This Monday's show averaged a 3 rating and a 1.15 in the critical 18- 49 demographic group, which determines the show's desirability to advertisers. The 1.15 number was against powerhouse Monday Night Football, but for the first time it sent Leno below the 1.5 mark that NBC had said, pre-launch, would define success.

The free-falling ratings have also dragged down the rest of the network's after hours line-up. The NY Times reports:

Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show fell to just a 1.8 rating in the overnight household ratings and the preliminary 18-49 ratings put him well below his main competitor, David Letterman on CBS. (Mr. Letterman's household ratings at 11:35 p.m. even beat Mr. Leno's at 10 p.m. a 3.3 to a 3.0.) ABC's late-night entry Jimmy Kimmel scored a 1.5, putting him closer to Mr. O'Brien — who starts a half-hour earlier than Mr. Kimmel - than Mr. O'Brien is to Mr. Letterman.

Across America, NBC's affiliate stations are sounding increasingly ready for war in the face of sinking viewership for their evening news show, pulled down by Leno's flailing lead-in.

To which the response from the show has been some minor tweaks to the format: moving the "signature" Jay Walking and headline-reading bits to their old slot after the monologe; moving them up from the back of the show — where they had been placed on the insane belief that people would stay around for them and thus provide a strong closer/lead-in to the local news. In other words, making the show even more like Leno's Tonight Show.

And now finally, the press, always eager to take a few whacks, has officially started the countdown clock on Jay's final days.

"To Save NBC, Rethink Leno Strategy" demands Newser.

"Is It Time to Pull the Plug on Leno?" asks an ABC news headline.

"Is Leno's 10 p.m. experiment nearing an end?" asks MSNBC!...of NBC network fame.

However, with the flood of bad press raining down on Jay's head, that can only mean one thing: rebound is just minutes away. While one would have to be certifiable to bet on Leno and NBC at this dark hour, the law of nature that no one ever lost a buck betting against the wisdom of the press has not been repealed.

For season two, the critical hype and savvy marketing tactics doubled the audience from the season one average. However, the ratings dropped nearly 40% in the second week, which means they lost almost all the curious people who got confused because Mad Men is a little deeper than your average Charlie Sheen sitcom. We'll let you know next Monday if the nation has smartened up a little bit in the past 12 months and grew an attention span to match the program.

Not that the summer was ever a terribly popular time for TV viewership, but ABC's 1.1 rating in the coveted demo last week represents a new, scary nadir.

If it was just ABC, we could chalk it up to shitty programming—they've been rolling out remainder episodes of already-canned shows like Eli Stone and The Unusuals that no one watched in the first place—but the other three (The CW really doesn't count and never did) are hemorrhaging as well.

Fox posted the highest numbers of the week, with a wan 1.7 share, as the other two came tumbling after. As expected the cable nets that air new episodes in the summer—reliables like Burn Notice and The Closer, newbie Royal Pains—are all running pretty well, so they're partly to blame. But the nets shouldn't even be coming close to the (once) lowly USA and TNT cablers.

And of course there's the internet and just the general diaspora of viewers to the millions of other TV channels (100k here, 100k there, it adds up) to be blamed. That's been going on for a few years now. What we're wondering today is how long this can be sustained. How does one approach advertisers with numbers like this? Again, summer's always a doldrums, but this is just hardly even worth it. Might as well rent a plane with a sign dragging behind it and fly it over Chicago. Sure would be cheaper. Plus, more people'd see it.

[NYT]

It's only been a week since Conan took over Jay Leno's old gig, and he's already losing. Letterman was up 13% in the ratings this past week vs. the week before—and last night he passed the Tonight Show, which has been steadily losing viewer every night since Conan started:

The ratings gap between the hosts has been narrowing nearly ever night since O'Brien took control of the "Tonight" franchise. The last time "Late Show" topped Jay Leno's "Tonight" was eight months ago.

Jay Leno, who was determined to never be funnier than the average American idiot, beat Letterman consistently. Now that Leno's moving to 10 pm, it may be that Letterman's time to be king has finally arrived. Conan O'Brien will be fine. But for years, Letterman's been losing out to a guy who was clearly less funny and consciously dumber than he is.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Now, America's in a strange situation: two funny late night hosts at once. No cheating, middle Americans! Larry the Cable Guy specials won't be on Comedy Central every night, for you to run to! Now, Letterman's the old established guy and Conan's the young upstart. Leno will be on earlier, and he'll bring an audience with him. But the people who used to stay up late watching Jay will now watch Letterman, because he's familiar and not quite as weird as Harvard boy Conan.

