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UPDATED Thursday: CSI Opens Large, Life on Mars & Eleventh Hour Battle

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October 10th, 2008

Scoreboard CBS ABC NBC FOX Uni CW
Total Viewers (million) 15.960 11.54 8.80 6.54 4.496 3.61
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 4.9/13 4.0/10 3.9/10 2.1/5 1.9/5 1.5/4
Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 3.1/9 3.5/10 3.9/11 1.6/5 2.1/6 1.4/4

Now updated with all our usual data.

CSI opened its season with a larger audience than the comparable date last year last year's premiere and pushed CBS to the overall viewership and demo adults 18-49 win for the night. Grey's Anatomy faded noticeably from its premiere, but helped ABC take second for viewers and 18-49 adults for the night.

Survivor: Gabon beat down the competition from 8-9 winning easily, but did slip 0.1 in the 18-49 demo from last week. Ugly Betty was just about even with last week, while My Name is Earl kept its audience steady, but lost 0.2 ratings points in the 18-49 demo.

Kath & Kim did much better than I expected (and better than Earl) in its premiere, beating everything but Survivor in the demo for its half hour.

CSI premiere topped its 2007-8 premiere and pushed Grey's Anatomy down at 9pm. Interesting to see if Grey's can stabilize at that level. The Office held its audience from 9/25, but slipped 0.3 rating points in the 18-49 demo.

Life on Mars and Eleventh Hour premiered to nearly identical numbers at 10pm. The horse race of the new shows was closer than I would have thought, it will be interesting to watch it develop. While it came in behind the premieres, ER won the 18-49 demo for the hour, and bettered its 9/25 audience by 1.4 million and its 18-49 demo by 0.7 rating points, quite an improvement.

Full details:


Time Net Show Viewers Live+SD (Millons) 18-49 Rating/ Share 18-34 Rating/ Share
8:00 CBS Survivor: Gabon 13.306 4.4/12 2.5/8
  ABC Ugly Betty 8.484 2.6/7 2.4/8
  NBC My Name is Earl 7.095 2.7/8 2.3/8
  FOX MLB Playoff pregame/game 5.910 1.8/5 1.5/5
  UNI Cuidado con el Angel 4.635 1.9/5 2.1/7
  CW Smallville 4.079 1.6/4 1.5/5
           
8:30 NBC Kath & Kim (premiere) 7.459 3.2/9 3.2/10
  FOX MLB Playoff: Dodgers/Phillies 6.562 2.0/6 1.7/5
           
9:00 CBS CSI (premiere) 22.985 7.0/17 4.5/12
  ABC Grey's Anatomy 14.541 5.6/13 5.4/14
  NBC The Office 8.998 4.6/11 5.6/15
  FOX MLB Playoff: Dodgers/Phillies 6.468 2.0/5 1.7/4
  UNI Fuego en la Sangre 5.484 2.3/5 2.5/7
  CW Supernatural 3.138 1.4/3 1.4/3
           
9:30 NBC Saturday Night Live Special 10.587 5.0/12 5.3/14
           
10:00 ABC Life on Mars (premiere) 11.601 3.8/10 2.7/8
  CBS Eleventh Hour (premiere) 11.588 3.4/9 2.3/7
  NBC ER 9.346 4.0/10 3.3/10
  UNI La Rosa de Guadalupe 3.369 1.4/4 1.5/4

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30 Minute breakdowns for the new 10pm shows:


Time Net Show Viewers Live+SD (Millons) 18-49 Rating/ Share 18-34 Rating/ Share
10:00 ABC Life on Mars (premiere) 12.272 4.1/10 2.9/8
10:30 ABC Life on Mars (premiere) 10.929 3.5/10 2.4/7
           
10:00 CBS Eleventh Hour (premiere) 12.547 3.7/9 2.4/7
10:30 CBS Eleventh Hour (premiere) 10.628 3.0/8 2.1/6

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Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. Timeslot demo winners are in bold.

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. Source Marc Berman/Mediaweek.

Definitions:

Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.

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.)

Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.

For more information see Numbers 101.

(144) Comments - Add Yours!

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  1. Jonathan B.

    Actually, that’s the third episode from last season. The season premiere actually got over 25 million viewers two weeks prior. I’d still consider that a good number though, since there won’t be another scripted program topping 20 million viewers for a long, long, long while.

    I’m really impressed by The Office though, dropping only 3-4% from its premiere despite CSI, in comparison to Grey’s, which more or less imploded. Maybe The Office could beat one of the two shows in the Demo by the end of the year? It’ll make its post-Super Bowl episode all the more interesting. Also, the show was AWESOME last night quality-wise.

