| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 7.94 | 6.81 | 5.743 | 5.29 | 1.56 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 2.2/7 | 1.6/5 | 1.9/6 | 1.4/5 | 0.7/2 |
NBC's two hour premiere of Crusoe bowed with modest numbers, 7.26 million average viewers and a 1.6/5 (rating/share) among 18-49 year olds. Berman declared it a ratings loser and I might have to agree with him. Although it won the 9pm hour in total viewers, eclipsing The Ex List by more than a million viewers for that hour, The Ex List still won the 18-49 demo for the hour, and with the strength of Ghost Whisperer and a somewhat waning Numb3rs, CBS easily won the night.
Fox ran with two repeats of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, and both of them drew more viewers than ABC's 8pm-10pm reality block, though ABC had better demo performance. CBS was the only network to average better than a 2.0 in the demo, with all shows hitting at least that mark. ABC's 20/20 at 10pm was the only non-CBS show to hit the 2.0 rating among 18-49 year olds.
I know NBC's Life has many fans on our blog, as is typical, that's not equating to good ratings. Life languished at 10pm, with less than six million viewers and a 1.5/5 in among 18-49 year olds.
If I were working at the CW I would be humming (to the tune of Mrs. Robinson) "Where have you gone Friday Night Smackdown!, our network turns its lonely eyes to you - whoo whoo whoo..."
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | Ghost Whisperer | 8.87 | 2.5/9 |
| FOX | Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader (R) | 5.08 | 1.4/5 | |
| ABC | Wife Swap | 4.99 | 1.7/4 | |
| NBC | Crusoe - Series Premiere | 6.74 | 1.5/5 | |
| CW | Everybody Hates Chris | 1.79 | 0.7/3 | |
| 8:30 | CW | The Game | 1.81 | 0.8/3 |
| 9:00 | NBC | Crusoe - Series Premiere | 7.73 | 1.7/6 |
| CBS | The Ex List | 6.35 | 2.0/6 | |
| FOX | Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader (R) | 5.50 | 1.5/5 | |
| ABC | Supernanny | 5.34 | 1.8/6 | |
| CW | America's Next Top Model (R) | 1.33 | 0.6/2 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Numb3rs | 8.60 | 2.1/7 |
| ABC | 20/20 | 6.87 | 2.0/6 | |
| NBC | Life | 5.93 | 1.5/5 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
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.
Not that bad for Crusoe. But it skews incredibly old
Ex-list still beats Moonlight in demos so i don’t think CBS is that desperate to replace it for now
The fact that Supernanny and Wifeswap beat Crusoe are bad news for NBC.
At least Life had a million viewers more than last week… that does say something, right?
Good news for Ex-List which GAINED 700,000 and 0.1 in the demo. This show is very different than anything else the network airs, so it’s not surprising that it’s not getting great numbers. If they really want to expand past the crime procedurals, they need to be a little patient and hope viewers find this show. On the other hand, it is pulling down Numb3rs, which lost another 0.1 in the demo. Although, it really shouldn’t need the lead-in after 5 years. I say they give Ex-List the full 13 episodes unless it drops below a 1.7.
Life also grew 1 mill and 0.1 from last week, probably thanks to Crusoe. It’s still really low, but I don’t think NBC has anything waiting in the wings, so unless they want 2 hours of DOND every Friday, they’ll let it stay until midseason.
Thoughtless, I mostly agree with Holly, though I’m not sure an increase of .1 in the demo is anything to get excited about. Both Ex List and Numb3rs were up from last week, and NBC and Crusoe definitely (and unsurprisingly) outperformed America’s Toughest Jobs and Deal or No Deal from last week on NBC.
Wife Swap also grew by 700,000 over a week ago and a repeat of Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader this week outperformed a new Don’t Forget the Lyrics last week at 9pm. I’m not sure anything at all can be made of it.
“I know NBC’s Life has many fans on our blog, as is typical, that’s not equating to good ratings. Life languished at 10pm, with less than six million viewers and a 1.5/5 in among 18-49 year olds.”
Which may actually be great news for a Friday show since another show on a competing network on Mondays got comparable viewers and got RENEWED.
Also I hear that the reason Numbers is down may be that Life is drawing viewers away. Also, look at the demo numbers for Crusoe at 8pm vs. Life. They are identical. Life is a younger skewing show, and that may work in its favor as well.
Andrea, *only* because this is TV by the NUMBERS will I be a literalist here. I totally know you’re joking, but should any crazed fans take that information and run with it I wanted to point out that last week TSCC beat Life by 64% in the 18-49 demo,by 115% in men 18-49 and by 109% by men 18-34. Even with females 18-49, TSCC outperformed Life by 27%. The ratings gap between the two shows is fairly wide.
Thanks Holly and Robert for the quick answer and information. Now I know what’s going on. I try not to get too excited, but an increase is an increase right
Andrea, where did you read that information? I’d like to read it too
Sure CBS had better ratings with their established show, Ghost Whisperer, than did NBC with Crusoe, BUT Crusoe attracted a lot of eyeballs away from the ruler of Friday nights.
Phillip Winchester is serious eye candy for the ladies: perhaps the hottest hunk to hit broadcast TV since Kevin Sorbo. We were treated to Mr. Winchester’s studly bare chest for quite some time, making the show worth a look if only for that.
