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
