Private Practice News (Page 2)

ABC fall premiere dates have been announced, and are as follows: Dancing with the Stars returns with a two-hour premiere on September 22, while Grey’s Anatomy is back on the scene with a two-hour episode September 25.

Next, Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters come back new on Sunday, September 28; and Pushing Daisies, Private Practice, and Dirty Sexy Money all return with new episodes, finally, on Wednesday, October 1!

While many shows are taking breaks due to the holiday, Private Practice is airing an all-new episode tonight, entitled "In Which Cooper Finds a Port in His Storm." It is the third of eight Private Practice episodes to date (and second straight) to feature someone other than Addison in its title.

There's certainly a lot going on tonight from the looks of the previews (see below), with Addison and Cooper returning to the world of dating - with surprising results. Also, Sam and Naomi find themselves on a rather unusual house call, while Dell - and his classmates - are in full force.

Starting anytime, you can discuss the episode in our FORUM. As always, we will have our episode, recap, photo gallery and list of quotes up after the episode. Thanks for visiting the Insider, and we wish you happy viewing!

It was a big ratings night for CBS' Criminal Minds Wednesday.

After weathering the assault of two high-profile rookies at the 9 p.m. hour in ABC's Private Practice and NBC's Bionic Woman, as well as a major recasting after star Mandy Patinkin's abrupt exit during the summer, the veteran crime drama emerged as the top program in the hour this week.

With 15.7 million viewers and a 4.3 rating/11 share - its best ratings in nine months - Criminal Minds beat Private Practice and ranked No. 1 on the night in terms of total viewers and 18-49, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Private Practice (11.4 million, 4.2/10) was a close second in the 9 p.m. slot, while Bionic Woman (6.3 million, 2.5/6) continued its descent with its lowest number to date, finishing behind Fox's Kitchen Nightmares.

Additionally, the CW's America's Next Top Model (5.3 million, 2.6/8) hit season highs in adults 18-34 (2.5/7) and adults 18-49, and in the process lifted the freshman drama Gossip Girl to its best numbers since the premiere.

For the night, CBS led with 12.1 million viewers and a 3.5/9, followed by ABC (9.5, 3.4/9), Fox (7.2, 2.9/8), NBC (6.5, 2.3/8) and the CW (4.1, 2.0/5).

As with its parent series, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice sure doesn't appear to be exempt from the repercussions and ripple effects of the ongoing strike being staged by the Writers Guild of America (WGA).

If the writers' walkout endures, Private Practice, like many other series, may be forced to go off the air, or resort to reruns.

Despite such a grim possibility, Shonda Rhimes, its creator and executive producer, has given her complete support to the writers' cause.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, most new shows like Pushing Daisies and Private Practice, which had been picked up for full seasons a few weeks ago, will be able to churn out no more than 10 to 11 episodes of their debut seasons if current boycott continues.

But Rhimes, the woman behind both Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, has sent an e-mail message to the members of the WGA stating she would "choose not to render my services as a producer" while they walk out.

"I absolutely believed that I would edit our episodes," Shonda Rhimes wrote in her e-mail, which was widely circulated earlier this week.

"Until a thought hit me: how can I walk a picket line and then continue to work? How am I supposed to look at myself in the mirror or look at my child years from now and know that I did not have the courage of my convictions to stand up and put myself more at risk than anyone else?"

In a separate statement, Rhimes was quoted as having been of the opinion that the disgruntled writers truly do want to return to their duties.

"I feel like the writers really want to go back to work," Private Practice creator and executive producer Rhimes said during an event in New York.

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.