Home Box Office's new mortuary series, Six Feet Under, came out of the
box strong, registering the largest household numbers for an original-series
premiere in the premium channel's history.
Six Feet Under -- the series created by Alan Ball (American
Beauty) that tracks the facts and fancies of a family running a funeral
parlor in Los Angeles -- posted an 11.2 rating in HBO homes June 3 from 10 p.m.
to 11 p.m., translating into some 3.8 million households and 5.1 million
viewers. That topped the 3.45 million households that tuned into the series
premiere of Dream On back in July 1990.
The new skein benefited from the strong lead-in of the fourth season premiere
of Sex and the City.The first two episodes of the Sarah Jessica
Parker vehicle averaged a 13.2 rating in HBO's universe -- a 12.6 for the 9 p.m.
to 9:30 p.m. installment and a 13.8 for the latter half-hour. That compares with
a 9.0 rating for the first episode of the third season, and it bests the series'
previous high of a 9.9, notched by its third-season finale last
October.
