Fall TV Season Claims First Victim, Nashville

Robert Altman's Nashville rated an Oscar. Fox's Nashville rated a quick hook.

The reality series is the first casualty of the new fall season, the network has confirmed to E! News.

Nashville aired but twice. The show about twentysomethings trying to make it in country music was supposed to bring a Southern-style Laguna Beach vibe to Fox. Instead, it only brought low ratings. The show averaged just 2.5 million viewers in its two outings, placing 109th in the most recent Nielsen Media Research standings.

The show will be replaced on the schedule this Friday by a repeat of K-Ville, Fox's struggling, but more-promising new cop show.

Elsewhere, Fox's House and ABC's Dancing with the Stars were the big ratings winners on Tuesday night.

The fourth-season premiere of the restaffed House averaged 18.1 million, preliminary Nielsen Media Research data showed. The show was down about 1.5 million total viewers from last fall's premiere, but up among 18- to 49-year-olds. Per ecstatic Fox, the show posted "the highest rated premiere of any network so far this season." All two days of it.

For all of its drawing power, House didn't really take off until Dancing with the Stars went off. In its first half-hour, House averaged 16.9 million viewers opposite Dancing's final half-hour (19.8 million). On its own, from 9:30-10 p.m., House zoomed up to 19.4 million viewers.

Overall, Dancing with the Stars stood as the night's most watched show, averaging 18.3 million fans for its boys' night in the ballroom. House stood as the highest-rated show in the 18-49 demographic.

Other premieres: The Kevin Smith-directed pilot of Reaper (3.2 million) helped bring (fan)boys to the America's Top Model-dominated CW; the ninth-season opener of NBC's Law & Order: SVU (12.1 million) won its time slot, but lost about 2.5 million viewers from last fall's first episode; Fox's Bones (8.3 million) kicked off its third season on par with its second (8.6 million); and, CBS' NCIS (13.7 million), fresh from a behind-the-scenes shakeup, added some viewers (about 200,000) from its fourth-season launch, while The Unit (10.7 million) lost about 1 million from its second-season debut.

Not that Fox is keeping track or anything, but the network wanted to point out that NCIS and The Unit both lost ground in the 18-49 department.

And not that CBS is minding that NBC is going to cram in as many Heroes viewers into next week's Nielsen standings as possible, but the network wanted to point out that once digital-video-recorder stats are considered, NCIS and The Unit will have both improved their lot in the 18-49 department.

Oddly enough, Fox and CBS had a differing of opinion on the performance of CBS' new Dallas of the Florida tropics drama, Cane (11.1 million).

Fox, the impartial observer, noted that the Jimmy Smits series was down 19 percent in the 18-49 demo from last fall's premiere of Smith, which you'll recall (and Fox did) was canceled after three episodes.

CBS, the hometown booster, noted that Cane was its most watched premiere in the 10 p.m., Tuesday time slot since a 1999 Judging Amy. As is its right, it noted the show's performance in the demo only in comparison to the lower rated The Unit, not the higher rated Smith.

The bottom line: Cane ran second in the hour in total viewers and the 18-49 demographic.

Nashville would love to have such problems.