| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 7.73 | 5.45 | 5.13 | 4.94 | 1.69 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 2.2/7 | 1.8/6 | 1.3/4 | 1.4/4 | 0.7/2 |
CBS' three scripted shows carried the night for the network, but only Ghost Whisperer made any real noise. CBS averaged 7.73 million viewers and a 2.2 demo adults 18-49 rating, followed in both cases by ABC with 5.45 million and a 1.8 demo adults 18-49 rating.
Ghost Whisperer increased last week's audience by 100,000+ and its demo rating by a tenth while humbling the rest of the competion at 8pm in both viewers and the demo. Smarter Than A Fifth Grader upped its demo rating by a tenth too, and Wife Swap increased it audience by about 500,000 and its demo rating by two tenths. Even struggling America's Toughest Jobs posted audience and demo increases. Not Everybody Hates Chris though, it lost 16% of its audience and a tenth in the demo. I think the CW put their two comedies on Friday night to die. It's working! Although, The Game held steady from last week.
Deal or No Deal added about 300,000 viewers, but held steady in the demo. The Ex List lost over a million viewers from its premiere, but only a tick in the demo winning the hour for adults 18-49 (Disgruntled Moonlight fans, we await your tenuous cause and effect comments!). Supernanny was up 800,000 viewers and 0.3 demo points. Don't Forget the Lyrics added almost 500,000 viewers, but was flat in the demo.
Numb3rs was down just a bit from last week, and 20/20 was up just a bit. Enough for the two to tie in the demo at 10pm, while Numb3rs had a million more viewers. Life is showing very little of it, dropping 500,000 viewers and 0.3 demo ratings points. Friday 18-49 wasteland or not, it's doomed.
Looking for Friday Night Smackdown ratings? We no longer get them with our overnight data, but you can see the latest weekly ratings here.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/ Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | Ghost Whisperer | 9.45 | 2.6/9 |
| FOX | Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? | 5.79 | 1.4/5 | |
| ABC | Wife Swap | 4.28 | 1.5/5 | |
| NBC | America's Toughest Jobs | 3.95 | 1.2/4 | |
| CW | Everybody Hates Chris | 1.76 | 0.7/3 | |
| 8:30 | CW | The Game | 1.90 | 0.8/3 |
| 9:00 | NBC | Deal or No Deal | 6.52 | 1.5/5 |
| CBS | The Ex List | 5.71 | 1.9/6 | |
| ABC | Supernanny | 5.02 | 1.8/6 | |
| FOX | Don’t Forget the Lyrics | 4.87 | 1.4/5 | |
| CW | America's Top Model (repeat) | 1.42 | 0.6/2 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Numb3rs | 8.03 | 2.2/7 |
| ABC | 20/20 | 7.03 | 2.2/7 | |
| NBC | Life | 4.92 | 1.4/4 |
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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.
I thought Ghost Whisperer would decrease:|
Good news on it increasing
friday is dead for tv nothing good here.
Well, as I said last week, Life is Dead.
Everybody Hates Cris and The Game aren’t looking good either.
All I can say about the ex-list is DANG!
Supernanny/Wife-Swap nothing notable here.
Deal or No Deal was decent as was Are you Smarter than a fifth grader.
Don’t forget the Lyrics was a bit concerning, but I think it’s cheap enough to survive. I think Numb3rs might be on its last season. Kudos to Ghost Whisperer
I am one of the Moonlight fans you are awaiting. I hate to see any show falter as I know the time, money and effort that goes into it. I don’t like to see any person without a job. With that said it is bittersweet to see Ex List slipping. I will never believe ML was cancelled because of ratings (especially if Ex List is renewed ). It was all about playing or not playing CBSs game of control. To me that was proven when the creator/showrunner left The Ex List. Just my opinion.
Looks like the GW hype and promotion for this season is working. The rest. Oy. Flashpoint will be on by November sweeps.
Ex-List skews younger than Moonlight. Strange
CBS is making money with those scripted shows and those ratings? Supernanny and Wifeswap are dirty cheap and SN almost beat Ex-List.
Clean, Friday is definitely a night where different strategies are being tried this season. CBS is going all scripted, ABC and Fox all unscripted, NBC and CW a mix.