Which is just a long way of saying that David Letterman's time is, indeed, here at last. Sarah Palin calling him "pathetic" because he called her "slutty" is just gravy. Because the Palins are exactly the type of people who are going to be watching Dave all the time.

O'Brien's 7.1 rating was a full 173& higher than his February Late Night goodbye episode, though in Tonight terms, it still came in lower than old guard Jay Leno's Friday night sign-off. Perhaps people prefer a goodbye to a hello.

The important thing that remains to be seen is whether Conan can hold onto any of the old Leno fans. He's sure to bring his rabid Late Night fan base to the earlier slot, but judging by certain fussy old people's "We miss Leno... :(" reactions, his caustic absurdism may not play well with the watching-in-bed-til-the-Gas-X-kicks-in set.

Where it counts is the margin it wins over its competitors, a large percentage that keeps canyoning open wider and wider as the years go on. See, ratings numbers are in the first curling and browning stages of being rendered useless. Because people are stopping watching television all across the board—from Animal Planet to Zoey 101—what with DVRs and magic television-playing computers and so much choice that one just sits staring blankly at the black screen, overwhelmed with having to make a decision.

So it's not the millions, whether they be 34 or 23, that are watching. What's important is that Idol beat the number two program on the air (Desperater Housewives) by a whopping 72% in the key adult demo. Basically, anyone who was watching TV last night was watching American Idol. And that's all that advertisers can have the power to care about anymore. If there were only three people left watching television the whole world over, the show that two of those people were watching would be the golden goose.

Idol is reaching that event horizon where all of its subsidiary offshoots are the real cash crop, and TV advertising is reaching the sad, hobo point where it becomes about quality, not massive slobbering quantity. So a 10% ratings dip from last year really means bupkis. It's still the most dominant show the Nielsens have ever seen, and it'll continue to be so until that terrible marketing/merchandising house of cards crumbles. Which could be soon! Or it could be ten years from now! Either way, don't look to the stand alone volume to augur Idol's demise. Only when some new young buck comes strutting along and knocks the karaoke kompetition off its number one block should anyone start worrying.

Or, you know, celebrating.

They toss out horrifying figures, just to show how indestructible this Megalon truly is:

In the 2003-4 season, the first in which "Idol" was the top-rated prime-time series, its lead over the second place show was about 7 percent. That margin has grown every year since and this year is 66 percent.

Including revenue from "Idol" programming in other countries, from music sales related to all the "Idol" shows and from "So You Think You Can Dance," also on Fox, 19 Entertainment produced revenue of $223 million last year, up from $151 million two years earlier.

Worst of all:

"We have learned the lessons of the sports leagues in that they have all these ancillary revenue streams," said Robert F. X. Sillerman, chief executive of CKX Inc., the parent of 19 Entertainment. "And frankly, we're just beginning."

Aieeeee!!

The thing, though, that reporter Edward Wyatt might be overlooking is that when something begins to get so top heavy—when the core product beings to dwindle and the ancillary revenue star begins to burn dangerously white hot—it's usually an indication that the whole thing is soon to collapse terribly (terrifically?) on top of itself. (See: NBC) These sort of hollow beings may seem pretty looming, but they're mostly hot air. They're blowfish, basically.

Looking at the swirling menace from that angle, maybe there's light at the end of the shimmer-tunnel after all. And it's pink.

As you can see in TV By The Numbers' chart below, Fox's crime serial Lie to Me beat everyone, with nearly 8 million viewers and a 2.3 share. So Rupert Murdoch probably isn't too hurt that Obama snubbed Major Garrett of Fox News, who never got called on for a question like he did at the first two pressers.

That said, Obama beat Fox, if you add together his numbers on the other broadcast networks, and netted a respectable 29 million total viewers (including cable). And that's with questions from Ed Henry and Chuck Todd, who were not banned, or ritualistically flayed, this time. The American people really do have incredible fortitude.

Variety puts its comforting hand on our shoulder and reports that, there there, nothing is so bad after all. The Tina Fey tour de force is earning about 7.7 million viewers a week, up about 21% from last season. It's also hitting demo sweet spots, as most of its viewers are between 18-49, with nice growth in the lower (and more valuable) end of the spectrum.

The crazy thing about these sitcom-starved times is that those numbers, which would never really be considered high, make it the seventh most popular comedy on television right now. In the heady days of the power Tuesday and Must See TV Thursday sitcom blocks, an average of 7.7 million viewers would put a series significantly lower on the laffs totem pole. Lower even, for 1995-1996, than something called Can't Hurry Love, which starred Scott Baio.

