Soft start for ABC comedies

Ratings Flash - Rick Kissell

By RICK KISSELL

ABC's struggles with half-hour comedies continued Wednesday night as the premieres of "Knights of Prosperity" and "In Case of Emergency" ran fourth in most categories. The CW, on the other hand, was looking good with its two-hour bow of "Beauty and the Geek."

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, "Knights of Prosperity" opened with a 3.0 rating/7 share in adults 18-49 and 7.2 million viewers overall, and "In Case of Emergency" delivered a 2.7/7 in the demo and 6.3 million viewers overall. While these scores are an improvement over what "Day Break" was netting in the hour recently, the net can't be happy with a fourth-place finish in 18-49 or its fifth-place finish in adults 18-34. ABC ran third in the night's opening hour with two original episodes of "According to Jim" that averaged a 2.6/7 in 18-49 and 7.3 million viewers overall.

At the CW, the third-season debut of "Beauty and the Geek" (2.2 rating/6 share in adults 18-49, 4.9 million viewers overall) was in line with its season-two premiere scores last year on the WB, and the show set a series best in women 18-34 (3.5/9) — winning the 8-10 p.m. time period in this category.

Fox won the night thanks to its coverage of the college football Sugar Bowl contest between Louisiana State and Notre Dame. Game averaged a 5.2/13 in adults 18-49 and 14.6 million viewers overall on the net's affils from 8:30 to 11 p.m., and nationals are expected to come in at around that level.

NBC started slowly with an original episode of "Friday Night Lights" (2.3/6 in 18-49, 6.3 million viewers overall) before picking up at 9 with the timeslot debut of gameshow "Deal or No Deal" (3.5/9 in 18-49, 11.3 million viewers overall). And at 10, "Medium" (3.3/8 in 18-49, 9.3 million viewers overall) was on the high end of its range.

CBS was paced by repeats of "Criminal Minds" (3.5/9 in 18-49, 11.9 million viewers overall) and "CSI: NY" (3.2/8 in 18-49, 10.4 million viewers overall).

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: Fox, 4.9/13; CBS, 3.2/8; NBC, 3.0/8; ABC, 2.5/7; CW, 2.2/6; Univision, 1.7/4.

In total viewers: Fox, 14.0 million; CBS, 10.3 million; NBC, 9.0 million; ABC, 6.3 million; CW, 4.9 million; Univision, 4.2 million.