So much for Fox's hope that its new My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss reality hoax series was going to a big fat ratings hit similar to last winter's My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance series. Instead Boss seems destined to follow in the footsteps of the "sequel" to another Fox smash hit Fox reality show -- 2003's disappointing The Next Joe Millionaire.
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According to the final Nielsen ratings for the Sunday, November 7, My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss' 9PM ET/PT premiere struggled mightily versus ABC's new surprise monster hit Desperate Housewives, drawing only 4.4 million viewers, a 2.8/4 rating/share in households, and a 2.1/5 in the Adults 18-49 demographic.
The performance placed Fox a distant fifth in the highly competitive hour, trailing not only Desperate Housewives (which drew 24.6 million viewers to finish the week as television's second most watched program, behind only CBS's CSI), but also well behind CBS's Dallas Reunion special (12.73 million viewers), and NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent (11.5 million viewers) and even The WB's Lord Of The Rings broadcast (4.6 million viewers).
More distressing for the network was that Boss couldn't even manage to hold on to the meager audience of the season premiere of its critically-acclaimed but low-rated Arrested Development sitcom. Despite delivering a ratings performcance that ranked among its best ever, Arrested Development still only drew 6.6 million viewers, a 3.9/6 rating/share in households, and a 3.2/7 in the Adults 18-49 demographic, but the performance was still significantly better than that delivered by My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss.