"Top Model" Off and Strutting

[stu]

By Joal Ryan

Fri Sep 22, 1:58 PM ET

 

 

 

A bad night for a bank teller was a good night for the CW.

 

America's Top Model helped inaugurate the green network with a strong season debut Wednesday. Per Nielsen Media Research stats, 5.3 million passed the channel-changing test and witnessed the demise of aspiring diva Christian Evans, a teller from South Carolina.

 

 

Top Model averaged 5 million viewers in its final season on UPN.

 

 

Wednesday's audience was the second biggest for a Top Model premiere and the biggest for a CW premiere. The former takes three years of history into account; the latter takes three days of history into account.

 

 

Made from salvaged parts of the late WB and the late UPN, the of-the-present CW launched Monday. It didn't launch a new show, however, until the two-hour Top Model.

 

 

Having declared itself on the prowl for 18-to-34-year-olds, the new network was particularly proud that Top Model was Wednesday's most watched show in the 8-10 p.m. time slot among its coveted adult life forms.

 

 

Another note for the horn-blowing CW: Top Model found its audience despite the show airing on a new channel in 71 percent of the TV nation. (In most of the top markets, the CW airs on stations formerly associated with the WB, requiring fans of UPN shows picked up by the new network to retrain their remotes.)

 

 

While the CW is off and running, Evans isn't. The season's first Top Model dismissal, the 19-year-old was advised by harsh taskmistress Tyra Banks that "there's something that's just not popping through."

 

 

NBC's Wednesday lineup suffered the same lack of pizzazz. The season premiere of The Biggest Loser and the series debut of Kidnapped ran third for the night, averaging an estimated 7.2 million and 7.5 million viewers respectively, according to Variety.

 

 

Fox fared even worse, with Bones (estimated 7.5 million) and Justice (estimated 5.6 million) dragging down the network to a fourth-place finish. In a very bad sign for a new show, the Victor Garber-led Justice was down 37 percent from its Aug. 30 debut.

 

 

In a perhaps very good sign of troubled times, Jericho, CBS' new family-hour drama about nuclear annihilation, "social, psychological and physical mayhem," "terror, anger and confusion" and (don't forget) "chaos," gave the network a giant 71 percent boost in the 8-9 p.m. Wednesday hour over last season's harmless comedy occupants, Still Standing and Yes, Dear.

 

 

All told, Jericho's series premiere blew up before an estimated 11.7 million. It ran second in its time slot behind ABC's Dancing with the Stars results show, which managed 15 million viewers despite no greater annihilation than that of Shanna Moakler's ballroom dreams.

 

 

Elsewhere on Wednesday, the third-season premiere of CBS' CSI: NY proved no stiff with an estimated 16.1 million viewers, tops for the night; while CBS' Criminal Minds avoided the sophomore slump with an estimated 15.7 million.

 

 

CBS finished first for the night, followed by ABC.