Nielsen Ratings Mon Apr 28: Youth Favors FOX's House

Scoreboard for Mon. April 28, 2008
Total Viewers (million)	13.68	12.10	11.24	9.80	2.51
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49	3.7/9	4.4/11	3.9/10	2.9/7	1.2/3

What a difference a week makes. House was back and led FOX to a win in the first Monday night of May sweeps in the 18-49 demographic. Yes, I know, it's still April, blame Nielsen! This year's May sweeps runs from April 24-May 21. ABC led the night in terms of overall viewers, but was 3rd in the 18-49 demographic. CBS was third in viewers, but second in the demo.

Dancing with the Stars was the most watched show of the evening with almost 18 million viewers and performed solidly in the demo with a 4.7/11. Samantha Who? has numbers which look really good, but DWTS with its scandalous judges apparently picking on injured people ran significantly into the 9:30 half hour, so Samantha's numbers will be adjusted downward in the finals.

FOX ran with new airings of Bones and House, and House scored a 5.7/13 in the 18-49 demographic in the overnights, the best performance of the night.

The Big Bang Theory is still the weakest link of the CBS Monday lineup, but still did a 3.0/9 in the demo in the "troubled during spring" 8pm slot. How I Met Your Mother is getting Britney back, but performed well in the demo without her (3.8/10). As usual, CBS got its best 18-49 performance with Two and a Half Men (4.7/11), but Rules of Engagement held a lot of it with a 3.9/9 in the demo. CSI: Miami won its timeslot with 13.6 million viewers and a 3.9/10, but that's fallen from 17.03m and a 5.2/14 on April 30, 2007. While there are many more DVRs in the panel than there were a year ago, it can't account for all of it. CSI: Miami typically has around 1.5 million DVR viewers who watch after the night the show aired.

NBC finished last not counting the CW, but in fairness, both Deal or No Deal and Medium have performed very consistently and Medium does have many DVR fans, typically over a million who don't watch it on Monday nights are added back in. It had a 3.1/8 in the demo even without them.

Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill had very similar numbers that were in line with last week, but without the female demographic info, it's probably not worth opining on. We predict from a Nielsen perspective, MTV's The Hills will perform better.

See Monday Night's Details:

Nielsen Ratings Source: Nielsen Media Research. Full night's results available via Marc Berman/Mediaweek.