'V' is for very big audience? ABC thinks so.

More than 14 million people watched the unveiling of ABC's controversial "V" do-over, making it the second-biggest new-series opening of the two-month-old 2009-10 TV season.

CBS's "NCIS" spinoff, "NCIS: Los Angeles," is still the ratings champ, having attracted 19 million viewers to its premiere episode in September. But "V" squeaked by CBS's new "The Good Wife" (13.7 million viewers) to take second place among new-show premieres.

In its ratings report, ABC crowed about the 6.8 million people between the ages of 18 and 49 who watched the first episode of its new sci-fi series at 8 p.m. Tuesday -- a ratings performance the network characterized as "soaring" above the 5.6 million in that age bracket who instead chose to watch the sixth episode of the seventh season of CBS's "NCIS" in the same hour. "V" copped the most viewers in that age bracket of any regularly scheduled 8 p.m. drama series on any network since ABC introduced "Lost" in the fall of '04.

ABC focused on that 18-to-49-year-old slice of the viewing public because advertisers pay a premium to get their products in front of that demo.

The initial ratings were good news for the star-crossed series. The show was shut down in August for "creative" reasons after only a couple of episodes beyond the pilot were shot, and the so-called showrunner -- a writer-producer who makes the train run on time -- has already been replaced twice.

More recently, ABC scrubbed a nearly two-week campaign to skywrite large red V's over U.S. landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, after The TV Column estimated how many gallons of fuel, grams of lead, tons of CO2, etc. the stunt might dump into the air. The network continued to heavily promote the series in other ways, including its own airwaves.

And, in an e-mail, ABC programming chief Stephen McPherson rallied The Reporters Who Cover Television to help the new "V" "join the ranks" of "the most successful shows on our air," explaining, "I'm really proud of the work my team has done on this reinvention of what has been called a 'cult classic.' "

"V" is a reworking of an '80s miniseries that was a thinly veiled portrait of fascism. This version -- about lizard-creatures masquerading as pretty, charismatic human-looking aliens who snooker young-adult humans with promises of "hope," "change" and universal health care, in a campaign to infiltrate our government -- was timed to launch on the first anniversary of the election of President Obama. That was done even though it means only four episodes will air before it's taken off the schedule and the remaining episodes held until next calendar year.

'Gone Too Far': Past its prime time

MTV has yanked its deceased-DJ intervention series, "Gone Too Far," from its prime-time schedule after it died in the ratings.

The reality series has been moved to Thursdays at 11 p.m., starting this week.

Only three of the eight episodes ordered ran in prime time, when the number of homes using television is much higher than other parts of the day.

But its chance for survival in prime time pretty much evaporated when its much-ballyhooed premiere only attracted half a million viewers. Things looked slightly less dismal when the second episode attracted about 700,000 people, but last week's third episode dropped back down to under half a million.

"Gone Too Far" features young drug addicts, who are shown using and talking about their drug of choice. Celebrity DJ Adam Goldstein -- a.k.a. DJ AM -- headlined the show and is featured in each episode, dispensing tough love to the addicts and their families with a view toward getting the addict into rehab.

Goldstein, initially billed in the show as a sober recovering addict, was found dead shortly after he'd finished taping the eight episodes, and authorities ruled he'd died of a lethal cocktail of cocaine and prescription drugs. But MTV soon figured out a way to fumigate the project so it could still be telecast, by getting the written blessing of Goldstein's family and a statement from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The network said it would run the first episode without ads -- but with public service announcements. It did and, without all its usual ad breaks, the first episode ran for only 50 minutes. Then MTV immediately reran the first episode with double the ad load -- it ran 70 minutes.

And how's this for counterprogramming: The network has replaced "Gone Too Far" on Mondays with reruns of CMT's "World's Strictest Parents."