• by Wayne Friedman , October 5, 2007

One week into the new season and the two strongest rookie shows on TV last week look like they've had a run-in with kryptonite.

This week, both NBC's "Bionic Woman" and "Private Practice" had some rough outings in their second week in the highly prized 9 p.m. Wednesday time period. "Bionic" fell a dramatic 27% to a 4.0 Nielsen preliminary 18-49 live program-plus-same-day DVR viewer rating from a 5.5 the week before. ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff "Private Practice" also took a hit, down 12%.

"Practice" still won the time period, earning a 4.5. CBS' "Criminal Minds," which took a little bit of a beating the week before, drew closer to both shows with a 3.7 rating.

Overall, ABC was tops for the night, helped by a good 8 p.m. series debut of "Pushing Daisies" with a 4.2, which won the time period. Also, ABC's 10 p.m. show "Dirty Sexy Money" maintained its 3.6 rating versus its season week one premiere.

Two other new shows grew: CW's "Gossip Girls" gained 7% to a 1.7 rating among 18-34 viewers over is first week's numbers. Fox's "Kitchen Nightmares" grew 21% in 18-49 viewers to a 2.9, in a tough 9 p.m. time period against heavyweights "Bionic," "Practice" and "Minds."

For the night, ABC finished on top with a 4.1 rating/11 share. CBS was second at 3.4/9. NBC was right behind CBS at a 3.3/9. Fox was in fourth place at 2.7/7. Univision and CW tied at a 1.7/5.

Still, to one media agency executive, these numbers and trends may not mean much.

Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of audience analysis for Magna Global USA, says the only numbers of value right now are live program ratings--not live program plus same day of DVR playback ratings. But live program plus seven days of DVR playback ratings are valuable--they give media agencies a more complete picture.

Finally, C3 numbers--those new commercial ratings plus three days of DVR playback--are appropriate because those numbers are the basis media agencies use for their clients deals with networks.