'Fringe' returns lower; 'Gifted Man' modest in ratings

In its series premiere Friday, CBS' ''A Gifted Man'' matched the 18-49 demo performance of the season premiere of ''Medium'' in the same 8 p.m. timeslot, but drew more than 50% more total viewers.
The Eye finished first Friday in both 18-49 and overall viewers, on a night mixing season premieres and repeats of the same.


According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, ''A Gifted Man'' (1.4/5 in 18-49, 9.3 million viewers overall), starring Patrick Wilson, came in second in at 8 p.m. in 18-49 behind the season premiere of Fox's ''Kitchen Nightmares'' (1.6/6, 3.8 million) but more than doubled the competition in overall viewers. ''Gifted'' had a 2.9 rating among women 25-54.


The 8 p.m. season premiere of the CW's ''Nikita'' (0.6/2, 1.9 million), on its new night, provided a demo rating that was less than 50% of its series debut a year ago on Thursdays, as well as last year's ''Smallville'' in the same spot.


NBC, which had aired in-case-you-missed-'em repeats of new series ''Up All Night'' (0.8/3, 3.2 million) and ''Whitney (0.9/3, 3.1 million) at 8 p.m., did best Friday with a two-hour ''Dateline'' (2.0/6, 7.1 million) that topped in the demo at 9 p.m. and matched the season premiere of CBS' ''Blue Bloods'' (2.0/6, 11.8 million) at 10 p.m.


''Blue Bloods'' had the night's top overall audience and a 3.7 rating in women 25-54.


At 9 p.m., the season premiere of CBS' ''CSI: NY'' (1.8/6, 10.7 million) topped those of Fox's ''Fringe'' (1.5/5, 3.5 million) and the CW's ''Supernatural'' (0.8/2, 2.0 million), all of them falling short of year-ago performances.


Fringe returned to 3.5 million viewers and a 1.5 adults 18-49 ratings, coming in third place in the hour and down 21 percent from when it first shifted to Fridays back in January.
Still, Fringe performed much better than the short-lived Good Guys in the slot from last fall and edged out the series premiere of CBS’ new metaphysical medical drama A Gifted Man (9.3 million, 1.4), which tied the debut of Medium in the time period from last year. Fringe‘s lead-in Kitchen Nightmares (3.8 million, 1.6) was down 16 percent. All told, given Fox’s rough history in these hours, this is the highest-rated premiere week Friday for the network in six years.
After Gifted Man, CBS had the season premiere of CSI: NY (10.7 million, 1.8), slipping 10 percent, and the return of Blue Bloods (11.8 million, 2.0) was down 9 percent. Blue Bloods tied NBC’s Dateline as Friday’s highest-rated show and CBS won the evening.
On The CW, Nikita (1.9 million, 0.6) and Supernatural (2 million, 0.8) were hurting. Being shifted to Fridays caused Nikita to debut with less than half the rating of its Thursday series premiere last year, and that’s also less than half the number that Smallville delivered in this slot. Lacking its super-powered lead-in, Supernatural was down 38 percent from its premiere here last year.