TV Week reports that not only is House one of the most successful shows on broadcast prime-time, but that it has become the most watched off-network show on cable:
Since its debut as a Monday-Friday show last month, “House” has averaged 2.9 million viewers for USA Network, not coincidentally the No. 1 network in total viewers in prime time on cable. It’s beating the other big off-net franchises—the “Law & Orders” and “CSIs”—and has also on occasion outdrawn some of cable’s top original series, including Lifetime’s “Army Wives,” A&E’s “The Cleaner” and FX’s “The Shield.”
The network has also been stacking the show—running three straight episodes—on Sunday night, and has been putting the show in other time periods where it thinks it might beat a movie or another off-net show, said Jane Blaney, executive VP for programming, acquisitions and scheduling at USA.
Ms. Blaney was responsible for acquiring “House” reruns for $1.4 million per episode when NBC Universal Television Distribution offered the show to cable networks in 2005.
Read the rest here.
I usually watch part or all of “House” on USA when I accidentally run into it evenings and weekends when there is nothing else to watch. It is amazing how they hold up, even the ones I wasn’t overly fond of in the first place.
Catherine, in fact, since I came to House only last season, I’m still catching up on the episodes I’ve not been able to find online!
Well, this is no surprise to me either. I watched House from day one back in November of 2004 when nobody else was watching it. It only gained steam around a year and a half later when the American Idol-viewers began watching it. USA airs a lot of the first-second season shows that most people did not even watch, so it’s no surprise that it gets a lot of viewership on USA versus a show like CSI, where 60-70% of viewers have been watching since Day One.
Actually it premiered to pretty good numbers when it first started, but obviously AI helped it.
David, the numbers were not that great. It was around 6-8mil until Idol started. But that was the first spring after it premiered, when it shot up to the 14 mil mark.
Tonight will be boring – No Sarah…time to catch up on house chores!
R.G., during the Terminator down time you should check out Chuck. It’s really a great show.