It was no staid Friday last night on television with two premieres and originals across all the networks. Fox’s night was dominated by the two-hour return of Touch (1.0/3). Moved from Thursdays to Friday, the twice-pushed season two premiere of the Kiefer Sutherland thriller drama was down 70% from its formal season one premiere on March 22, 2012. Pulling in 3.77 million viewers last night, Touch was also down 23% from the 1.3/4 of the series’ season one finale on May 31, 2012. Last night’s sophomore debut was actually not a series low for Touch as it bested by 43% the 0.7 of the show’s last original, which Fox aired September 14, 2012. All those Touch numbers need a bit of context however. Unlike its season one premiere, Touch does not have the benefit this year of American Idol as a lead-in to its 9 PM airing. Touch will settle into its regular one-hour 9 PM slot, following Kitchen Nightmare, next week. The storm in the Northeast lead to some weather update pre-emptions which could cause fast nationals to change more than usual in the final numbers. However, based on the fast nationals we have, CBS won the night among total viewers with 8.226 million watching but ABC was tops among Adults 18-49.
CBS’ new reality series The Job (0.9/3) made its debut Friday too. Hosted by Lisa Ling, the Mark Burnett and Michael Davis produced show pits contestants against each other to get – you guessed it, a job, their dream job actually. The first interview for The Job was not strong with viewers. The premere was down 53% from the November 9, 2012 premiere of Undercover Boss in the same time slot. CSI: NY (1.6/5) saw the conclusion of CBS’ two-part crossover with the franchise original that started on Wednesday. Up 7% from last week, Friday’s CSI: NY matched a season high for the series. CBS closed the night with Blue Bloods (1.5/5) Even with last week, the family police drama was the most watched show of the night with 11.12 million viewers.
On ABC, the night began with Last Man Standing (1.6/5), which rose 14% from its February 1 episode. Fellow comedy Malibu Country (1.3/4) was also up, 8% from last week. The top show of the night among Adults 18-49, Shark Tank (1.9/6) was flat with last week. ABC ended with 20/20 (1.3/4) which was down 13% from last week. NBC was all news last night with a two-hour Dateline NBC (1.5/5), which was up 36% from its regular 10 PM airing on February 1. The series garnered 7.237 million viewers, its biggest audience since September 23, 2011. Dateline was followed by a Rock Center With Brian Williams (1.3/4). Last night was the news magazine series’ debut in its new Friday slot after being shifted out of Thursday for the now already cancelled Do No Harm. Compared to its last Thursday airing on January 24, Rock Center was up 63%. The CW had a new Nikita (0.5/2) last night. Up 25% from last week, the series matched its season high. That was followed by an encore of The Carrie Diaries (0.3/1).
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.


So happy to see the gain for Nikita again!
Interesting that “Rock Center” performed BETTER on Friday nights — WHERE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING — than Thursday nights.
NBC is such a colossally entertaining mess.
And CBS needs to buck up soon because “THE JOB” is a concept only rich people would come up with as a means of reflecting the current employment crisis. And it is a crisis.
But having people come on a game show to COMPETE for them is awful.
CBS needs to pull The Job from the schedule, like today.
If there are no more episodes of Undercover Boss in the can, they need to just stick TBBT at 8:00 and other comedy repeats at 8:30 for the rest of the season. Who knows? If the comedy repeats do well, it may convince CBS to try comedies on the night next fall.
Maybe CBS should buy Do No Harm from NBC and put it Fridays at 9 with The Job for a 1-2-punch!
The Job??? was horrible, the contestants had no BANG very dull, almost as bad as the show concept. I turned it off and listened to music after 30min.
Putting on a Show like The Job shows just how out of touch TV executives are about the realities of the job crisis. Folks, it is real and not something that can be addressed by a dull reality program. If you want to get peoples attention start covering the problem as a real issue with solutions. This is an insult to people looking for a job.
“Last Man Standing” is showing its muscle. ABC now has a strong comedy beach-head on Friday night.
Great for Last Man and Malibu. Two great shows, and my favorite night of television.
NBC should pick up “the Job” and use it to pick their new network boss, probably would work better than their previous process.
They already have The Apprentice with Donald Trump. The next edition starts in March and is a celebrity all-star edition.
THE JOB was a terrible idea from the start. Who wants to watch desperate people have a dream job dangled in their face when so many are out of work? ROCK CENTER should stick to Fridays. You can always DVR something scripted, go out, and watch it over the weekend. People are more likely to watch a news program live so it makes sense that ROCK CENTER could do better on a night leading into the weekend than a night when people are more likely to watch scripted fair when it airs.
CSI:NY remains the creaky, old, money-bleeding engine that could. Even though it’s never been worse or more boring — how many different times can a murder take place at a bar/club? A running joke amongst the crew. BLUE BLOODS is chaotic behind the scenes but is as rock solid as you could ever hope a scripted show on Friday Night. 11 million at 10pm is pretty fantastic.
Tim Doyle is totally right. LASTING MAN STANDING and MALIBU COUNTRY are decent enough family shows that ABC could leave alone on Friday until they each hit 88+. Who’s more likely to be home at 8? People with kids. Though SHARK TANK is the best show on the night so it’s not like ABC can expand and bring back the old TGIF?
I wonder if they’ll even bother keeping TOUCH on. Kiefer Sutherland was good as an action hero on 24, but on TOUCH he’s just some guy without any special skills so why did they think fans of 24 were going to follow him to this? And the plot is too silly and contrived for LOST/FRINGE fans. Fox should have given ALCATRAZ a second chance over this.
Yay for Nikita!!! Keep going up towards season 4!!!!!
Congratulations to Nikita! They deserve the gain, the season keeps getting better & better! Can’t wait to see what they have in store!
CBS really needs to pull “The Job” from their lineup effective immediately. Just such a horrible concept and it has been trashed by critics and the like and the people have spoken…take it off the air. Rock Center will probably get moved yet again after NBC canceled the horrible Do No Harm show, so they better not get too comfortable in that timeslot. NBC now dedicates their entire Friday primetime block to all news? Not a really good idea at that.
Happy about Nikita, hope the numbers don’t adjust down tomorrow. This is one of the most underrated shows on TV and deserves much higher ratings. Unfortunately, the fact that it’s on a network like The CW prevents many people from even giving it a chance.