New ABC comedies have mixed start

ABC's new Wednesday comedies The Knights of Prosperity and In Case of Emergency improved on the now-axed Day Break's dire numbers but still failed to lift ABC from fourth place on their debut night, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.

The two half-hour comedies have replaced the Taye Diggs-led time looping mystery, which dropped from a debut watched by 10m viewers to just 3.9m viewers for its final outing on December 23. Knights, which stars Donal Logue as the Robin Hood-esque leader of a group planning a heist to finance their way out of dead-end jobs, debuted to 7.2m viewers and a 7% share among adults 18-49. Emergency, featuring Ally McBeal star Greg Germann as one of a group of friends who realise their lives haven't turned out as they had intended, maintained its 7% 18-49 share lead-in but dropped to 6.3m total viewers.

The two shows did however meet with considerable competition. Fox carried the the Louisiana State-Notre Dame Sugar Bowl game (14.4m viewers, 14% 18-49 share), and NBC continued to do well with its game show ratings powerhouse Deal or No Deal (11.3m viewers, 9% 18-49 share).