Ugly Betty Improves its Time Period

Some highlights on ABC's Friday night, including the 2-hour season premiere of Ugly Betty (on its new night) and ABC News' 20/20 at 10pm.

Up against stiff competition from Game 1 of the MLB American League playoffs on Fox (LA Angels-NY Yankees) from 8-10pm, ABC's Ugly Betty drew 5.1 million viewers during its season opener, representing a 16% improvement for ABC in the time period year to year over its October 2008 average (4.4 million Supernanny/Wife Swap originals).

Betty posted ABC's top Women 18-34 number (1.6/6) in the time slot in 6 months since 4/17/09.

Betty finished #2 in its slot with Women 18-49 (1.9/6), behind only CBS' time-period established dramas (Ghost Whisperer/Medium)

DVR Playback Note: Last season, Ugly Betty posted substantial gains through DVR playback, picking up an average of 800,000 viewers and an additional four-tenths of an Adult 18-49 rating point (+17%) from the initially reported Live + Same Day Numbers to the final L+7 DVR finals. With Household DVR penetration increasing from 27% to 33% year to year, series are seeing even bigger increases in the final playback numbers this season.

Building on its Betty lead-in, 20/20 won the 10 o'clock hour in Adults 18-49 (2.0/6) and Adults 25-54 (2.5/7), beating CBS' original Numbers. The ABC newsmagazine topped NBC's Jay Leno in the hour by 2.0 million viewers (7.0 million vs. 5.0 million) and by 67% (2.0/6 vs. 1.2/4 a new low for the NBC show).