| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 15.462 | 11.743 | 7.838 | 4.333 | 3.957 | 3.674 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 6.0/15 | 3.8/10 | 3.6/9 | 2.0/5 | 1.6/4 | 1.5/4 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 6.5/18 | 2.3/6 | 3.9/11 | 1.9/5 | 1.7/5 | 1.4/4 |
ABC buried the competition on the first Thursday of the new season, particularly in the age demos, but the premiere of Grey's Anatomy, the leader for the evening, was down over 2.5 million viewers from last season's premiere.
The premiere of Survivor: Gabon took the viewership crown and the adults 18-49 demo from 8-9pm, but it was down almost 2.5 million viewers from the Survivor:China premiere last September. Ugly Betty's premiere was down over a million viewers from last year's premiere, but managed the adults 18-34 demo win for the hour. Even worse was the premiere of My Name is Earl, which lost 26% of it's viewers compared to last season's premiere.
Against real competition, Kitchen Nightmares just got crushed in both hours, shedding almost a third of its viewers and demo adults from last week. Compared to that carnage, Smallville's loss of only 6% of its viewers and a tick in each demo seems positively heroic. Supernatural, on the other hand, lost 18% of its viewers and about a quarter of its demo adults from last week.
Although down from last year's premiere, Grey's Anatomy had no equal on the night, completely overwhelming the competition in both hours across the board.
In some rare positive news for the night, The Office premiere was on par with last year's premiere and it put in some good demo numbers. Berman is reporting that it won both the 18-34 and 18-49 demos for men.
The premiere of the final season of ER was down over 2 million viewers from its premiere last year.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/ Share | 18-34 Rating/ Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | Survivor: Gabon (8-10p) (premiere) | 13.052 | 4.5/13 | 2.8/9 |
| ABC | Ugly Betty (premiere) | 9.775 | 3.3/9 | 3.5/11 | |
| NBC | My Name is Earl (premiere) | 6.398 | 2.7/8 | 2.6/8 | |
| FOX | Kitchen Nightmares | 4.177 | 1.9/5 | 1.9/6 | |
| CW | Smallville | 4.104 | 1.7/5 | 1.7/5 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 3.746 | 1.4/4 | 1.6/5 | |
| 9:00 | ABC | Grey's Anatomy (9-11p) (premiere) | 18.296 | 7.2/17 | 7.8/20 |
| CBS | Survivor: Gabon (8-10p) (premiere) | 12.775 | 4.5/10 | 2.6/7 | |
| NBC | The Office (premiere) | 9.195 | 4.9/11 | 6.1/15 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 4.644 | 1.8/4 | 2.1/5 | |
| FOX | Kitchen Nightmares | 4.489 | 2.1/5 | 1.9/5 | |
| CW | Supernatural | 3.245 | 1.3/3 | 1.2/3 | |
| 10:00 | ABC | Grey's Anatomy (9-11p) (premiere) | 18.315 | 7.6/19 | 8.1/21 |
| CBS | CSI (repeat) | 9.403 | 2.6/6 | 1.5/4 | |
| NBC | ER (premiere) | 7.921 | 3.3/8 | 3.0/8 | |
| UNI | La Rosa de Guadalupe | 3.480 | 1.4/4 | 1.5/4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. Timeslot demo winners in bold.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
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’s Kitchen Nightmares were both new…no hole in the wall this week…lol.
No competition for Greys? what about The Office?
Wopa, I meant “no equal”, but I agree my word choice wasn’t great. I will edit
You’re having too much fun with your puns today.
Wow, you used a picture from the actual episode. I confess (blasphemy, I know) to watching a few minutes of Grey’s before my eyes glazed over and I moved on to this Sunday’s premieres of Dexter and Californication (saving Supernatural for later).
I am a little surprised Grey’s improved over its season finale (in viewers and in the demo) it will be interesting to see what kind of a bite a new CSI will put on those numbers. Also I wonder if the trend of super sized premieres and finales is really a great idea (two hours for Grey’s and Survivor, one hour for the Office, etc).
I could say I was inspired by Jewel, but in fact I found that while Googling the phrase.
NBC didnt do as bad as i thought it would..
ABC did well, i really hope that betty can stay on 9m! CBS was ok.
