Just a few days after NBC’s Thursday night comedy block returned to less-than-stellar ratings, CBS’s Monday night sitcom bunch came back to a cold reception too. This was the first time the Monday block hasn’t included Two and a Half Men, which scored sky-high Nielsens in the 9pm timeslot for nearly a decade before CBS moved it to Thursdays for this season, so that may have something to do with the dip.
The season premiere of How I Met Your Mother received a 3.4, down significantly from the previous season’s 4.7 rating with adults 18-49, followed by new series Partners, which got a 2.4. 2 Broke Girls, which just took over Two and a Half Men’s 9pm anchor position, was also down, 3.7 from last year’s premiere 7.1 (which, to be fair, did have the wildly-popular, first Charlie Sheen-less episode of Two and a Half Men as a lead-in), with Mike & Molly finishing up the string of sitcoms with a 3.0, down from the previous season’s 4.8. It may provide some solace to fans of NBC’s critically-acclaimed but ratings-challenged Thursday comedies that CBS’s critically-reviled ratings hits (except How I Met Your Mother, which is enjoyed by critics and Nielsen families alike) are also experiencing a little bit of a hit, but it’s not great that fewer people seem to be watching network sitcoms all across the board. You can bet CBS execs are longing for the days of Ray Romano and Charlie Sheen right about now.