Monday Night Football, as is typical, led all shows for the week with 11.9 million viewers, followed by Fox News Channel's airing of the presidential debate with 8.2 million. The pre-debate and post-debate analysis, as well as the first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama littered the top twenty this week. College Football on ESPN and the new Zack & Cody vehicle, Suite Life on Deck on Disney also landed in the top ten twice and had four airings in the top twenty.
President Bush's address on the economy also made the list for FNC, with the analysis drawing a few more viewers than the address itself.
WWE Raw took the 13th and 14th spots with over 4.7 million viewers in each case. There were only eight SpongeBob airings in this week's top forty - the best at number nineteen and 4.4 million. Project Runway may be tied up in a legal dispute over which network gets to air it in the future, but still pulled in 3.7 million viewers, though was beaten by our friends at Nick's Back at the Barnyard with 3.73 million viewers.
No Emmy Magic?: Mad Men won the best drama Emmy, but it didn't translate into better numbers on Sunday night, when it had 1.6 million viewers. Of course, it was up against the season-premiere of Desperate Housewives and still tracking much better than last year. For the season, it's averaging more than 70% better than its first season average of around 900,000 viewers. Full details on Mad Men season two are available here.
Here are some HBO and Showtime Ratings (Showtime did not beat HBO on Sunday!) care of commenter "Wyatt" (thank you!)
- "True Blood" (HBO): 1.82 million viewers (A18-49: 0.9/2; HH: 1.1/2)
- "Entourage" (HBO): 1.6 million viewers (A18-49: 1.0/2; HH: 1.0/2)
- "Dexter" (SHOW): 1.2 million viewers (A18-49: 0.5/1; HH: 0.7/1)
- "Little Britain" (HBO): 0.54 million viewers (A18-49: 0.2/1; HH: 0.3/2)
- "Californication" (SHOW): 0.522 million viewers (A18-49: 0.3/1; HH: 0.4/1)
- "The Life & Times of Tim" (HBO): 0.299 million viewers
Full Top 20 Cable Results for the week ending 09/28/2008:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY(S) | Live+SD HH rating | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L (JETS/CHARGERS) | ESPN | MONDAY | 7.5 | 11,881 |
| 2 | PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE(S)-09/26/2008 | FOXNC | FRIDAY | 4.5 | 8,211 |
| 3 | ON THE RECORD W/GRETA | FOXNC | FRIDAY | 4.3 | 7,413 |
| 4 | SR/PRES DEBATE 1 2008(S)-09/26/2008 | CNN | FRIDAY | 4.2 | 7,140 |
| 5 | COLL FTBALL-SAT PRIME L (ALABAMA/GEORGIA) | ESPN | SATURDAY | 3.9 | 6,683 |
| 6 | Anderson Cooper 360 | CNN | FRIDAY | 3.8 | 6,502 |
| 7 | COLL FTBALL-THUR NIGHT L (USC/OREGON STATE) | ESPN | THURSDAY | 4.2 | 6,456 |
| 8 | PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE CVG(S)-09/26/2008 | FOXNC | FRIDAY | 3.6 | 5,850 |
| 9 | Suite Life on Deck | DSNY | FRIDAY | 3.6 | 5,666 |
| 10 | Suite Life on Deck | DSNY | SATURDAY | 3.1 | 5,129 |
| 11 | PRES ADDRESS/ANALYSIS(S)-09/24/2008 | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 3.2 | 4,967 |
| 12 | PRES ADDRESS - ECONOMY(S)-09/24/2008 | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 3.2 | 4,808 |
| 13 | WWE Entertainment (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 2.6 | 4,745 |
| 14 | WWE Entertainment (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 2.6 | 4,737 |
| 15 | PRES DEBATE/ANALYSIS(S)-09/26/2008 | FOXNC | FRIDAY | 2.9 | 4,654 |
| 16 | Suite Life on Deck | DSNY | SUNDAY | 3.0 | 4,538 |
| 17 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | FRIDAY | 2.9 | 4,531 |
| 18 | SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | SUNDAY | 3.0 | 4,486 |
| 19 | SpongeBob | NICK | SATURDAY | 3.0 | 4,429 |
| 20 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | THURSDAY | 2.9 | 4,313 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
