AMC’s utterly captivating meth saga Breaking Bad outdid itself during the show’s “No Mas” Season Three premiere last night.

The ratings are in, and The Hollywood Reporter reports the original series attracted the most viewers ever during the season opener’s double broadcast.

Numerically speaking, Breaking Bad‘s March 21 numbers were 17 percent higher than the ratings for the second-season premiere “Seven Thirty-Seven” that aired on March 8, 2009. Two million viewers tuned in to “No Mas” for the first broadcast at 10pm ET, and another 1.3 million showed up for the encore shortly afterwards at 11pm.

Such sweet news couldn’t happen to a more deserving show, especially since — as yesterday’s premiere clearly demonstrates — Breaking Bad is still bringing lots of the good stuff. I predict more Emmys and record ratings.

The good news, if that’s an accurate description, is that Kings held steady among 18–49-year-olds, more or less maintaining a 1.6 rating (average percentage of U.S. households tuned into the show) and 4 share (average percentage of televisions in use that were tuned into the show) for that big-deal (at least to advertisers) demographic.

The bad news is that the overall ratings consistently bled over the course of the two-hour time slot, going from 6.47 million (8–8:30pm EST) to 6.33 million (8:30pm–9pm) to 5.71 million (9pm–9:30pm) to finally 5.49 million (9:30pm–10pm). That’s a loss of nearly one million viewers from start to finish.

How do we know this is a poor performance, even if we have no clue what adequate or great ratings are? Well, the top primetime show of the night was ABC’s Desperate Housewives (of course) at 9pm, which raked in 14.44 million total viewers and achieved a 5.0/12 for the 18–49 demographic. Even Fox’s least-watched animated series of the night, King of the Hill, managed a 2.4/6 with an overall audience of just 5.38 million viewers.

I still haven’t had a chance to check out the Kings two-parter “Goliath” — so I can’t offer any assessments about quality at the moment — but I can’t help feeling bad for the cast and crew that it didn’t perform better. With a star like Ian McShane, surely the show couldn’t have been that awful and deserved a warmer reception and higher numbers. I guess I’ll see soon enough when I watch the episode.

I haven’t watched Fox’s American Idol regularly since Season One eons ago. Judging from the latest Nielsen numbers, however, I’m about the only person in the United States who doesn’t tune in to every episode.

Once again, the music reality competition leads the pack, earning the first and second slots in the Top 10 list of television shows for the week January 19–25. Sure, the ratings for the episodes are down 4.425 million (Wednesday) and 7.651 million (Tuesday) viewers. Then again, all of the numbers for the highest-rated series are lower this week than last.

As usual, the remaining eight spots in the Top 10 are occupied by a hodgepodge of familiar CBS and Fox series, with the exception of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, which takes the seventh position. A welcome addition to the winner’s circle is the Sunday-night staple Cold Case, a show I never hear anyone talking about that much, despite its consistently strong storylines and Nielsen performance.

Moving on to the Top 20, it’s nice to see Eleventh Hour, which I didn’t care for at first, placing a respectable 13th with 12.314 million total viewers. If ever there was an example of a series that has gotten progressively better, Eleventh Hour is it. I’m so glad I kept watching.

Also in the Top 20 are the premiere episode of Fox’s newbie Lie to Me (#12, 12.37 million), another debut that didn’t exactly wow me; the first 2009 episode of Fox’s creepily satisfying freshman chiller Fringe (#15, 11.962 million); and the fifth-season premiere of Lost pulling up the rear at Number 20 with 11.347 million total viewers. All in all, not too shabby.

The remaining Top 10 shows for the week January 19–25 follow.

1. American Idol, Wednesday (Fox) — 25.897 million viewers
2. American Idol, Tuesday (Fox) — 22.773 million viewers
3. CSI (CBS) — 17.572 million viewers
4. Two and a Half Men (CBS) — 16.094 million viewers
5. House (Fox) — 15.027 million viewers
6. CSI: Miami (CBS) — 14.579 million viewers
7. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) — 14.432 million viewers
8. 60 Minutes (CBS) — 14.208 million viewers
9. Criminal Minds (CBS) — 13.816 million viewers
10. Cold Case (CBS) — 13.257 million viewers

Not only is The Mentalist‘s star Simon Baker good, but he and his hit CBS show are damn good … that is, if you think landing two spots in the Top 10 for the January 12–18 period is worth something.

The rookie crime procedural attracted 18.069 million viewers and scored the Number 7 spot for its regular Tuesday episode, plus 16.387 million viewers and the Number 9 spot for its special Sunday post-football outing. Not bad.

Fox’s American Idol managed a similar unsurprising feat with its Tuesday and Wednesday installments, which allowed the reality competition to take the Number 2 and 3 spots with 30-plus million viewers.

Number 1 for the week, however, was good old football on CBS. The January 18th AFC Championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens drew a couch-potato crowd of 40.645 million viewers, giving it the best overall ratings for the seven-day period. The post-game event came in a respectable fourth, as well, with 25.441 million homebound spectators.

