9/24/2009

in

Modern Family and "Cougartown" both scored great ratings for ABC.

Tom Helberg

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ABC's new comedy "Modern Family" premiered Wednesday night to impressive ratings for the network, which has done horribly with comedies for the better part of the last decade.  
  
"Family," with 12.7 million viewers, helped the other new comedy that followed, "Cougartown," with comparable ratings at 11.4 million, the [reports.  
  
The most watched show Wednesday night was CBS's "Criminal Minds" which had 15.4 million viewers.  
  
NBC's new drama "Mercy" snagged 8.3 million viewers. ABC also had a drama premier with "Eastwick" which finished with 8.6 million.  
  
Long-running drama "Law & Order SVU" on NBC had been a hit in the 10 p.m. slot for years, but was suffered with the move to 9 to accommodate the new "Jay Leno Show." "SVU" fell to last place with 8.3 million.  
  
"Leno" had better than predicted numbers with 6.4 million viewers.](http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/for-abc-good-news-from-new-comedies/)