Ratings: ‘Whodunnit?’ falls for episode 2, ‘Big Brother 15’ does the same thing

Now is not a good time to be a reality TV program airing on Sunday nights. Despite us making excuses that Nik Wallenda walking on a wire made a huge impact in the numbers for “Whodunnit?” last week, it turns out that just not that many people may be particularly interested in a show that we very much enjoy. It’s a shame, and also a sign that we better just enjoy what we have this year, given that we’re probably not going to have it again by the time the finale airs.

Overall, “Whodunnit?” slid down to a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic (slightly above “Glass House” numbers), while also getting over 3.2 million viewers. While you can still argue that there is a lot of death on at the same time with “Dexter” and “True Blood” on other networks, they should not take away too much of this audience, given that this is slightly more-family friendly (at least with the teenage crowd), and you don’t have to pay to watch it.

Meanwhile, “Big Brother 15” also dropped from its premiere, and posted a low 1.7 rating that is down six-tenths from the second show that aired last year. There are two quick takes that we have on this: Maybe starting the show in June was a bad idea for some who prefer to wait to watch until after July 4, and maybe not as many people are interested in newbies. This is what we like to call the “Survivor: One World” effect: After being spoiled by returning players, casual fans want to see some every year, and the ratings drop when they are not included. (“Survivor: One World” posted some of the lowest ratings of the CBS show’s run.) We will be shocked now if season 16 of “Big Brother” is either not an all-stars, or at least has some sort of returning houseguest element to it.

You can see most of our most-recent “Big Brother” stories in the sidebar to the right of this article; meanwhile, our full review of Sunday night’s “Whodunnit?” episode is up over at the link here.

Photo: CBS