LOST wins

The LOST season premiere handily won its time slot. At its peak, LOST earned a rating of 7.0 in the key demo (18-49 year olds), compared to its closest competition: the DR. PHIL's Special at 4.8.

AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL tied for last place at 2.0.

Each point translates into about 1.25 million viewers.

There are many explanations to why all of this happened and to extract every permutation would be lengthy. I suggest LOST did so well--and will do so well--not be because its pilot episode was particularly well written (again, I LOVE show-creator J.J. Abrams), but the idea of the show is different.

In a crowded TV marketplace, people will watch just about anything. But what people want is innovative, unique TV. The premise behind LOST is just that. I just wish there wasn't so much pipe-laying in the pilot, "Back when I was a resident...", versus showing a character practicing medicine on 12 people and the viewer is smart enough to figure it out. And cliched characters, a pregnant woman going into labor, the "foreign" couple with a dominating Asian husband barking orders which need subtitles, and a stupid fat guy.

Why does TV refuse to make fat people smart in shows? And for the record Camryn Manheim's character in THE PRACTICE was not smart. And Tyne Daily... well, you get my point.

What if you made the foreign couple Arab? Too daring? It's a national audience, we can't put Arab's in a show where a plane goes down! We need to stick with familiar stereotypes. I think little tweaks in story could get even more viewers.

Just because it's on broadcast TV, doesn't mean producers need to dumb it down. LAW & ORDER has had--and continues to have--a strong run because Dick Wolf and his talented group do not dumb the 20 LAW & ORDER shows, down.

Aside from being different than any other show in premise, LOST benefited from huge amounts of advertising which is not sustainable for the entire season. We all know how easily people are manipulated with commercials. Look at the presidential race to see that. Just because George Bush advertises more, doesn't mean he's better. The same can be said for LOST.

This is certainly not to imply that LOST is the George Bush of TV choices. Rather, the lesson to possibly be learned from Disney is to cross-promote properties. In LOST's case, it was on the Travel Channel; ESPN 1, 2, classic; Discovery Channel, and more.

TV learned another big lesson last night. Save that for tomorrow.