'Lyrics' Hits High Note In Ratings

by Wayne Friedman, Friday, Jul 13, 2007 7:45 AM ET

IN TV PROGRAMMING THEORY, TWO make a trend: Karaoke reality shows are now the way to summer success. A day after NBC's "The Singing Bee" vaulted to a big 5.1 rating among 18-49 viewers, Fox's "Don't Forget the Lyrics" posted a healthy summer-worthy Nielsen preliminary 3.4 rating. All this reveals a major strategy for both networks: Getting first to market usually lets it trump the competition. After announcing that "Singing Bee" would debut sometime in August, Fox said it had a karaoke type show, too--and it would launch in July. Not to be outdone, NBC said it would debut "Bee" one day earlier than "Lyrics." Still, "Lyrics" is now the second-best new show of the summer. It held onto all of its "So You Think You Can Dance?" 3.4 rating lead-in. "The Singing Bee" might be able to put more distance between "Lyrics" the next time around. "Bee" had Major League Baseball's All-Star game to contend with on Tuesday night--sending the game to its lowest TV ratings level ever. Like "Lyrics," "Bee" also had the benefit from a top-rated reality competition show, NBC's "America's Got Talent," which was its lead-in. Other reality shows were lower down on the charts. At 9 p.m., NBC got a 2.6 for "America's Got Talent," ABC managed a 2.0 for "American Inventor." At 8:30 p.m., a repeat of "Bee" took a 1.6 rating. At 10 p.m., NBC led all programs with a 2.9 for "Last Comic Standing." Overall, Fox was first for the night among 18-49s with a 3.1 rating/10 share; NBC was second at a 2.4/7; Univision was third at 2.3/7; CBS fourth at 1.9/6, ABC fifth at 1.7/5; and CW sixth at 0.6/2. Link to MediaPost Article