| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 17.221 | 13.133 | 8.579 | 5.872 | 4.338 | 3.225 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 4.4/11 | 4.5/11 | 4.2/10 | 2.4/6 | 1.8/4 | 1.6/4 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 3.0/8 | 2.9/8 | 4.6/12 | 2.3/6 | 2.0/5 | 2.3/6 |
For the first night of the new television season, many networks will have something to be happy about.
ABC topped the night for average viewership with 17.221 million viewers (over CBS with 13.133 million). CBS won a close race for the adults 18-49 demo with a 4.5 rating (over ABC with a 4.4). NBC won the adults 18-34 demo with a 4.6 rating (over ABC with a 3.0).
We continue to experience hosting difficulties, and there's no point in apologizing about it for another week -- Bill and I will be evaluating our options later. While we are very sorry, we're also very frustrated and we know you are too. We're basically just a two man team doing this for fun and love of it, while the last 5 days have not been fun, it's on us to sort out, and we will...We now return you to our regular scheduled overnight post...
The premiere of Dancing with the Stars was the most watched show of the night averaging 21.123 million viewers. It won both age demos from 8-9, and the 18-49 demo from 9-10. It had the best overall 18-49 demo rating for the night with a 5.3. That's similar to last season's debut final viewers of 21.25 but a 9% demo drop from 5.8/15 for adults 18-49.
Heroes was down significantly from last year's premiere which netted over 16 million viewers, and the 9pm-11pm premiere last night averaged under 10. Still, NBC will likely declare it a hit, and rightly so because it performed well int he 18-49 demo, and crushed the field among 18-34 year olds. Among that youthful demo, Heroes was the most-viewed show last night. Even with less than half the total viewers that DWTS had, it outperformed DWTS by over 40% in the demo.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles performed a bit better than it did last week, even against more competition. But the numbers are not great, and while I do think DVR viewing will improve the numbers, I am not a big believe that the live plus seven numbers factor in hugely with the networks.
The return of the CBS Monday night lineup plus newbie, Worst Week performed well for CBS, particularly among 18-49 year olds. The worst news for Worst Week is while not the weakest performer in the lineup among 18-49 year olds, it was the weakest among 18-34 year olds and underperformed both Rules of Engagement and The New Adventures of Old Christine in that slot.. We'll have to see how it does next week. CSI: Miami posted really good numbers, especially for the 10pm hour.
Sorry for forgetting to show the Gossip Girl love. The CW declared the results "mind-blowingly resilient!"
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/ Share | 18-34 Rating/ Share |
| 8:00 | ABC | Dancing with the Stars (8-10p) (premiere) | 21.061 | 5.2/13 | 4.0/11 |
| CBS | The Big Bang Theory (premiere) | 9.359 | 3.6/10 | 2.5/8 | |
| NBC | Heroes (clips) | 5.958 | 2.6/7 | 2.7/8 | |
| FOX | Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 5.816 | 2.3/6 | 2.1/6 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 4.048 | 1.7/4 | 2.0/6 | |
| CW | Gossip Girl | 3.350 | 1.6/4 | 2.5/7 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | How I Met Your Mother (premiere) | 9.745 | 4.0/10 | 3.1/9 |
| 9:00 | ABC | Dancing with the Stars (8-10p) (premiere) | 21.184 | 5.5/12 | 3.8/9 |
| CBS | Two and a Half Men (premiere) | 14.926 | 5.3/12 | 3.1/8 | |
| NBC | Heroes (9-11p) (premiere) | 10.215 | 5.0/11 | 5.5/14 | |
| FOX | Prison Break | 5.929 | 2.5/6 | 2.6/6 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 4.617 | 1.9/4 | 2.2/5 | |
| CW | One Tree Hill | 3.100 | 1.5/3 | 2.2/5 | |
| 9:30 | CBS | Worst Week (premiere) | 11.036 | 3.8/9 | 2.2/5 |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI Miami (premiere) | 16.866 | 5.1/12 | 3.1/8 |
| NBC | Heroes (9-11p) (premiere) | 9.565 | 4.9/12 | 5.4/14 | |
| ABC | Boston Legal (premiere) | 9.419 | 2.5/6 | 1.4/4 | |
| UNI | Cristina | 4.349 | 1.8/4 | 1.9/4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. Demo wins for each period are in bold.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. Source Marc Berman/Mediaweek.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Overnight Ratings: Local metered-market ratings service of Nielsen Station Index (NSI) in which household ratings and shares are provided to clients the morning following the day or evening of telecast. While routinely used for "next day" immediate analysis, these fast affiliate ratings are by process inaccurate for programs that air live across a network since they represent affiliate time period performance. For example, last night's 10-11pm affiliate #'s would reflect 10pm on the East Coast but also 10pm on the West Coast which for a live event would not represent the same broadcast or portion of the broadcast.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
LIVE+SD: The number that watched a program either while it was broadcast OR watched via DVR on the same day [through 3AM the next day] the program was broadcast.
