If you were to believe the press releases coming from The CW, you would think that the young network would be competing with NBC for fourth place this year.

But that's not the case. Through Tuesday, The CW has aired eight new television episodes to start the season -- including two new series -- with none of them blowing away competition, or even beating premieres in the same timeslots from a year ago.

The return of "Vampire Diaries" and "America's Next Top Model" along with the premieres of "Nikita" and "Hellcats" gave The CW a strong 2.0 rating/3 share average in overnights last week, as the first network to even begin airing fall programming. That was despite audience drops for both "Vampire Diaries" and "Top Model," both of which led the programming slate for The CW last year.

In two nights so far this week, The CW has averaged just a 1.2/2 with the premieres of "90210," "One Tree Hill," "Gossip Girl" and "Life Unexpected," numbers that The CW was praising -- but probably shouldn't be.

For "90210," the 1.3/2 premiere was the best the show has earned since last December. After grabbing a 1.8/3 in its season premiere on Sept. 8, 2009, "90210" would finish out May sweeps with ratings barely over a single rating point, ending with a 1.4/2 average.

"Gossip Girl" fared a little better last year, but also finished with a 1.4/2 average, its most recent season premiere picking up where last season's finale left off, in terms of audience numbers.

"Life Unexpected" is actually on the downturn. The CW moved that show to Tuesday along with "One Tree Hill," but on Mondays, "Life Unexpected" was pulling a 1.3/2 at 8 p.m., and a 1.4/2 at 9 p.m. -- both better than the 1.1/2 it premiered this season with. When Tuesday's numbers are combined, The CW's new schedule is basically ending up with the same-sized audience it had last year, and these are episodes that likely will finish the strongest for The CW.

The season has a long way to go, but NBC got some early encouragement. The season premiere of "Parenthood" on Tuesday earned a 5.0/9 in overnights, matching the show's series premiere on March 2. If "Parenthood" can keep the pace, it will prove more successful than either its spring run last year or the failed "Jay Leno Show" before it, which earned no more than a 4.2 average household rating in the timeslot.

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that include both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.

Data collected from The Nielsen Co., as distributed by Zap2it. BlipNetwork tracks non-news, non-event programming, and figures for this story reflect airing of new episodes only. For more information on the Audience Loyalty Index, click here.