Despite speculation that Central Part West is going the way of Models Inc., cbc saw the average viewing audience rise 24% between the second and third episodes.

The hour-long drama, one of several twentysomething Melrose Place-esque programs pebbling the new season, premiered in the Wednesday 9-10 p.m slot up against the softer, feel-good returning Party of Five on CanWest Global and two new series, Maybe This Time and The Naked Truth, on Baton Broadcasting.

cpw premiered Sept. 13 with an average minute audience of 728,000, dipping to 615,000 Sept. 20, and rising to 732,000 Sept. 27.

‘The second episode was up against other network season premieres and we weren’t surprised that viewership dipped that week as audiences were sampling. It’s still too early to predict average audience numbers for the season, but we’re pleased with the increase between the second and third nights,’ says cbc’s Kathy Hahn.

Looking at the Nielsen average minute audience for the week of Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, Top 20 Programs on English Networks, Wednesday evening is a cat fight, with the audience split so that not a single Wednesday night program appears in the top 20.

For cpw, November may be a rougher go. Baton has repositioned with an eye to taking Wednesday night. Blue Jays baseball, which ran in the Sept. 13, 20 and 27 slots, is finished and Maybe This Time, the Marie Osmond/Betty White half-hour, was dumped to Sunday at 5 p.m. at the end of September.

Ellen, the established u.s. comedy sit, has been moved to the top of the hour, leading into The Naked Truth, another comedy which, as of the week of Sept 21-27, was scoring 0.2 higher than Ellen in the Nielsen ratings in the u.s. Together the two may make a good fit, providing a comedy alternative in that slot to viewers finding Party of Five too genial and cpw too hard-edged. Stay tuned. AV