By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

CW's hot-teens-in-African-wildlife-sanctuary drama, "Life Is Wild," is already an endangered species after only 1.642 million viewers bothered to check out the opening episode live.

That's not even 10,000 viewers better than CW's worst-ever opening audience of 1.635 million for the summer series "Hidden Palms."

Even worse, only three-tenths of 1 percent of viewers in CW's target demographic group, 18-to-34-year-olds, were among the "crowd." And that sets a new low for a CW scripted series.

One year ago, CW launched half-hour series "Girlfriends" and "The Game" in the same 8 p.m. time slot and snagged nearly 3 million viewers and 1.2 percent of the country's 18-to-34-year-olds. That was considered so bad that two weeks later, CW moved "7th Heaven" into the time slot. In its first telecast there, "7th Heaven" clocked a little more than 3 million viewers and also 1.2 percent of the demographic group.

Long story short: "Life Is Wild" opened with about 50 percent fewer viewers and 75 percent fewer 18-to-34-year-olds.

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The debut of "Survivor: China" was the most DVR'd broadcast TV series the week before the official start of this TV season, according to Nielsen Media Research stats.

About 2 million viewers recorded "S:C" and played it back within seven days of its live broadcast.

A handful of other series premiered the week of Sept. 17-23. The list includes Fox's "Family Guy," "Prison Break," "The Simpsons" and "Back to You" and "K-ville," both new, as well as CBS's "Kid Nation" and "Shark."

Not surprisingly, the 10 most DVR'd broadcast series that week were all season debuts, series premieres and the season finale of "Big Brother" whatever number it's up to.

Oh, and that clip job ABC aired under the name "Come Rain or Come Shine: From 'Grey's Anatomy' to 'Private Practice,' " chronicling the character of Dr. Addison Montgomery as she migrated from Seattle to L.A., from "Grey's Anatomy" to "Private Practice," from interesting and wicked to nurturing and giggly. Nearly 1.3 million people recorded that clip job and watched it within seven days of its initial broadcast, for reasons best known to themselves and which we hope were not all about ABC's promise that if they suffered through the rerun-montage, they'd get to see the unveiling of the "Grey's Anatomy" music video. Because that would just be sad.

The "Family Guy" season debut was DVR'd by 1.8 million; the season debut of "Prison Break," 1.55 million.

The unveiling of Kelsey Grammer's sitcom "Back to You" was DVR'd by 1.46 million; the "Big Brother" finale, 1.25 million; "The Simpsons" debut, 1.1 million.

Just 1 million people recorded the opener of much-hated-by-critics "Kid Nation" and watched it within seven days of its unveiling -- nearly as many DVR'd the premiere of "K-Ville."

And yes, it's taken us this long to get these numbers out because it's taken Nielsen this long to spit out these numbers -- the Monopoly Defense.

You're going to suffer through lots of stories about DVR viewing this season because this is the first in which DVR penetration is up to 20 percent of U.S. television homes. That's about 22.5 million homes. Last season, DVR penetration stood at around 8 percent. The networks are hoping this season's so-far unsensational opening numbers are offset by boffo DVR stats.