Ah well. Now isn't the time for negativity. 30 Rock is a success, and has managed to still be consistently funny, so at least, if nothing else, we have that.

The Wrap reports that the film—in which Baron Cohen plays gay Austrian fashion correspondent Bruno who talks about doing ickies with other men—got the basically-banned-from-theaters rating because, in part, the character "appears to have anal sex with a man on camera. In another, the actor goes on a hunting trip and sneaks naked into the tent of one of the fellow hunters, an unsuspecting non-actor."

Baron Cohen's previous outing with Universal, Borat, initially earned an NC-17 as well, but was re-edited and got its coveted R. That film had a famous naked men wrestling sequence, though it wasn't as overtly homocentric as Bruno butt fucking or going on a talk show to discuss same-sex parenting, adopted black baby in tow. The notoriously homo and dick-phobic ratings board just can't abide that. Baron Cohen has appealed and the film will go back to the editing room to try and come up with a more palatable version.

Meanwhile the gratuitous tits of a movie not trying to say anything at all except "Straight men! Whoo!" like the abysmal College sail comfortably under the radar. Boys will be boys, not do them.

Nicole Kidman, plastic bee-stung actress of floundering status, has joined Woody Allen's next movie. Also on board are Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, and Freida Pino. Generally Allen's more star-studded movies turn out to be the worst ones (with the exception of Everyone Says I Love You), so this doesn't bode well. [Variety] Meanwhile the so totally still likable Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are said to be on board a James Mangold-directed movie about a luckless lady love loser who meets a mysterious stranger on a blind date. The movie was originally going to star Eva Mendes and Chris Tucker, so that should speak to its quality. [Variety]

The top 35 ad-based cable networks—Fox News, Food Network, Cartoon Network—are up 7% this year in ratings. Fox, for example, averages a depressing 1.7 million households, up 22% from the same quarter last year. Though other networks like MTV and Lifetime have seen drops, 16% and 12% respectively. Makes sense to us. What with the economy and all, no one has time to pay attention to things like music and women. [Variety]

Hm. Noted conservative 24 producer Joel Surnow (who is responsible for this) is penning a 10-hour miniseries called The Kennedys, which will dig into "the soiled and crooked steps" that the family took to insinuate themselves into the White House. A Canadian distributor plans to shop the idea around Cannes in May. Good luck finding actors! Though, I bet Bruce Willis would look fabulous in a wig and pillbox hat. [Variety]

Area hottie boombalottie Ian Somerhalder (Boone from Lorst) has been cast in a CW pilot called Vampire Diaries. He plays a vampire who is fun one minute, evil the next. And nude. Hopefully nude. [Variety] Former hottie boombalottie Orlando Bloom will be featured in the last unproduced screenplay by the late playwright Horton Foote. He'll play a small town North Carolina policeman. Also joining him in the cast is Andrew McCarthy. [THR]

Donald Sutherland will star in The Eastmans for CBS. [THR] Isaiah Washington is lined up to star in that Lou Rawls biopic everyone's been clamoring for. [THR] The comic American Jesus, about a modern-day bout between the Savior and the Antichrist, may be adapted into a film by X-Men director Matthew Vaughn. [THR]

The precipitously low (like, doomsday) six million average was for primetime from March 16th through the 22nd. While NBC did post higher numbers than Univision on average, the 18-34's are really all advertisers care about. So might we expect some more Latino-themed fare on NBC in the coming years? Given that 14% of Americans are Latino, and a lot of those folks seem to be tuning into their TV sets, it would certainly be about damn time.

Or they could just continue on with with whitey-whitebread sitcoms that only a sniggering few be-fashion-lensed hipsters watch. Frankly we'd rather watch the gonzo Sin Senos No Hay Paraiso (Ben Silverman has a plan for that) than another half hour of people smirking at cameras.

Fallon's scored a 2.3 rating which is an improvement, for now, on Conan's 1.7 average—we imagine that people will be less endeared to Fallon than they were to Conan, and will stop coming back once the new car smell disappears and the early slate of big guests has been cleared.

As far as his competition goes, Jimmy Kimmel, who starts a half hour earlier on ABC, drew a 2.5 rating with a synergistic stunt booking of the Bachelor on the same night as that show's finale. But over on CBS, Paris Hilton was no draw for Ferguson, scoring 35% fewer viewers than Fallon.

