Nellie Andreeva

After a month of excitement, with Malibu Country and Last Man Standing launching strong, Shark Tank hitting highs and Undercover Boss rising, Friday returned to its normal depressing self last night with all programs under a 2 demo rating.

ABC’s Last Man Standing (1.4/5) and Malibu Country (1.3/4) continued to fall to new lows, down 14% and 24%, respectively, from last week. Last Man Standing‘s decline has been less steep — it is down 26% from its season premiere two weeks ago and outperformed its lead-out, Malibu Country (down 41% from the series premiere two weeks ago) for the first time last night. The comedies seem to be dragging Shark Tank down with them. At 9 PM, the reality series (1.9/6, down 10%) posted a second week of declines after two weeks of series highs, and is now below its last airing at 8 PM. 20/20 (1.4/4) too was down from last week, by 14% and yet ABC won the night in 18-49, a sign of how low the bar on the night is these days. And Shark Tank once again ranked as the highest-rated program of the night in 18-49 as it has for six of the past seven weeks.

CBS was once again paced by Undercover Boss (1.7/6), which was down 11% from last week, while CSI: NY (1.4/4) was flat. The special We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute to Whitney Houston (1.4/4) was down a tenth from last week’s episode of Blue Bloods in the hour.

On NBC, following comedy repeats, Grimm (1.6/5) was down a tenth from last week as was Dateline NBC (1.2/4). Fox was status quo, with Kitchen Nightmares (1.2/4) and Fringe (0.9/3) even with last Friday. On the CW, the season finale of America’s Next Top Model (0.6/2) was flat with last week, followed by the special America’s Next Top Model: The Girl With the Best Top Model Freakout (0.4/1), which improved on Nikita’s performance in the 9 PM hour last week by a tenth in the demo.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.