CBS wins evening as 'Bachelor' declines

Could "The Bachelor" phenomenon be diminishing?Monday's season premiere from the longtime ABC reality skein -- now in the 16th cycle -- came a couple.4 rating/6 be part of the 18-49 demo, based on early estimations from Nielsen. As a whole audiences, the show attracted 7.7 million.In comparison towards the season premiere last year, the demo is lower 18% contributing to 1.3 less audiences were watching Monday evening.Granted, there is nfl and college football bowl games that may have introduced over some audiences from broadcast to cable -- the runover in the Rose Bowl and also the Fiesta Bowl were both on ESPN in primetime -- but most individuals football audiences were males, and "The Bachelor" is clearly a lady-skewing program.With "The Bachelor" lower, CBS had little problem using the evening. Ought to be fact, four Eye comedies along with a drama were the very best five shows Monday and taken every timeslot.CBS built on every half-hour, from 8 o'clock to 9:30 p.m. "The Way I Met Your Mother" (3.9/9, 10.2m) and "2 Broke Women" (4.3/10, 12m) brought in to the evening's top program, "2 . 5 Males" (4.4/10, 13.7m).There is a small drop-off for "Mike & Molly" (3.8/9, 11.9m) before CBS closed the evening with "Hawaii Five-" (2.9/7, 11.7m). Around the good side for ABC, the internet could be happy the debut of "Celebrity Wife Swap" came the same 2.4/6 as "The Bachelor," meaning there is no demo drop-off at 10 o'clock. However, the 6.two million tuning in meant single.5 million reduction in total audiences from "The Bachelor."NBC broadcast all original programming, and finest for that Peacock was the 9 p.m. "Fear Factor" (2.4/5, 5.9m), which increased 23% from the first half-hour to the second. Lead-in "Who's Still Standing" (1.5/3, 5.5m) and lead-out "Rock Center With John Williams" (1.2/3, 3.8m) weren't any match for CBS and ABC. The 3 shows were in line with their last original airings at the end of December.Fox elected to choose a set of "House" repeats (1.2/3, 3.6m and three.8m) while CW broadcast reruns of "The Key Circle" (.3/1, 992,000 and 790,000).Preliminary 18-49 earnings for that evening: CBS, 3.7/9 ABC, 2.4/6 NBC, 1.7/4 Univision, 1.6/4 Fox, 1.2/3 CW, .3/1.As a whole audiences: CBS, 11.9 million ABC, 7.two million NBC, 5.a million Univision, 3.7 million Fox, 3.7 million CW, 891,000. Contact Stuart Levine at stuart.levine@variety.com