Final national ratings are in for the first week of the syndicated TV season — which gives a good snapshot of how the freshman talk shows, in particular, performed in their inaugural outings.
Leading the freshman class, in terms of total viewers, was Katie Couric’s “Katie,” which averaged 2.5 million viewers for the week ending Sept. 16. That was followed by the second week of “The Steve Harvey Show,” which averaged 1.7 million viewers, and “Jeff Probst,” off to a weak start with only 855,000 viewers on average. Ratings for Ricki Lake’s new talk show — she’s back after an eight-year layoff — were apparently “reprocessed” and didn’t appear on the national ratings chart. “The Ricki Lake Show” debuted to inauspicious ratings, so I’m guessing its numbers, for the week, will be disappointing when a final tally is released.
Meanwhile, Trisha Goddard’s new talk show, “Trisha,” didn’t premiere until Sept. 17, so its inaugural numbers won’t be available until next week. However, it was up 33 percent from its lead-in here in New York on Long Island’s Ch. 55 (WLNY) — and was up a whopping 100 percent over what “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” averaged in the same timeslot (5 p.m.) on Ch. 55 last September.
In the returning-talk-show category, “Dr. Phil” once again led the pack, averaging 3.5 million viewers, followed by “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” (3.3 million), “Dr. Oz” (3.1 million), “Live with Kelly & Michael” (3.1 million) “Maury” (2.7 million),“Jerry Springer” (1.9 million), “Steve Wilkos” (1.7 million) and “Rachael Ray” (1.6 million). Rachael Ray’s show also got a nice bump from Regis Philbin’s first appearance in what will be a recurring guest role.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, “Judge Judy” led the courtroom pack with 8.6 million viewers — light years ahead of second-place “Judge Joe Brown” (3.2 million, still nothing to sneeze at).
For the entertainment newsmagazines, the unheralded “Inside Edition,” which premiered back in 1988 (!), averaged a stellar 4 million viewers, second to genre leader “Entertainment Tonight” (4.6 million) and ahead of “Access Hollywood” (2.4 million).
And looping back to Steve Harvey . . . the success of his new talk show has apparently rubbed off on his other syndicated series, “Family Feud.”
(Harvey hosts “The Steve Harvey Show” from Chicago and taped the entire “Feud” season over the summer in Atlanta.)
For the first week of the season, “Feud’s” ratings were up 50 percent from last season’s premiere week — and it spiked by a whopping 46 percent in women 25-54 to beat both “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” in that demo.