Scroll down for an UPDATE with info about some shows people asked about which were not in the data we received...
Fox News Channel dominated the weekly charts with coverage of the Republican Convention, including the top two spots of the week for Wednesday and Thursday coverage at 10pm. Thursday's coverage of McCain's acceptance speech was the most-watched show on cable all week. All tallied, FNC took eleven of the top twenty spots.
MTV's 2008 Video Music Awards were not far behind with 8.425 million viewers Sunday night. The Closer, back up over eight million (8.05) viewers took the fourth spot. As previously reported, TNT's Raising the Bar marked its series premiere with 7.735 million viewers. The return of college football proved popular for ESPN, which placed both the Labor Day matchup between Tennessee and UCLA (#11) and Saturday night's Miami vs. Florida (#8) matchups in the top twenty.
Monk placed 17th with 4.991 million viewers and Psych dipped to 30th due to all the convention coverage but still had 4.233 million viewers. A Saturday rainout forced NASCAR off of ABC on Saturday and on to ESPN on Sunday against NFL football, and it resulted in one of the least-watched NASCAR events I can recall (#35 with 3.974 million).
Convention coverage squeezed our square-panted friend, well, like a sponge, and SpongeBob's highest placement for the week was #22 with 4.743.
Not on the list below or already mentioned above: more convention coverage on FNC (MSNBC had no shows in this week's top forty program rankings), several more SpongeBobs, as well as the pre and post event coverage of MTV's VMAs. ESPN also placed another NCAA football matchup in the top 40 at #36 (Ohio vs. Ohio State on Saturday afternoon with 3.905 million viewers). Army Wives placed 39th with 3.852 million and our friends at NICK's Back at the Barnyard placed 38th with 3.86 million viewers on Saturday.
Between all the convention coverage and US Open Tennis airing on USA Network, we see the rare case of no WWE Raw. One thing we can conclude, at least in total viewer numbers is that WWE Raw attracts more viewers than US Open Tennis coverage...
Update 9/10/08: Here are some additional numbers people asked about that were not among the data we received directly via Nielsen (all numbers are for the week of 9/1-9/7): ABC Family's Secret Life of an American Teenager, 3.6 million viewers. MTV's The Hills, 3.3 million viewers. Bravo's Project Runway, 3.26 million viewers. HBO's Entourage, 1.6 million viewers. HBO's True Blood, 1.4 million viewers (in its first airing, an encore airing later Sunday night drew ~700,000 additional viewers).
Full Top 20 Cable Results for the week ending 09/07/2008:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY(S) | Live+SD HH Rating | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | YOU DEC 08-REP CONVENTION(S)-09/04/2008 | FOXNC | THURSDAY | 5.4 | 9,187 |
| 2 | YOU DEC 08-REP CONVENTION(S)-09/03/2008 | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 5.3 | 9,038 |
| 3 | 2008 VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS | MTV | SUNDAY | 5.0 | 8,425 |
| 4 | CLOSER, THE | TNT | MONDAY | 5.1 | 8,050 |
| 5 | YOU DEC 08-REP CONVENTION(S)-09/03/2008 | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 4.6 | 8,016 |
| 6 | RAISING THE BAR | TNT | MONDAY | 5.0 | 7,735 |
| 7 | YOU DEC 08-REP CONVENTION(S)-09/04/2008 | FOXNC | THURSDAY | 4.3 | 7,010 |
| 8 | COLL FTBALL-SAT PRIME L (MIAMI/FLORIDA) | ESPN | SATURDAY | 4.3 | 6,954 |
| 9 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | THURSDAY | 4.2 | 6,644 |
| 10 | YOU DEC 08-REP CONVENTION(S)-09/04/2008 | FOXNC | THURSDAY | 3.8 | 6,440 |
| 11 | COLL FTBALL-MON PRIME L (TENNESSEE/UCLA) | ESPN | MONDAY | 4.1 | 6,240 |
| 12 | YOU DEC 08-REP CONVENTION(S)-09/02/2008 | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 3.8 | 6,179 |
| 13 | SR/RNC 2008(S)-09/03/2008 | CNN | WEDNESDAY | 4.0 | 6,114 |
| 14 | Hannity & COLMES | FOXNC | THURSDAY | 3.5 | 5,581 |
| 15 | YOU DEC 08-REP CONVENTION(S)-09/02/2008 | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 3.4 | 5,455 |
| 16 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 3.5 | 5,206 |
| 17 | MONK | USA | FRIDAY | 3.1 | 4,991 |
| 18 | Hannity & COLMES | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 3.3 | 4,948 |
| 19 | SR/RNC 2008(S)-09/03/2008 | CNN | WEDNESDAY | 3.1 | 4,886 |
| 20 | SR/RNC 2008(S)-09/04/2008 | CNN | THURSDAY | 3.1 | 4,874 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
“raising the bar” is a bland procedural..but i am happy its done so well so far…the nitwits in development have been churning out all these supernatural or feel good sunny skies dramas…avoiding straight ahead procedurals…so here comes bochco with some awful lawyer courtroom show straight out of the 1980′s and look what happened…the public likes it. lets all chip in and buy marc berman a health club membership. berman’s pasty, bloated face looks like he’s overdosed on bad take-out chinese food loaded with msg and he needs to sweat it out.