Read on for the remaining Top 10 shows for the January 12–18 week, and note the absence of any other networks besides CBS (eight entries) and Fox (two entries, one show).

1. AFC Championship (CBS) — 40.645 million viewers
2. American Idol, Tuesday (Fox) — 30.424 million viewers
3. American Idol, Wednesday (Fox) — 30.322 million viewers
4. AFC Championship Post Game (CBS) — 25.441 million viewers
5. CSI (CBS) — 24.246 million viewers
6. NCIS (CBS) — 18.62 million viewers
7. The Mentalist (CBS) — 18.069 million viewers
8. Two and a Half Men (CBS) — 17.102 million viewers
9. The Mentalist (CBS) — 16.387 million viewers
10. CSI: Miami (CBS) — 15.83 million viewers

This is the curse of following a hot, hot, hot TV series like American Idol, especially when you’re an untested, unproven show. After its Tuesday-night premiere, I intentionally refrained from writing about the excellent ratings Fox’s rookie supernatural cop drama New Amsterdam earned.

I wanted to see what would happen when it aired a second episode two days later on Thursday, opposite ABC’s phenomenal Lost (honestly — why aren’t more people watching this season?), CBS’ perennial fan favorite CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and NBC’s relatively popular Celebrity Apprentice. Just as I suspected, the Fox show came out on the losing end in more than one way.

According to overnight results from Nielsen Media Research, not only did the series attract fewer overall viewers than Lost (10.55 million for the Fox show versus 12.9 million for ABC’s), but more significantly, its audience substantially decreased from the first half-hour to the second while Lost‘s actually grew.

The drop was so steep — watchers tuned out to the tune of 2.9 million — that by the end of the hour, Celebrity Apprentice, which started with fewer viewers (8.4 million to New Amsterdam‘s 12 million), had gained more (9.3 million as opposed to New Amsterdam‘s 9.1 million). The CBS repeat of CSI lost viewers in the last half-hour, as well. But it too wound up with more than New Amsterdam in the final thirty minutes, matching Celebrity Apprentice at 9.3 million.

To be fair, New Amsterdam also experienced a similar two-plus-million drop-off from the first to second half-hour during the Tuesday debut. It started the hour with 14.94 million newcomers and ended it with 12.37 million, a difference of 2.57 million. Yet notably, almost all of the final number of people, 12 million, showed up again on Thursday for the beginning of the show.

I guess I’m one of the guilty parties responsible for the night-to-night decline as I recorded New Amsterdam to watch this weekend in favor of catching Lost in real time. While I enjoyed what I saw on Tuesday’s pilot — I reserve special praise for Danish star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and his English costar Zuleikha Robinson for putting in such good performances as Americans — the premise and execution of the show currently seem a bit too plain for my tastes in fantasy. I’m all about the high drama and “Wow!!!” effects.

If you’re going to have a 400-year-old, cursed, immortal cop in New York City, you’d better make him extraordinary. At least give him a superpower or something to help him fight crime, in addition to his impressive yet humdrum gigantic memory. As long as the series only strives for mediocrity, I’m afraid the audience will have no choice but to continue disappearing. There’s too much good stuff elsewhere on television for the outcome to be otherwise.

Thank goodness, then, that Thursday was a special night and Mondays from 9pm–10pm are New Amsterdam‘s regular time slot. That should help … until ABC resumes its formidable two-hour Dancing with the Stars installments again on March 24th.

Ratings Are Not Promising

By now, just about everyone knows the amazing tale of a little sci-fi series called Jericho and the Nuts campaign initiated by its equally amazing fans when CBS decided to cancel said series after several missteps that were the network’s own fault. Months after that newsworthy success, Jericho has headed our way again, airing for the past two weeks on Tuesday nights at 10pm EST. Sadly to say, however, the show has not been performing well in the Nielsen ratings, leading to legitimately concerned speculation that it might not survive for another season this time around.

Santa Shrek Is Number One

It’s finally over. The last day of November Sweeps was Wednesday, and the numbers are in. Give yourself a pat on the back, too, if you predicted that CBS would win the night in total viewers but ABC would kick butt in the 18–49 demographic because that’s exactly what happened.

Helio and Julianne Dance Up a Win

Tuesday was a huge night for ABC and Dancing with the Stars, and even bigger still for the newly crowned winning couple of Season Five, racecar driver Helio Castroneves and 19-year-old professional hoofer Julianne Hough.

Malcolm’s in the Middle No More

Tonight is the final night of November 2007 Sweeps, and do the networks have lots in store for viewers. The goodies include a few specials, both animated and not, as well as some guest appearances. On CBS’ hit FBI procedural Criminal Minds, Frankie Muniz—that cute little kid from the long-running Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle—is all grown up, and he might even be a serial killer. See for yourself at 9pm EST on CBS.

CBS Loosens ABC’s Stranglehold

While a Dancing with the Stars-infused ABC took top honors for total viewers on Monday night, Two and a Half Men and CSI: Miami helped CBS sneak in to tie for the most viewers between the magical ages of 18 and 49. Thus, for the first time this Sweeps, the Alphabet Network failed to pull a complete double win on the first workday of the week.