'Survivor' Reveals a Bit Too Much for Watchdog Group

Instead, ABC finished Premiere Week with 3 percent more viewers than in Premiere Week '07. Fox clocked 8 percent more viewers. Little CW grew 5 percent.

This went largely unreported in news articles about the season kickoff. Some reports mentioned CBS was down 5 percent year to year, but failed to mention that unlike last year, the network did not have a half-hour football overrun on Sunday that copped a whopping 29 million viewers and a 33 share of 18-to-49-year-olds. Those reports also mostly forgot to mention CBS did not unveil its Thursday 9-11 p.m. program block during Premiere Week this year, as it had in 2007. That includes CBS's most watched series, "CSI." And they probably should have mentioned that every network's Friday slate got wiped out this year by the first presidential debate, which may have hurt CBS, seemingly the one broadcast network still doing ratings business on Friday night.

In fairness, it is true the five broadcast networks collectively are down, year to year -- 3 percent among viewers in both that Holy Grail 18-49 age bracket and among viewers overall (compared with last year's Premiere Week declines of 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively).

But, as is sometimes the case in this industry, it's mostly one network that's dragging down those statistics. This year, that network is NBC.

NBC had a lousy Premiere Week. NBC was down 15 percent among those 18-to49-ers who are its bread-and-butter, and 16 percent among viewers of all ages.

"It's really NBC that's stinking up the joint," said one industry staffer who asked that he not be identified because you never know if your next boss might be somebody who was recently let go by NBC.

We'll see whether that continues to be the case as the new season progresses, and, if so, whether TRWCT ever identifies the smell.