CW's New Show

Tuesday, March 6
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Wednesday, March 14

CW's new show The Pussycat Dolls Present: Search for the Next Pussycat Doll has had an interesting start. The schedule is currently to air an original episode of the reality show on Tuesday at 9, following Gilmore Girls, and then air an encore episode on Wednesday at 9, following America's Next Top Model. In its first week, Pussycat reached an audience of about 3.9 million on Tuesday, and 3.7 on Wednesday. The fact that it retained nearly 100% of its audience for a repeat was a surprise, but this week was an even bigger surprise. The Tuesday episode brought in a mere 2.5 million viewers, down 1.4 million from its premiere. But the Wednesday episode, a repeat, was viewed by 3.5 million. The repeat episode reached a million more viewers!

The reasons behind this seem obvious. This is simply a show that is very lead-in dependent. This week's Tuesday episode aired out of an audience of 2.2 million watching a repeat of Gilmore Girls. The Wednesday episode had a lead-in of 5.2 million from America's Next Top Model. So that was a big boost, even though it was a repeat. But it still had a big drop from its first week, since its lead-in for week one was 4.4 million both Tuesday and Wednesday. That means its retention this week dropped from 84% to 67%. For a show that on the surface seems so lead-in dependent, it doesn't seem consistent in its retention.

But whatever the case, it definitely looks like CW should make some changes with Pussycats. The current plan is to air the originals on Tuesdays until it finishes its run after eight weeks, and air repeats on Wednesdays only for a couple more weeks until One Tree Hill comes back. It seems like a better choice would be to move the originals to Wednesday, where it could possibly do even better, and let it finish its run there, with repeats on Tuesdays until original episodes of Gilmore Girls return. At that point, they could bring back Veronica Mars, and wait to bring back One Tree Hill until May.