Fox's 'Dance' outshines premieres

CW's 'Palms' remains hidden

By RICK KISSELL

Fox's 'So You Think You Can Dance' outshined the preems of scripted series on ABC and the CW on Wednesday night.

The CW's Wednesday preem of teen drama 'Hidden Palms' drew little attention from viewers.

If Wednesday's ratings results are any indication, it's going to be another challenging summer for scripted dramas on the broadcast nets.

ABC's "Traveler" and CW's "Hidden Palms" both opened sluggishly on a night that saw auds flock to Fox's returning hit "So You Think You Can Dance." ABC also did pretty well with the debut of its unscripted celebrity impersonator skein "The Next Big Thing."

Viewers have grown accustomed to expecting less-than-stellar scripted product from the broadcast nets, perhaps making the task more difficult for "Traveler" and "Hidden Palms," both of which generated fairly solid reviews.

Fox's Wednesday premiere of "So You Think You Can Dance" controlled its 8-10 p.m. time period to stand as the night's top show, averaging a 4.1 rating/12 share in adults 18-49 and 9.33 million viewers overall.

Show was up 11% in 18-49 and an impressive 25% in 18-34 vs. its year-ago Wednesday premiere.

At ABC, "The Next Best Thing" (2.5/8 in 18-49, 7.75m) opened to solid second-place scores at 8, the net's best results in the time period since January. Beginning next week, returning reality series "American Inventor" will follow "Best Thing" at 9.

And at 10, new drama "Traveler" (2.1/6 in 18-49, 6.28m), which had bowed with a special preview episode following "Grey's Anatomy" on a Thursday three weeks ago, placed second in its regular-slot preem with nothing-special scores; still, it was up about 30% vs. "Commander in Chief" in the hour for ABC a year ago. 

At CW, Kevin Williamson sudser "Hidden Palms" (0.6/2 in 18-49, 1.60m) remained hidden from viewers, but did grow a bit in its second half-hour in the net's target 18-34 demo (0.9/3 at 8:30 vs. 0.6/2 at 8).  

NBC did OK with a pair of special "Most Outrageous Moments" specs from 8 to 10, building to a 2.4/7 in 18-49 and 6.9 million viewers overall from 9 to 10, while CBS' "CSI: NY" won the 10 o'clock hour (3.0/8 in 18-49, 10.10m) and was the night's most-watched program overall.