‘Reasons’ behind ABC Monday skid

Viewers found many reasons not to watch “Emily’s Reasons Why Not.”

ABC’s new sitcom, starring Heather Graham as a single career woman looking for love, bombed in its Monday debut, rounding up an average of just 6.2 million viewers for a distant fourth-place finish in its time slot, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research. The show apparently sent viewers racing for the remote, because “Emily’s” lead-in, the reality series “Wife Swap,” won its time slot among adults ages 18 to 49 and posted strong total viewer numbers (11.1 million).

After “Emily,” ABC’s new post-football Monday schedule kept going downhill. The return of the sitcom “Jake in Progress” tanked (5.6 million), and the premiere of the eighth season of “The Bachelor” proved a resistible date for most viewers (6.2 million).

-- Scott Collins