'Studio 60' Drags Down NBC Ratings

Los Angeles Times "Channel Island" weblog ^ | October 17, 2006 | Scott Collins

[RayChuang88]

Matt and Danny may be pulling good ratings with their fictional TV show, but in real life, NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" is another story.

"Studio 60" stars Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford as a bickering writing duo that presumes to rescue a once-funny late-night comedy show a la "Saturday Night Live." But it's become clear that writer Aaron Sorkin's backstage drama needs a lifeline of its own. On Monday the show slipped to its lowest rating so far in the critical adults aged 18-49 bracket, with a 3.1 rating/8 share (7.8 million total viewers), according to early data from Nielsen Media Research.

[RayChuang88]

I think two problems are plaguing this show:

1) Aaron Sorkin's political bias is showing, which turns off way too many viewers.

2) The show is not doing well especially in the Eastern and Central time zones, where it competes against a huge fraction of households with cable/satellite TV access tuned to ESPN's Monday Night Football telecasts.

In short, unless NBC is willing to "eat the cost" of circa US$3.5 million per episode until the NFL season ends hoping for better ratings then, I wouldn't be surprised that NBC does not take a full 22-24 episode season order.

[ken5050]

I caught a little bit of this week's episode while channel surfing. The Nancy Grace send off skit was hilarious...the actress did a dead-on impersonation...the stuff was much funnier than anything on SNL..