But still, good on the new late-night kid. He didn't flop or embarrass himself. Maybe once he gets his obvious nerves under control, the show can settle into a comfortable pace and work on slowly building a cultish audience.

[THR]

Mostly it was the canny-meets-annoying way that ABC kept teasing new changes and surprises to the flagging awards ceremony. What would they beeee, people wondered! Robots? Actual corpses trotted out for the 'In Memoriam' reel?? Turned out it was just a bunch of actors and actresses doing a four-part production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle for the acting awards and everything else getting lumped together hastily. They basically added even more silly pomp to the popular categories, and gave even shorter shrift to the ones no one cares about. Brilliant! But no matter how the changes and surprises (Eva Marie Saint is still alive!) turned out, the follow-through didn't really matter. It was the anticipation that brought the evening its successes.

Anticipation commingled with, yes, some curiosity about the gayness of Milk (including the Sean/Mickey love/hate fest) and Hugh Jackman, but also with the inevitable Heath Ledger death gawpers and those eager to see their beloved Titanic princess finally get her golden Heart of the Ocean. There was something more urgent and swoony about this year's Oscars, and the positive reception for the new, gayish stuff bodes well for the next go around. Hopefully the films will match, or surpass, this year's. And hopefully a movie star will die again!

Though, actually, the evening may owe the biggest debt of thanks the hideous recession. Terrified of the sound of the distant, gnawing, money-eating Langoliers outside, in recent months people have decided to stay at home and cower in front of the television more than ever before. So basically the Academy and ABC should say thank you to some very unusual suspects: The Gays, The Brits, Dead People, and The Banks.

Only in Hollywood!

Dollhouse, an Eliza Dushku-starrer about people reprogrammed with new personalities to complete tasks and fulfill wishes, earned about 4.7 million viewers and a low 2.0 share of adults 18-49 on Friday. It's not surprising that the show fared badly. Friday night is a veritable elephant graveyard of doomed and scuttled series and Whedon the Show Creator has never really had large numbers behind him. Critically-lauded cult status, yes. Bochco or even Kelley-sized ratings? Nay. We'll have to wait and see how long Fox soldiers on with D-house—it might depend (in very small part) on the rabidity of devoted Whedonphiles.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, another nerd show I sorta liked, has been swan diving for months. Last year it was television's highest-rated new series of the strike-plagued season. On Friday it garnered just 3.7 million viewers. Tough for a show that just got moved from a far more lucrative Monday night frame.

So Fox's years-long attempt to capitalize on the once-glorious sci-fi success of The X-Files (which started off on Fridays before moving to Sunday nights) continues to fail. Their big J.J. Abrams show Fringe has stumbled, and now these two loud misfires. Thank god for the otherworldly alien beep-boops of American Idol's Paula Abdul. Otherwise the network would seem terrestrial.

[THR]

That's not to say there wasn't some vindication in the averaged numbers, which Nielsen revised today to confirm that the game has history's most-watched with 98.5 million viewers. The figures aligned closer with NBC's preliminary estimate, and were accompanied by the network's head of research half-assedly forgiving Nielsen's error. "They are looking into the problem," we're told. "But the final report card is accurate: This Super Bowl is the most-watched program in television history."

Wait, what? Doesn't the final episode of M*A*S*H still hold that distinction with 106 million viewers? Not if you count virtually anyone who watched so much as a few commercials or an instant-review break, which NBC is reportedly doing on the way to claiming a final tally of 151.6 million viewers Sunday night. Way to set a precedent, team — which in turn sets us up for even more creative network revisions and, naturally, a full season order of Knight Rider, which minutes ago we were surprised to learn actually drew 77 million viewers at its peak. And you don't even want to know what a retroactive smash Rosie Live! was. Thanks for nothing, Nielsen.

• Super Bowl update: NBC says game was most-watched ever [EW]

• NBC claims Super Bowl the most-watched event ever [The Live Feed]

ABC announced today that it would bench Betty in March to make way for Samantha Who and the Megan Mullally-terrorized Motherhood, then return the America Ferrara vehicle after those two sitcoms complete their runs. However, as Michael Ausiello points out, that would be June (at the earliest).

The move is only the latest pratfall for Betty, which ABC has tinkered with constantly in the hopes of recapturing its first-season ratings (though many of the show's early elements—including executive producer Marco Pennette, the Los Angeles set, and Rebecca Romijn as a transsexual—have been jettisoned). At least if ABC shelves Betty entirely, Ferrera can always guest on her best friend Blake Lively's show. Oh, wait.

• ABC shuffles comedy slate [Variety]