Loving Fringe

Starting at a later hour -- and with a big lead-in audience from the season debut of "House" -- J.J. Abrams's second series about the pitfalls of plane travel clocked 13.3 million viewers in its second episode, sparking "Fringe Explodes!" headlines in trade Web reports.

While that figure still doesn't match the nearly 19 million who caught the 2004 premiere episode of Abrams's first anti-air-travel drama, "Lost," there's no arguing that it's an impressive 46 percent more viewers than the 90-minute "Fringe" premiere managed to attract one week earlier. That night, the new series was forced to self-start at 8 p.m.

It's rare for the second episode of a new series to cop a bigger audience than the show's unveiling -- probably because the failure rate in the broadcast TV series business is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 percent. Anyway, Fox says "Fringe's" performance Tuesday marks the best Week 1 to Week 2 ratings increase for a new drama on any network in at least five years.

The "Fringe" audience and the "House" audience apparently got on like ham and eggs.

"Fringe" hung on to 93 percent of its lead-in "House" gang -- and 95 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 49, the age bracket networks bill and coo over, because advertisers pay them extra to do so.

"Fringe" actually attracted more male viewers than did "House" -- it was in fact the night's highest-rated program among men between the ages of 18 and 54.

from Washington Post

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