While certainly not a depressing defeat at the hands of the Summer Television ratings decline, CBS’ Jericho returned last night (Cultural Learnings Jericho Rerun Report – “Pilot”) with ratings that are considered a mixed result. There are some positives, but since this is just the pilot it’s hard to tell how being a serial will affect future weeks.
From PIFeedback:
The return of CBS’ Jericho, also a repeat, was the most-watched show at 9 p.m., with 4.74 million viewers — 210,000 behind the encore of lead-in Ghost Whisperer. Demographically, Jericho was second among adults 18-49, with a 1.1/ 4.
The Good News:
– Jericho won its timeslot in viewership, something that Close to Home had done in the weeks previous.
– Jericho held onto a large chunk of its Ghost Whisperer lead-in (4.95 Million Viewers)
The Bad News:
– The show finished behind last week’s episode of Close to Home considerably in total viewers, and by a small margin in Adults 18-49.
– The show failed to be even close to competing with Friday Night Smackdown! in key demos.
All in all, I’d say it’s a disappointment in the fact that the show couldn’t elevate CBS’ ratings over last week’s crime procedural. Still, the show maintained a great deal of its lead-in and there is still a chance that next week could see the series perform slightly better. However, it will actually face more competition next week when FOX burns off its remaining episodes of Drive in the timeslot.
And if Jericho can keep these numbers steady throughout the summer, I think CBS will be pleased.
Cultural Learnings 
Honestly, I don’t know what I’ll do if they decide against the more episodes. For every single loyal fan out there, taking a show away just because the station is greedy is a completely hanus crime!
Please, CBS, do not let numbers get you down! You have got THE most loyal fans ever!
CBS must take into consideration that this was also the week of July 4th and so many people are on vacation and away from home. Evening plans for those vacationing aren’t usually going to include television watching. I was home and watched with my husband and sons (3) and we are in the demo of 18-49 yr olds and we live in Illinois. I think that if we continue the solid numbers with the reruns, we will be okay with the new episodes.
I completely forgot about the holiday factor, although the lack of a major drop in Ghost Whisperer numbers meant that it would likely have stayed fairly comparable anyways.
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Thank you for bringing back JERICO! Finally something good to watch on Friday nights. “Close to Home” has gotten old and boring and I stopped watching it. CBS – you have my viewership on Friday nights with JERICO! I’ve seen that episode several times and it was good to see it again.
Excellent acting! Excellent storyline! Very Compelling backstory! Moving!
One week is hard to access much of anything, I agree with the comments.
5 Million people watching on a Summer holiday week, on a Friday night and a re-run. I’d have to say that is pretty good.
I’m one of the ones that signed the petitions and am over 60. I’m proud that it has returned. I usually watch Ghost Whisperer, but didn’t Friday night. I tuned into CBS to watch Jericho and recorded it for backup and future viewing.
I realize that ratings are important but I already paid for and watched the entire first season .
Also the entire season is available for free on their website ,so who are the reruns for? people who dont have computers,itunes or money for a dvd?
that right there is the entire demographic for the show
Ratings will be seriously better once they provide new episodes
Ok, you’ve got to be kidding me… are they seriously upset that their numbers aren’t competing against Friday Night Smackdown???!! It is a staple on Friday nights and they are diehard fans (just like we are, by the way).
Jericho is a show that CBS is doing very little to promote. Unfortunatly, those of us that love it have to promote it for them… So, let’s not worry about the numbers for now, let’s just keep doing what we do best, watching the best show on television, keep telling everyone we know about it and NUTS to the rest!!
Fox won’t air DRIVE anymore, instead they’re showing more 5th Grader, which may hurt us more