against only the homes or viewers watching TV during the timeslot involved.
