The CW’s Sex and the City prequel, The Carrie Diaries, premiered last night on the network, and the numbers were nothing to write home about. Premieres often do better than subsequent episodes of a series, and if that holds true, The Carrie Diaries may be in trouble in the coming weeks.
The Carrie Diaries premiered to only 1.7 million total viewers and dropped to 1.4 million partway through its premiere, which would be abysmal numbers on channels like CBS or even NBC, but on the CW they are underwhelming but not awful. According to EW, the real trouble can be found in the 18-49 demographic, where the CW’s ratings usually swell. Unfortunately, the drama began with a .6 rating and fell to a .4 rating before the episode even ended. Putting a smile on, however, the CW says it has high hopes for DVR ratings, which certainly helped shows like Gossip Girl to improve.
In comparison, another middling show on the network, Hart of Dixie, has been pulling in anywhere between 1.2 and 1.6 million viewers each week during its second season. If The Carrie Diaries continues to drop in the numbers, we may be seeing an Emily Owens, M.D. sort of cancellation sooner rather than later. It’s obviously too soon to predict too far ahead, but the fact that the show started with higher ratings and had already dropped before the episode was over is not a particularly reassuring beginning. Hopefully for fans of the new series, this week has been more of a mistake from viewers not totally back into the swing of television viewing after the winter break.
The Carrie Diaries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
