Can Sex Save Being Erica?

For the first time, Being Erica has slipped below the “More People Live in Brampton” threshold. Only 419,000 watched Wednesday night across Canada, another new low for the series. (The 2006 census pegged Brampton’s population at 433,806.)
Worse, only 176,000 of those viewers were in the 25-54-year-old range.
The rookie CBC fantasy drama has shed more than 10% of its audience a week since moving to Wednesdays three weeks ago, falling from 531,000 to 478,000 to 419,000. If that trend continues, Bleeding Erica will dip below the 400,000 mark next week.
It has also dipped below what the other CBC show launched in January, Wild Roses, draws.
Publicists have hit the panic button, selling next week’s episode with the promise of girl on girl action. One of those “the following program contains nudity and sexuality” disclaimers is being posted at the start and in the middle of next Wednesday’s show.
The tease promises more than it delivers. Erica jumps back in time to the turn of Y2K, when she had a brief flirtation with a former roommate, Cassidy (Anna Silk). She explores it for a few seconds, but then there’s Ryan, and Aaron, and, well, pretty soon they’ll have to call this show Being Young and Restless.
The scene has none of the provocative nudity of another show Erin Karpluk was on, The L-Word.
Just about every other show on Canadian screens was down Wednesday, too. The Week The Women Went drew 661,000 viewers, with just 208,000 of those 25-54. The CBC National News scored 685,000 with The Hour drawing 131,000 at 11.
CTV’s American Idol, delayed a day due to U.S. president Barack Obama’s televised address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, pulled a strong but not as mighty 1,948,000 estimated viewers according to BBM Canada “commercial” overnight numbers. CSI: New York was almost as robust at 10, drawing 1,812,000.
Global had a CBC kind of night (although Canwest stations do better in the demos), pulling 616,000 for Bones, 429,000 for Life and 297,000 for Life on Mars.