HOLLYWOOD, California — The good news for the American version of Top Gear is that its third episode attracted an audience slightly larger than what the second episode did. According to Web site TV by the Numbers, this past Sunday a total of 1.304 million viewers tuned in to watch the third episode on the History cable channel. For all intents and purposes that's identical to the 1.275 million viewers audience that watched episode two.
But it's better news in the context of the show's competition. After all, NBC's Sunday Night Football featured one of the best games of the season: the Pittsburgh Steelers' dramatic 13-10 victory over division rivals the Baltimore Ravens. And over on AMC, the season finale of the The Walking Dead series was shown. Holding your own against Troy Polamalu's spectacular defensive play for the Steelers and The Walking Dead's zombie apocalypse is an encouraging ratings performance.
Incidentally the Steelers/Ravens struggle attracted a staggering 22.509 million viewers. And The Walking Dead snagged a thick 5.972 million — truly awesome for a basic cable show.
Less encouragingly, Top Gear continues to fail to hold onto the audience handed to it by its lead-in, Ice Road Truckers. Ice Road Truckers roped in 2.132 million viewers on History at 9:00 p.m. (EST) before handing off to Top Gear at 10:00 p.m. That means between the end of Ice Road Truckers and beginning of Top Gear, at least 800,000 people (about 39 percent of the IRT audience) changed the channel or turned off the TV altogether.
Another worrying sign for Top Gear is that the data indicates a tenth of a rating point drop in the desirable-to-advertisers 18-49 demographic.
The fourth episode of America's Top Gear will find itself in a different competitive environment next Sunday night. Without a new episode of The Walking Dead available, AMC will be running Bing Crosby's 1954 film White Christmas. And the Sunday Night Football match-up on NBC will have the Michael Vick-led Philadelphia Eagles facing off against the less-than-fearsome (but lately resurgent) Dallas Cowboys.
Inside Line says: We're still waiting for TG's Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust and Rutledge Wood to make us really laugh. Or thrill us. Or something. The Cowboys may be patsies, but Vick is so spectacular this year we may just stick with the NFL. — Lee Pray, Correspondent
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