Knight Rider Zooms With High Ratings

On Sunday night, the TV Movie, Knight Rider premiered with around 12.71Million viewers watching it, taking the second best spot of the night (right after Extreme Homemake Over). The TV Movie is a test to see whether or not the show gets picked up for the Fall Season. And it looks like it will be back...

"Knight Rider" averaged a 7.1 rating/11 share according to Fast National Ratings from Nielsen Media Research that showed there are still some fans willing to give this 1980s franchise from Glen A. Larson a chance. That includes a 6.9/10 in its first hour, second only to "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on ABC, and an even stronger 7.3/12, easily winning the 10 p.m. timeslot over ABC favorite "Brothers & Sisters," which struggled despite the "Extreme Makeover" lead-in, according to Zap2it.

The first hour of "Knight Rider" beat "Cold Case" on CBS as well as comedies like "Family Guy" and "American Dad" on Fox. The second hour also beat the network premiere of Showtime's "Dexter," which earned a 5.2/9, just half a ratings point behind "Brothers & Sisters."

All of this despite a very weak lead-in for the NBC show from "American Gladiators." The first hour of that series season finale earned just a 3.2/5, taking fourth place behind "60 Minutes" on CBS, "America's Funniest Home Videos" on ABC, and NASCAR coverage on Fox. While "Gladiators" did improve in the next hour, it was only by a ratings point likely pulling in some of the Daytona 500 crowd from Fox. It was enough to give NBC a second place showing for the hour, but was still behind ABC, but ahead of "Big Brother 9" on CBS and animated comedies on Fox.

On top of its strong overall ratings, "Knight Rider" also easily captured adults between the ages of 18 to 49, a key demographic for advertisers, leading NBC to a demo win over the other network, despite finishing third overall in households (while finishing second in total viewers ahead of CBS). | Source

I haven't seen it yet (I recently discovered what sleep is like and it is heavenly!), but I did a run-through and I think I will be enjoying this later. Not feeling the lead characters though but we'll see.

Incidentally, Dexter also premiered on network television last Sunday (it originally runs on cable, no censorship) to okay ratings. I have finally, finally caught up with this on Fox/Crime and I must say briefly, Michael C. Hall? So great!

I'm going back to bed for some more of those ZZzzz's (so that I can talk and blog better next.)