With the herd mentality being what it is in television, I’d expect whatever proves the most profitable to be the Flavor of the Week come next season.
I would like to go on record here. The success or failure of any show on CBS or any other network is sad, but it has no effect on Moonlight and Moonlight has no effect on them. Those who believe otherwise are simply kidding themselves. Moonlight was special and I feel bad for anyone who missed it or its specialness. We were lucky to have it for as long as we did during a year that was fraught with strikes and unease in the industry. I believe it is a huge loss when actors put heart and soul behind a project and it still fails to be renewed. I am sure there are many reasons for this to happen. Moonlight was not a failure, CBS was not the bad guy. Everyone lost but that is not why the Friday night shows are struggling and their struggles will never bring Moonlight back.
I’m a Moonlight fan who no longer watches CBS. Many “Moonlight” fans are concentrating on what other networks have to offer, hoping they will be kinder and more supportive of new shows than CBS is, the network that canceled “Moonlight,” even though it won its timeshare consistently, won a People’s Choice Award, the star, Alex O’Loughlin won an award for “Sci-Fi Guy,” it has been #1 on “Hey ! Nielsen” for months, and Season Two was okayed, then pulled back. Add to “Moonlight’s” hardship the writer’s strike, when CBS didn’t re-run “Moonlight” episodes (OK–two) to famiiarize people with the show after they missed it the first time around! (Canada is running it every day currently!) We are mad, and we don’t watch a network who treats its “freshman” shows so badly! Only 16 episodes, but it’s hit all over the world, and they still ignore us. Therefore, we don’t watch their shows any more. I HOPE they are noticing! They have lost so much money and good will with this terrible decision!
Not one to disappoint…it is now 3:08 pm, I am watching Moonlight on the WBLA and Mick just admitted to Josef that he is in love with Beth, and I don’t see myself being unhappy that the Ex-list is sinking like an albatross in its time slot – any time soon.
I don’t want to see anybody loose their job, it would only be fair since all those people on Moonlight, the better programme, lost their jobs when that show was canceled as well.Nina Tassler, suck it up and bring back Moonlight NOW.
Hope you enjoyed my rant Bill!
Hi there, i have a question. Here in Holland (The Netherlands) are Friday, Saterday and Sunday for television the biggest nights, en then there are big shows. Why is in US that not? And why are in the US so mush series? Because we don’t have much series…
Reading Moonlight fans’s posts is such a pleasure. Those posts are crazy funny
@Seriefreak
The second question is easier: different cultures.
At the first question the answer is harder to give: i also find it strange that fridfays and saturdays are almost dead here in US when all over the world saturday brings the highest viewing numbers. It’s not like in Europe everyone stays at home in weekend and in US everybodu goes out
Thanks Ben Silverman for moving Life to Fridays!
Seriefreak, Bob, I didn’t know that about TV viewing in the rest of the world. Very interesting.
In the US, Saturday and now Friday are becoming a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Are broadcast ratings down because low quality/cost programming is shown on those nights? Or have the networks reacted to low audience numbers by only putting low quality/cost programming on those nights?
As far as the rest of the world, my understanding is that unscripted television has a much higher share of the broadcast time than in the US (although the share in the US is on the increase), but I have to admit that’s just an understanding based on some random reading and no first hand experience.
i think why Fridays/Saturdays are failing is because people don’t stay home and watch tv on those nights! (I know I dont’). And all you Moonlight fans boycotting CBS are not making any headway. CBS is still the #1 network, your boycott is pointless.
Johnthemon, it’s not like in other parts of the world people don’t go out, but over there the networks are scheduling their top shows on weekend so many are still watching TV
Johnthemon – it would be poitless either way because I am not even American, I am from Trinidad in the West Indies…as long as I feel good about it, why should you care…or anybody else for that matter.
As far as I am concerned I fall into the 18-34 female demographic that Nielsen touts to poll – other than the fact that I am black… for the exec big wigs to say that they know what I want, a rabid scifi/fantasy/romantic fiction fan all my life would want, they can not only kiss my booty, they the lick it too FULLSTOP!
It is not so much that they ended the series, but they apparently left it on a Cliffhanger note, they could have at least done a two hour season finally tying up loose ends. That is what pisses me off the most.
Bill,
Where are your 18-34 numbers?