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USA’s ‘Royal Pains’ commands 5.6M in Thursday faceoff

By Scott Collins
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The broadcasters showed up Thursday, but USA really took the prize.

The cable outlet used the Season 3 premiere of its spy caper ‘Burn Notice’ to boost the series launch of ‘Royal Pains,’ its new drama about a handsome young doctor (Mark Feuerstein) in the Hamptons.

‘Burn Notice’ delivered its best season premiere ever, with an average of 6 million total viewers, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research. That was up 11% compared with the Season 2 launch last July. ‘Royal Pains’ held up well at 10 p.m., with 5.6 million viewers.

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The USA block’s performance was impressive considering the competition on the broadcast networks. ABC averaged 9.4 million for its coverage of Game 1 of the NBA Finals (the numbers are not yet time-adjusted). In head-to-head competition, ‘Royal Pains’ also beat the premiere of NBC’s new telepathy drama, ‘The Listener’ (5.3 million).

-Scott Collins

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Scott Collins

Scott Collins is a former staff reporter for the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times. He joined the staff in 2004 after previous stints at the Hollywood Reporter and Inside.com. Author of the book “Crazy Like a Fox: The Inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN,” he is a frequent pop-culture expert on national TV, radio shows and industry panels. He left The Times in 2016.

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