Private Practice News (Page 2)

You know it's been an underwhelming fall TV season when Sabrina Bryan being voted off Dancing with the Stars is big news. New hit shows? Not many!

Six weeks into the new season, not one new series has broken out of the pack to generate buzz and become a success the way Heroes did last year.

Still, Private Practice has emerged as one of the top contenders for class of the freshman class in 2007-08. Here's a look at how Private Practice and other new shows stack up to the competition, from the Detroit Free Press ...

The fall's top-rated rookies: Private Practice (No. 19, 13.2 million), Pushing Daisies (No. 27, 11.1 million), Bionic Woman (No. 28, 11 million) and Women's Murder Club (No. 33, 10.1 million).

The critics' top five: In no particular order; Pushing Daisies, Back to You, Dirty Sexy Money, Reaper and Aliens in America.

Top time slot slugfest: It's Wednesday night fights at 9, when Criminal Minds remains top dog, but rookies Private Practice, Bionic Woman and Gossip Girl have all carved successful niches despite big competition.

Most significant viewer trend: The growing impact of the TiVo, or Digital Video Recorder (DVR). The penetration of DVRs has more than doubled from last year, going from 9 to 20 percent.

Gloomy remake mistake: Bionic Woman, which despite buzz and fairly solid viewership is one intensely grim sci-fi fairy tale. And Bionic Woman has a chronic problem - the sullen mope performance of Michelle Ryan.

Continue reading this article here ...

It's official! The Grey's Anatomy spinoff, Private Practice, has earned the trust of ABC and has been picked up for a full season, according to E! Online.

This is just the second new series to get picked up for a full 2007-08 television series. The CW's Gossip Girl was the first.

This week's episode of Private Practice, "In Which Addison Has a Very Casual Get Together," averaged approximately 12 million viewers, down from its premiere, but solidifying it as a bona fide success after just four episodes.

We hear that David Sutcliffe was also recently cast as a possible new love interest for Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh). Very interesting!

Congrats to Kate, the whole Private Practice cast and its writing team. We're looking forward to a full season - and hopefully many more.

ABC's risky move of starting from scratch Wednesday nights is paying off, Variety reports, with Private Practice asserting itself as the fall's hottest rookie and Pushing Daisies continuing to show promise.

The network gambled with three new shows, all in a row, on Wednesdays.

In addition to Private Practice and Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money is hanging in there at 10 for ABC, as is NBC's 9 o'clock newcomer, Bionic Woman.

Not looking so hot on a busy night for first-year shows is CBS reality show Kid Nation, which has lost 1 share point each week since its debut, and Fox comedy Back to You, which also continued to decline in its fourth week.

Also carving out solid ratings are three non-scripted shows: Deal or No Deal on NBC, America's Next Top Model on the CW and Kitchen Nightmares on Fox.

According to Nielsen "live plus same-day" DVR estimates for Wednesday, Private Practice (4.9 rating/13 share in adults 18-49, 12.42 million viewers total) was up 9 percent week to week and won its hour by 3 shares over CBS' Criminal Minds (3.9/10 in 18-49, 14.55) and NBC's Bionic Woman (3.9/10, 10.28).

Continue Reading...

Call it a Bionic breakdown? NBC's Bionic Woman might need a tune-up after losing one-fifth of its premiere-week audience.

The retro-fitted remake averaged 11.1 million viewers (26th place), per the latest Nielsen rankings.

That was a better showing than all but two new fall series, but it was a far worse showing than the nearly 14 million viewers Bionic Woman had for its debut.

Among the networks' prized 18- to 49-year-old viewers, it didn't have any better luck. Bionic Woman fell from 8th to 19th, placing below such trendsetters as ABC's Brothers & Sisters and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Private Practice (17th place, 12.4 million), Bionic Woman's Wednesday night rival, slipped, too, but not nearly as badly or as far as the NBC show.

The Grey's Anatomy spinoff lost 2 million viewers, but just two places in the 18-49 rankings, down to 11th place, from the Private Practice premiere.

NBC and ABC's losses were CBS' gain, which saw Criminal Minds (10th place, 14.6 million) add nearly 2 million viewers who had trouble remembering when their favorite show was back with new episodes.

The CBS series evidently had its own trouble remembering to tell youngsters to watch — the show continued to run third in the 9 p.m. Wednesday hour, behind both Private Practice and Bionic Woman.

Continue reading more about Private Practice ratings...

With a few notable exceptions, the broadcast networks' new fall offerings are having trouble breaking through to the committed TV junkies out there.

Only ABC's Grey's Anatomy spin-off, Private Practice, and NBC's remake of Bionic Woman have cracked TiVo's top 50 ranking for shows that its users elect to record each time they air - i.e. the DVR company's "season pass" feature.

As of October 4, Private Practice was the 18th most popular show overall among TiVo season pass devotees, while Bionic Woman ranked 43rd.

However, this can be deceiving, as TiVo users are not required to regularly update their season pass listings, and thus some shows can remain entrenched in the top 50. For example, the shows Lost, American Idol and 24 are all top ten, despite the fact that none of them will air this fall.

Still, TiVo execs say that early season pass commitments to Private Practice and others are reflective of overall buzz and initial resonance with viewers.

"Although subscriber behavior habitually begins slowly - some are slow to add a new show to season pass and may sample it for a few weeks before making that commitment, Private Practice and Bionic Woman, two highly anticipated shows, opened with high expectations from a confident audience," said Todd Juenger, a VP & General Manager for TiVo.

Among the other new network series to at least register among TiVo season pass top 100 are NBC's Journeyman (54) and Chuck (75), CBS's Cane (70) and Kid Nation (89), ABC's Dirty Sexy Money (55) and Fox's Back to You (65).

Overall, ABC's Grey's Anatomy continues to be the number one show to receive a season pass commitment from TiVo users.

It's one of the TV season's newest - and already biggest - battles, so who won the first round of the ratings war between Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice and the revamped Bionic Woman? It was rather close.

Let's just say that no matter how tough Jamie Sommers (Michelle Ryan) may be with her acute hearing and super-human speed, she's still coming up a close second to Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh).

But the bottom line is that ratings for both shows' debuts were very successful - so much so that determining a winner is a very difficult task.

While Private Practice took home the overall bragging rights thanks to its 14.2 million viewers, helping ABC win the night, debuting with a 9.7 rating / 15 share at 9 p.m., Bionic Woman actually scored higher with the 18-49 demographic that advertisers covet. Bionic Woman brought in 13.6 million viewers total.

The third season premiere of Criminal Minds finished third in the time slot for CBS, followed by Fox's Kitchen Nightmares and The CW's Gossip Girl.

Can Private Practice and Bionic Woman keep the big audiences their debuts garnered? Regardless, it looks like these ladies have some staying power.

The Private Practice buzz paid off. Sort of.

After a slew of much-hyped new shows premiered to merely average ratings, NBC's heavily marketed Bionic Woman conquered a tough field of new and returning shows to win Wednesday night.

Bionic Woman earned a 5.5 rating among adults 18-49, topping the premiere of ABC's Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice, which earned a 5.1 rating.

Bionic Woman is the highest-rated new series premiere thus far this fall, with Private Practice second. Bionic Woman won its hour despite Private Practice having a higher lead-in and was the top Wednesday NBC debut since 1999.

The Bionic Woman-Private Practice showdown wounded the rest of the 9 p.m. field. CBS' Criminal Minds was down 22 percent from last year to a 3.5.

Continue Reading...

Good news for the future prospects of Private Practice, in the early going anyway. People at least seem willing to give the Grey's Anatomy spin-off a chance, a recent AOL poll shows. Over 93,000 respondents chimed in to AOL regarding the programs they plan to watch Wednesday.

As you can see, Private Practice has the lead in this sampling of potential viewers, leading both CBS' established and successful crime show Criminal Minds, and NBC's much-anticipated remake of the sci-fi series Bionic Woman.

Another buzzed-about new show, The CW's Gossip Girl, is also in this time slot and finished a distant fifth. If this poll is any indication, Kate Walsh and her co-stars have a good chance to stick this fall!

Although Private Practice was born out of ABC's hit medical "dramedy," Grey's Anatomy, series stars Kate Walsh and Tim Daly assure us that their upcoming show is quite different from its parent, as it will not only introduce viewers to new faces, but to some fresh storylines as well.

"It feels different, [but] it doesn't feel like we're consciously making it different," Walsh, best known as Dr. Addison Montgomery, told ET.

"Some scenes feel the same in some ways and then totally different in other ways because it's a whole new cast of characters... they are all completely new."

Tim Daly, who will appear on Private Practice as Dr. Pete Wilder, echoed Kate Walsh's statement, telling ET, "We're not Grey's Anatomy... We're a different cast, we're different actors; we have different lines and different professions."

The public first caught sight of the new medical drama when an extended episode of Grey's Anatomy introducing the new show aired in May.

In the backdoor pilot of Private Practice, viewers got their first glimpse of Daly, Amy Brenneman (Judging Amy), Paul Adelstein (Prison Break), Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars), and Taye Diggs (Kevin Hill).

Merrin Dungey appeared in the pilot as Naomi, the wife of Diggs' Sam Bennett, but her character is now going to be played by Audra McDonald (Kidnapped). KaDee Strickland (The Wedding Bells) joined the cast late.

Private Practice, scheduled to debut next week, will follow Addison as she settles into her new life in Los Angeles. An all-new special promoting both Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice airs tonight on ABC!

Rumors of an upcoming, joint ABC hour-long special for Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice are true: "Come Rain or Shine: From Grey's Anatomy to Private Practice" is scheduled for Wednesday, September 19 at 9 p.m.

The special offers an intimate look at Dr. Addison Montgomery from her arrival in Seattle to her turbulent life and quest to start a new one.

While there have been scant marketing efforts to promote the Grey's spin-off this summer, this special is clearly meant to prepare us for Private Practice.

Addison (Kate Walsh) has put her ex-husband Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and the rest of her life in Seattle behind her. She's ready for a new beginning!

Additionally, this special will feature a new Grey's Anatomy music video made out of the song "Breathe In Breathe Out" by Mat Kearney.

The special will also feature a first look from the new season of Grey's Anatomy and clips from the series premiere of Private Practice. Should be great to watch and get people involved. Check out this promo in the meantime!