Nellie Andreeva

Viewers largely said “Next!” to the CW’s newest summer reality offering as singing competition series Next opened with 850,000 total viewers and a 0.3/1 in adults 18-49 at 9 PM last night. That was down from the somewhat encouraging debut of the CW’s musical chairs-themed Oh Sit! on Wednesday (1.3 million viewers, 0.5/2) and slightly lower than the CW’s other underwhelming reality debuts this summer, The Catalina (994,000; 0.3) and Breaking Pointe (963,000; 0.4 in 18-34, 0.3 in 18-49). Speaking of Oh Sit!, in its second airing at 8 PM last night, the reality show dropped 30% to 911,000 and a 0.3/1.

ABC tested the crowded cooking reality space with the Time Machine Chefs special/backdoor pilot, which managed 3.5 million viewers and a 1.2/3 in 18-49 at 9 PM. That was way below the debuts of ABC’s new summer reality series Duets and Glass House and only a fraction better than the premiere of the short-lived Trust Us With Your Life (1.1/3). Time Machine Chefs was nestled between Wipeout (5.5 million, 1.6/6) and Rookie Blue (5 million, 1.3/4) Both were up from last week when they faced the Olympics on NBC, by 33% and 18% in 18-49, respectively.

Also rebounding from its faceoff with the Olympics last week was CBS’ Big Brother (2.3/7, 6.3 million), up 28% from last week in 18-49 for its best Thursday numbers since the season premiere. NBC’s lineup returned to normal after two weeks of London games coverage. Following comedy repeats, Saving Hope (0.9/3) and Rock Center With Brian Williams (1.2/4) were both up 50% from their last episodes three weeks ago. Fox is projected to win the night in the demo with NFL Pre-season coverage.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.