CW did really well!!
just incase anyone wanted to know.. here are the ratings for the main American shows that were on UKTV?
FRI
9:00pm Ugly betty 1.6m (lowest ever rating)
MON
9.00pm America’s Next Top Model – 0.3m (2%) (Season 9 premier)
10.00pm Lipstick Jungle – 0.2m (1%) (Premier)
TUE
9.00pm Hell’s Kitchen USA – 0.5m (3%)
9:00pm CSI: Miami 2.4m (11.3%)
WED
Axe Men 1.3m (5.8%)
Desperate Housewives 1.75m (10.8%) (lowest ever rating)
Medium 1.5m (13.8%)
THU
20:30 – Friends – 564,000 (2.30%) [+1: 186,000] (best ever rating)
21:00 – Ugly Betty – 424,000 (2.30%) [+1: 121,000] (first look)
21:00 – Bones – 584,000 (3.5%)
I have yet to watch The Office (if Hulu got it up, I’ll watch it tonight), so last night was an It’s Always Sunny night for me. I watched the Dexter premiere weeks ago already, and am anxiously awaiting the second episode.
GA did better than I expected, but it will likely start falling again once CSI starts.
What is Fox’s plan for Thursdays? Is it just KN or are they bringing back Hole in the Wall or some other show?
Survivor is down again this year. After 20 seasons, that’s not surprising, but CBS really needs to find a new hit reality show. Survivor is nearly played out and Amazing Race is not going to be pulling in 15-20 million viewers.
Re: Super sized premieres.
I think they seem to be working out for most of the nets. There is nothing that ABC could have put at 10pm that would have netted over 18 mil. And, unfortunately, nothing NBC could have put at 9:30 that would have netted over 9 mil. (Please, world, WATCH 30 ROCK!) Last season, I thought the one hour Office episodes were horrible quality wise (like I said, I haven’t watched the premiere to be able to comment on this one), but ratings wise, it makes sense to draw the better ratings out as long as you can.
I agree (at least in the case of NBC and ABC, not sure about CBS) that they have nothing to put on that would do as well, the question I have is whether the shorter premieres would perform better for the shorter duration.
Sure, the nets get an extra hour or half hour on the night that they couldn’t have done better with, but they lose that hour in another week. If there’s no impact to the two hour average by putting it all on one night versus breaking it up over two, it would be six of one half a dozen of the other. We know Grey’s did better than it’s two hour finale in May, but we know Greys and Survivor did worse than their one hour premieres a year ago. There is no way to know whether the expansion of time had any impact on the attrition…so I wonder
Holly, no announcement I have seen by Fox about Thursdays. TVGuide.com still had Hole in the Wall scheduled for last night, I only saw the 2 Kitchen Nightmares when the ratings were out this AM. Hole in the Wall could be another stealth cancel.
My program guide seems REALLY horked for next Thursday in general due to Vice Presidential debate, but I show a new Hole in the Wall from 8pm-9pm. (where “reality show vixens from ‘Flavor of Love’ compete against women from ‘Rock of Love’).
I wonder if perhaps people were turned off by the last 5 minutes of Supernatural. “God has work for you, Dean.” It was a terrible, terrible ending. I’m not at all on board with what they’re doing to the show!
ER ending none too soon. It really should have ended when Dr. Carter went off to Africa. They should end it by running the entire series in reverse ending with the opening scene from Season 1, Episode 1 in last hour; back when the show was excellent. Either that or have a snowstorm at the end where it turns out the who series took place inside a snow globe of an autistic child who puts it on a shelf next to his St. Elsewhere snow globe. Just then his dad comes in and gives him a Greys Anatomy snow globe.
Robert, normally I would agree about the longer show meaning less viewers, but in Grey’s case at least, they actually gained viewers in their second hour. I don’t know how many people just didn’t turn on their TVs at all because they knew it was going to be a long episode, but there doesn’t seem to be any hour to hour erosion, though it would be interesting to see the half hours.
It’s great having those 18-34 numbers. I did not realize that Survivor skews so old now!
Enjoy this week and next week “Grey”- – CSI returns Oct 9th!
Rick, if my program guide is correct, Greys is bumped next week by VP debates
Rick, Grey’s beat CSI nearly every week in the demo, I believe. Are you saying that’s going to be different this week?