LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) — Fewer people are watching “Ellie,” and if its weekly ratings slide continues, Julia Louis-Dreyfus could join other “Seinfeld” veterans whose returns to prime time have flopped.
In its fourth outing Tuesday night, the show’s average audience dipped to 9.5 million viewers, down 43 percent from last month’s premiere, according to figures released Wednesday from Nielsen Media Research
Among viewers aged 18-49, the demographic most prized by advertisers, its rating dropped nearly 50 percent from a debut 7.1 to 3.6 in its fourth week.
If “Ellie” slips much more next week, “that would be a bad sign,” said one network source, when asked about the show’s future on NBC.
Expectations for “Ellie,” starring Louis-Dreyfus as a Los Angeles lounge singer, have run high given the success of its heavily promoted mid-season debut and the star power of its lead character.
The show also employs a “real-time” format that is similar to the one used in the popular Fox series “24.” It has received mixed reviews from critics.
“Watching Ellie” is being closely watched as the third attempt by a former “Seinfeld” co-star to transform stardom from NBC’s smash 1990s “show about nothing” into a new hit series.
Michael Richards, who played Kramer, was the first out of the box, with his disastrous “The Michael Richards Show,” canceled by NBC midway through last season. Jason Alexander, who played George, flopped one year later playing the title role in ABC’s “Bob Patterson,” a sitcom about a motivational speaker, in the current season.
Jerry Seinfeld has yet to announce any plans for a new show.
In total viewers Tuesday, “Watching Ellie” ranked third in its 8:30 p.m. time slot behind a rerun of the military drama “JAG” on CBS and the Fox network premiere of “Andy Richter Controls the Universe,” the new show starring the former sidekick from NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”
Richter’s debut, however, topped the time period among viewers 18- to 49-year-old and most other key demographics.
Indeed, the NBC official said the strong opening of “Richter” appeared to have been a leading factor in the disappointing showing for “Ellie.”
One positive note, “Ellie” retained about 90 percent of the 18-49 audience from its “Frasier” lead-in, which bodes well for the show because networks want to retain audience share.
Elsewhere on the mid-season premiere front, the new CBS talking-infant comedy “Baby Bob” debuted at the top of its Monday night time slot with 15.6 million viewers and ranked second among 18-49 viewers behind NBC’s “Fear Factor.”
Meanwhile, week No. 2 of NBC’s “The Colin Quinn Show,” starring the “Saturday Night Live” alumnus in his own sketch comedy series, averaged an anemic 7.2 million viewers Monday night, the same as the debut of Fox’s latest drama series, “American Embassy,” which also posted modest second-week numbers.
Next week, ABC debuts its working-class family sitcom “George Lopez,” network television’s first predominantly Latino-cast comedy in prime time since the short-lived “a.k.a. Pablo” in 1984.
