Natalie Ceretti (Milwaukee Millers), WFL Sunday Night Football (NBC-TV) (Channel 4)
Network Season Rankings
1. ICE - 8 wins (39 points)
2. ROD - 3 wins (22 points)
3. NBC - 2 wins (17 points)
DALLAS COWGIRLS UNDERCOVER BECOMES HIGHEST RATED SCRIPTED PILOT OF ALL-TIME
Mondays is the one night that ROD has looked to building their fall schedule around this season as they got their big-time acquisition of WFL Monday Night Football in to take care of Monday nights for them and they decided to pair it with a crime drama pilot built around a fictional version of the Dallas Cowgirls WFL football team featuring corruption within the executive staff portion of the club. The show was based off of the Jane Seymour Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders TV movies from the late 70s and the remake here in NITRO the past few seasons. ROD bought the rights to the third season of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Undercover last season and decided with the exit of the National Football League to try their hand at a Women's Football League version of the series. This version is proving already be more popular for ROD as this is a homemade pilot designed by Lucy Hale herself when she stepped into CEO back in 2016.
ROD Sony Alliance Chairman Shenae Grimes leads the role as a majority of episodes were filmed since 2017 taking advantage of the NITRO break featuring some of the ROD rookies on the back end and now the series is finally here and it's NITRO's most watched scripted pilot of all-time coming in with ratings of 127.75 surpassing last Wednesday's record set by The Wrong Students pilot at 119 million viewers so this big event was worth the hype also beating out last Monday's premiere of Truck Ladies which got 117 million viewers the Monday before. Both programs aired in front of Monday Night Football and proved to be the right move by both networks as the WFL tie in for Dallas Cowgirls Undercover was a simple scheduling move and gives ROD another hit drama they can add to their roster as ROD is killing right now with DCU, Pretty Thieves, Baywatch, Eight Is Enough, Steffy Forrester, Quinn Fuller, and Sheila Carter.
DCU should be good the rest of the fall airing in front of Monday Night Football but we'll have to see how it does when football season is over and does ROD continue to air it beyond February?
Monday Night Football's network premiere on ROD brought in great numbers getting 151.9 million viewers in week 2 for a regional contest between the Los Angeles Stars and Nevada Dice for the Vegas home opener featuring running back Kate Li Williams' home debut against the Summers sisters Kya and Mackinley's debuts for the Stars along with Juliane Landers. LA won this game on the road 33-24 to start their season 2-0 as Hailee Steinfeld continues to impress at quarterback as she got 3 touchdowns in this game and interception to Kelly Love who is looking good at corner for Nevada. Gia Jolie and Juliane Landers looked really good in this game as Gia Jolie got 13 tackles and Juliane Landers got an interception for the defense and Kya Summers added a lot to this defense. LA will be one of the team's to beat no doubt about it.
This was a solid number for MNF on ROD as this was 30 million viewers short of last week's premiere with Elle Alexandra's return to Montreal which is probably one of the most anticipated games of the season. Nice night for ROD overall though no doubt.
ICE was mad competitive on this night really keeping up with ICE's big night as they brought in a solid lineup of their own around the Monday debut of The Carpenters Hour as Truck Ladies led off to 92 million viewers and if Truck Ladies can hold here this is going to be a real solid freshman option for ICE in front of The Carpenters Hour all season as we'll have to see how DCU settles in next season.
Auditions were held in Norwood last night for The Carpenters Hour which hadn't been on the air in 12 nights since premiere night on opening day but the show has adapted safely to its Monday surrounding getting 135 million viewers against Monday Night Football. Even more impressive the second hour of The Hour actually beat MNF's second hour head-to-head so very impressive as New Girls in Town Pageant and Carpenters Hour very threatening to the WFL primetime programs to start the season.
OVERNIGHT NURSES REMAINED ON THE OVERNIGHT MAP
The return of one of the biggest surprising hits from last season in the nighttime medical soap opera Overnight Nurses premiered last night to a live audience at 107.9 million viewers. This premiere episode was highlighted by the acting debut of Rebecca Herbst's young cousin Natasha Herbst who stars along side her this season so that brought in some added buzz from the already huge premiere of Staying Alive as Rebecca Herbst along with co-star Kelly Monaco has been responsible for building up these ICE soaps in daytime and primetime and their soaps are ratings powerhouses so great news there as Overnight Nurses keeps airing with The Carpenters Hour like it did last season and had nearly 80% retention out of it.
NBC cooled off after a few great nights in primetime as their weakest night has turned into Mondays and with ICE and ROD averaging over 100 million viewers there's nothing NBC can do to fix this night until football season is over. Jaws remains the strongest option leading off but everything else was a dud especially Escape the Night.
Tomorrow night is Tuesday and Team ICE has a very interesting episode and selected stars from NBC and ROD will try to help Northern Secondary School make for some tighter contests for Team ICE who has dominated their competition the first two weeks. Chicago's Most Dangerous Bitch will hand off the torch from Jessica Lowndes to Paige Van Buren as the series highlights a teen witch who murders people all over Chicago with her satanic ways. NBC will have week 2 of Rachel and things will get real interesting here along with week 2 of ROD's Country Tuesdays which had mixed results last week.
