• by Wayne Friedman , September 21, 2012

What NBC did right with "The Voice" has not translated into similar comedy ratings.

The early premieres of the peacock network's veteran comedies were down -- in some cases by big double-digit percentages. (The official season starts on September 24).

At  8 p.m., "SNL Weekend Update Thursday" took in a Nielsen preliminary 1.6 rating/5 share among adults 18-49, down 6% from what "Community" earned in the time period just about a year ago. At 8:30 p.m. "Up All Night" landed with a 1.3/4 in the same demo, down 46% from the year-ago premiere.

NBC's usually big-rated comedy of the night, "The Office" at 9 p.m., starting up its last season, scoring a 2.1/6, down 46%, and "Parks and Recreation" at 9:30 p.m. took in a 1.7/5,  down 19%.

None of this helped its 10 p.m. news program "Rock Center With Brian Williams," which grabbed a 1.1/3, down 21% from last week's 1.4 rating.

This gave NBC a 1.5/4 average on the night behind reruns from CBS, which took a nightly average of 1.8/5, and Fox, which easily won with "X Factor" and "Glee" in tow, scoring a big 3.1/9 for the night.

Fox's "X Factor" witnessed a ratings climb week-to-week -- 10%, to a 3.4/11. For a second week "Glee" also posted good results, a 2.9/8, although down a bit from its 3.1 rating number a week ago.

ABC, ending its summer season efforts, had its reality competition "Wipeout" move up 30% to a 1.4/5 adults 18-49 rating/share for its finales. For the rest of the night, it had reruns.

ABC ended the night at a 1.2/4 just a bit behind Univision, which scored a 1.4/4. CW moved up a bit to a 0.5/2, up from a 0.2 rating the week before. Its music competition show "The Next" earned a 0.6/2.

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