• by Wayne Friedman , January 11, 2006

ABC has had a pretty decent mid-season start--until Monday night.

The network's heavily marketed "Emily's Reasons Why Not," a romantic comedy starring Heather Graham, couldn't keep up with CBS' "Two And A Half Men." Marketing experts say the network's paid-media plan was $3 million to $4 million to launch the show.

"Emily's Reasons" only pulled in with a 2.8 rating/7 share for 18-49 viewers and 6.2 million viewers for the 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. half hour. That couldn't cut it against CBS' dominant "Two And A Half Men"'s 5.9 rating/14 share among adult viewers 18-49.

Too bad "Emily's Reasons" had a good lead-in from "Wife Swap," which had a nice 4.4/12 in adults 18-49. ABC is trying to make inroads in Monday night, long a dominant night for CBS.

CBS' other comedies also had their way with network viewers--"King Of Queens" put up a 4.1/11 in 18-49, 12.1 million viewers overall--and "How I Met Your Mother" earned 4.2/11 in 18-49, and 11.5 million viewers. At 10 p.m., CBS' "CSI: Miami" grabbed its usual high numbers as well--a 6.5/16 in 18-49 viewers and 19.6 million viewers overall.

ABC also had trouble the rest of the evening. The return of last year's "Jake in Progress" earned a slight 2.5/6 in 18-49 with 5.6 million viewers overall. Later, ABC's "The Bachelor" couldn't do much better, with a 2.7/7 in 18-49 and 6.2 million viewers overall. Second place for the night went to NBC, with its "Surface," "Las Vegas," and "Medium" giving it a 3.6/9 in preliminary 18-49 viewers for the evening.

The final preliminary 18-49 scorecard for the night went like this: CBS, 5.3/13; NBC, 3.6/9; ABC, 3.3/8; Fox, 3.1/8; WB, 1.1/3; UPN, 1.1/3. In total viewers: CBS, 15.7 million; NBC, 10.6 million; Fox, 8.2 million; ABC, 7.7 million; WB, 2.8 million; UPN, 2.6 million.