    FOX must be ALL kinds of pissed at the Cubs right now. Does anyone care about this series?

  2. Holly

    If you get the data, could you please post the half-hours for Life on Mars and 11th Hour? Thanks!

  3. Fred

    I really don’t get why NBC starts off the night with “My Name is Earl” in the ‘Friends’-slot. They have the hottest show with ‘The Office’, and put it against CSI. The Office could double its ratings in a spot at 8pm where viewers could watch instead of going online on Hulu the next day. Office-30Rock-Earl-Kath&Kim would be the way to do it.

  4. Jonathan, good catch, I have edited.

    Holly, will do. Our other data is strangely late today.

  5. Andrea

    Funny that ER beats both new shows in the demo. Could it be due to Angela Bassett joining the cast? I also heard that there were appearances by former cast, so maybe there was the curiosity factor? Anyway, if NBC actually keeps this show in winner’s circle, maybe they might want to reconsider this being the last season…

  6. Cameron

    ER was much stronger than I thought it would be at 10pm. That Saturday Night Live special certainly helped NBC. And CBS’s strong start to the season continues, CSI had a big audience for its first episode.

  7. Andrea

    GA is dropping like a stone. If it comes in 2nd in the demo to CSI next week (I don’t think CSI will stay at the gigantic number), you know things are worrisome.

  8. Fred, if NBC moved The Office to 8, they would have very little chance of even making a slight dent at 9. Plus, HUT is higher at 9, so who is to say that moving The Office to 8 would actually increase its audience anyway?

  9. Johnthemon

    I think moving the office to 8:00 would increase it’s audience, but I know why they aren’t going to. If they moved the office to 8:00, there comedy show in the 9:00 hour (Kath and Kim/My Name is earl/30 rock whatever they’d choose) would be totally demolished. The Office is “taking one for the team” so to speak.

  10. I can’t remember exactly, but is this the first time Grey’s has been under 15 mil since before it moved to Thursdays? (With the exception of the idiotic move on ABC’s part to air new episodes on Thanksgiving.)

  11. Angie

    You know, I always questioned just how much Supernatural’s Thursday timeslot affected the ratings, but watching the ratings fluctuate the past few weeks I think it really does matter. I wonder how much higher they would be if we led Smallville instead of the other way around.

  12. Holly

    Julia, Last year the only time it went below 15 mill and a 6.0 in the demo was that Thanksgiving airing. Since last year was down from the year before, I assume this is a first for GA.

  13. Tyler

    Ouch, CSI beat Grey’s by over 8 million… Ugly Betty seems to be following the same pattern it did last year, but wow, Grey’s… 5th Grader did much better last year than the MLB game and it also almost beat Betty a few times… now Ugly Betty has a comfortable 2nd place seat every week, but My Name Is Earl seems to be gaining…

  14. Victor

    I thought Eleventh Hour would do better. Maybe CBS isn’t the best network for a Science show, because I see it dropping off a lot next week.

  15. 1982

    Pretty happy with the numbers from lastnight. I watched Kath & Kim and being a fan of the Aus. original I’m not so sure about it, it lacks a little something. I’m not crossing it off just yet though. Will be viewing Life On Mars later today. High hopes! Loved the original UK version. Nice numbers for it too. Really glad to see Earl & Office hang in there and ER was up pretty well also. If only Monday night was so pleasing in the numbers…

  16. Anony

    NBC has to be happy with its showing last night with strong competition. All of the attention on SNL certainly helped its Thursday showing last night. I think Earl is benefiting by getting back to its core after a slumping season where Earl was in jail. I think that 30 rock will get a bump as well because Tina Fey is so hot right now. ER looked very good last night as well.

    ABC has to be worried. Greys is not a powerhouse like it used to be. And I watched the first 10 mins of Life on Mars. Very cheesy and shot terribly. I don’t see these numbers holding up.

    Fox can’t be surprised with these numbers.

  17. still no detailed data
    Waiting……

  18. stacy

    I really hope the CW keeps the competition in mind for Supernatural. 46 million people where watching CBS, ABC or NBC. Not many other shows would do that much better. My guess is the biggest thing against the show will be the production cost. Although with only 2 full time actors they have to be saving some money. Oh well it’s WAY to early to get worried

  19. juniormint

    Ugly Betty and Smallville seem much lower ratings wise than last year. I think they are showing their age and declining creatively a lot this season. I find them both pretty bad lately.

  20. dave

    SNL was impressive last night building on the office

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