For more information see Numbers 101.
FOX should move PB at 8pm. Heroes a nightmare for NBC, CSIM a dream for CBS
Really happy Worst Week got some good numbers. I am sure premiering after Two and a Half Men helped a lot. I hope CBS doesn’t cancel that show.
Oh yeah those winning 18-34 demo numbers are nightmarish! (for Heroes)
Worst Week good numbers? Really? It’ll be gone very soon if it drops even further
@Raymond.
Yes they are, remember this is the top scripted show on NBC. And it’s going down from here just like it did last season after the premiere. Maybe 7-8 million by spring
I was very dissapointed with Heroes, Mohinder getting powers whyyyyyyyyyy.
Well it won’t be the top show in total viewers obviously – Heroes was always over-rated in the ratings department anyway (never reached total viewers hit status) – its always been the demos that have made it a hit – and they are still reasonably strong. You cannot complain with those numbers (even if they are down year to year).
Boy, DWTS is a geriatric show. I wonder how ABC feels that it is slipping into CBS territory. Maybe fine, since it’s one of the networks only hits. I guess the parents (and grandparents) watch DWTS, the kids watch Heroes, and the unemployed cousin in the basement watches the CBS comedies.
I don’t get all this fuss with Dancing w/Stars…first of all: they are mostly unfamilar stars – I watched for 15 minutes after the Sarah Chronicles and thought it was just silly -this one guy could barely dance and the judges are um…”snobbish”! So You Think You Can Dance” is more entergetic and has more personality than the guy hosting this show—and wasn’t he the one who hosted the continueing years of “Funniest Home Videos” – he is not funny nor is he a good host -it’s CHEESY…and I’m in my 40′s…ohh please don’t let me become like that!…Sarah & Friends are losing to this crap? I think Jack Bauer needs to save the day!
I think you can complain, Raymond. NBC won’t, but their one hit show is looking closer to The Office numbers, with far less competition. Definitely time to complain.
I think it’s time for FOX to move in on the 10pm/9c time period – they can then move shows like “Sarah Chronicles” to the 9 or 10pm slots and they’ll have 6-7 hours more to compete…I mean the do very well in over all weekly ratings and they have about 6-7 hours less than ABC, CBS & NBC – and this year they looked a little over booked on Sunday Nights with replacement comedies moving in on comedy’s that are proven!?
Rick, DWTS gets a s–tload of ollllllllld people.
when it comes to DWTS and shows like Idol, they just get a lot of people! It may skew old, but it has a ton of young people too. From 9p-9:30p DWTS had more 18-34 year olds than all shows but Heroes, including Two and a Half Men. ABC will not complain publicly or even privately about a 3.8 rating among 18-34 year olds. It will be interesting to see if it can hold those kind of numbers as things progress.
it looks like to me TSCC and Prison Break actually improved from last week to this week even with all the premiers
“From 9p-9:30p DWTS had more 18-34 year olds than all shows but Heroes, including Two and a Half Men.”
Yes, but the ratio is almost 2:1 Heroes in that category.
Robert, how does TSCC’s 18-49 and 18-34 demo share compare to the Fox network average for this season?
Frank, since last night was the first night of the season, they are exactly average.
Andrea true (well it was only 1.445 to 1, but still), but outside of Grey’s Anatomy there’s little that will outperform Heroes among 18-34 year olds. I’m not even sure The Office will. I continue to believe that ABC will be *thrilled* if DWTS it can keep a 3.8 in the 18-34 demo and that they’ll certainly be able to print cash from the show, despite your opinions of the demo.
Frank, the season is exactly ONE night old
so Fox’s average for the night is the average for the season. Obviously Julia beat me to it…
(Okay now there seems to be a second rick so I’ll add a letter to my comments -)
So if last night is the beginning of the season Sarah is now almost at 6 million viewers on average – I don’t see a happy ending for Sarah – maybe it should have been a summer show…oh wait…(hehe)