Any idea how The Secret Life of the American Teenager did? ABC Family’s press release is a little cryptic… you’d think they want to keep the total viewers secret.
Matthew, no. It wasn’t among the top forty for the week and I didn’t even see the ABC Family press release. It’s possible that the viewer numbers will show up via USA Today, Variety or Media Week later today…
Thanks for checking
!
How did ESPN’s NASCAR race finish on Sunday?
– Paulsen
Wow, that’s like a million viewers increase over last year’s VMAS. And this year’s show was definitely the worse I can remember. Boring and uninspired!
Paulsen, I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “finished”, we only saw the data for the whole event (3.974 million, see text above in the third paragraph).
Hannah, I confess surprise at the VMA numbers as my anecdotal data was this seemed like the least-hyped show in years.
Sorry, didn’t read the post carefully enough. Do you have the rating for the race?
– Paulsen
the race had a 2.5 rating (40th by rating, but 35th by viewers).
I now know that the US is going to hell. When Fox cable dominates the rating, it is proof positive that the American public is plain stupid. They haven’t a clue. All the folks that I know that are big Fox programming fans are truly one dimensional lamebrains.
The independents he world have no chance. We are becoming a society of franchises. I’ll soon be looking for a new country to move to.
Soon we’ll be the Christian equivalent to Iran. Even though I am a confirmed Lutheran, I believe diversity and balance is best for all. We are fast becoming the born again Stepford nation.
Kathleen: or…older people who watch news regularly are generally more conservative (and watch more TV!). Why don’t you move to Iran for a few months and come back and let us know what you think? Thanks.
Kathleen,
A winter holiday in Afganistan will make you feel sooo much better. Hop a plane fast, and say good bye to all your blues.
kathleen this country is going away from God m ore and more everyday why do you think it is the shape it is when it was closer to God thee was no abortion , there was no gay marriege people got married not just lived together , store were closed on sundays come on you think new orleans got destroyed cause it was to much like the garden of eden lol no way this whole country is more like sadom and gamora , we was the country blessed by God we lead the way for God but not now we are in a down fall and if i was you i would read my bible more and keep an eye on the heavens cause he come in a blink of an eye no man will no when i just hope as many people as possible believes in Jesus cause he is the only way , and to those who dont believe that is up to you and if you are affend ed oh well cause i am not forcing my religion on you just speaking my mind
Robert,
As a regular visitor to this site, I would like to thank you for your sensible and calm response to the above commentator regarding Fox. Best I can tell, this is a non-partisan, non-political site. I appreciate that you took action to keep it this way.
Thanks again.
If Andy read his bible more he would’ve learned how to spell Sodom and Gomorrah correctly.
Glad to see Army Wives still getting the same solid numbers after a 2 week break. Great episode by the way. This shows seems to be getting better in the second half of the season. How did Entourage do? I watched it and was very disappointed and I am a fan. Hoping it will improve next week.
Sonothip — thanks. I’m glad the elections are only once every four years and won’t regularly impact the weekly cable show ratings. We’d like the site to be non-political, but when politics drive ratings there is no way to avoid it completely.
Steve, Entourage did 1.6 million coming out of True Blood’s 1.4 million. It was the lowest numbers for Entourage since 2005.
Wow, I can’t believe those low numbers for Entourage. Shocking!! Thanks Robert.
Buying a ticket for Kathleen right now. Did she want to move to a country that has MSNBC or not?
How many People watch WWE Raw ?