I think they were also smart to start with an episode filled with action and pirates, trusting the audience to know the story, and filling in the gaps with flashbacks instead of starting at the very beginning.
I did miss the pirates speaking with the accent we have all come to expect from swashbucklers, though. I realize that it was an invention of Wallace Beery in the 1934 version of Treasure Island, but it was one of the things that made POTC so very charming.
Angelcrest, c’mon. If you attribute 100% cause and effect of slightly lower ratings for Ghost Whisperer this week to Crusoe, it was a 5% hit for GW. Not nothing, but also not “a lot of eyeballs”.
I’m not one to obsess over good headlines (for my own posts), but Hibberd went with “Crusoe Set Adrift” which I thought was very good.
Moonlight still performed better around the same time last year.;) I like supernanny, I’m glad it did so well. I hope the change in nights don’t get it cancelled. It is a lot better than the basic smut tv you encounter in most reality shows.
@ moonlightfan
i dont think you can compare the spring and the fall, because most of the tv shows are down this fall, so i would bet that moonlight would have lost 1 to 1.5 million viewers, like the other new nbc shows that were picked up for a second season
Heh, my first post here, but as I couldn’t look over it, I had to post just because of it. Am i seeing wrong or is the order for 8pm off? Shouldn’t the shows be listed by their total viewer numbers and not randomly?
I know it’s obvious mistake and doesn’t mean much really because otherwise someone else would’ve spoken up already but as I said, I just couldn’t keep myself quiet.
(That and, however bad Crusoe might’ve been, it doesn’t deserve to be below Wife Swap in any list.)
Why the heck do people keep saying that The Ex List beats Moonlight in demos? It’s just not true. Most of the Moonlight episodes had higher demos, as well as higher overall ratings than The Ex List. And Moonlight was in the midst of the writer’s strike with NO advertising from CBS. Moonlight numbers last year are starting to look like Numbers ratings this year. So, The Ex List is not doing better than Moonlight. That’s absurd and a biased comment.
And in relation to The Ex List, my guess is that they’ll replace it mid-season with the Ioan Gruffudd/Amy Smart romantic drama “The Meant to Be’s.” It’s kind of similar to Ghost Whisperer with a romantic twist. I hear it’s a bit like “Heaven Can Wait.” I also believe Moonlight’s best chances are to get a movie, because CBS will never admit that they were wrong. If they had properly advertised Moonlight as a forbidden love story about vampires, and roped in the Twilight audience, they would have had a hit on their hands. The show is still gaining new fans. Why do you think the DVD release was delayed till after the Holiday season? Because they’re afraid it would have sold well.
Besides, how can a show do well, when the networks set it up to fail? They focus all their advertising on certain shows, and ignore the other ones. These networks have no idea how to advertise and how to get the demos.
People who hate Moonlight say The Ex List is doing better (which is honestly just false). Objectively, The Ex List is not doing well at all. And I feel sorry for the fans of the show, because CBS will most likely cancel it. Honestly, last year Moonlight (while doing a little bit better than The Ex List), had okay numbers. But they were holding their own, and only lost about 3% of their audience by the end of the season, which was pretty low considering most of the other shows lost a lot more after the writer’s strike. BUT I think Moonlight would have done much better if they had properly advertised it, and hadn’t put it in the death slot.
Also, if you look at the numbers ALL SEASON of Moonlight last year, the majority of the time it did better than the numbers so far on The Ex List. But because the last episode, (right after the writer’s strike, no advertising, and like all the other shows that went down in numbers) did a little bit lower in the demos, then all of a sudden Moonlight was ALWAYS getting those numbers. Let’s be fair and honest here. Sorry for the rant, but people slanting the truth are getting on my nerves.
T4U:
Here’s a link to Terminator’s season numbers: http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/399108451/m/515103951
Here’s a link to Life’s season numbers: http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/827108451/m/890103461?r=594109661#594109661
Robert: I totally wasn’t joking. Comparing a failing Monday show to a Friday show’s numbers is kinda laughable. I don’t know what will happen to Life this season–TSCC’s renewal must make every exec sit up and take notice. It may have thrown a complete monkey wrench into the renewal/cancel index. Or maybe it’s an aberration. I don’t know if the numbers for Life on Friday are acceptable or not.
In the end, I don’t want you to think I hate TSCC. FOX, maybe. TSCC, I watch.
I was comparing it with this date last year: 10/19/2007, the Moonlight Episode “FEVER” had an HH Ratings / Share of 5.0/9 with Total Viewers meeting 7.67 with Viewers 18-49 reaching 2.75. I’m not that hot with numbers, but I’m comparing the fall intake. In my heart I believe that if Moonlight had been given a better timeslot it would have progressed into better ratings. But lets not beat that dead horse anymore.
Bill, maybe you should take down that link
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/11/18/moonlight-ratings-2007-2008/1820
its far too encourageable.
Andrea, we appreciate the links, but 2 in one post will definitely get eaten by the spam filter
Haha, Alde fair enough. Things got screwed up because originally I just had it listed as 8pm-10pm combining the two hour average and then I changed up and broke out the hour averages. It is indeed out of order but it actually did do worse than Wife Swap in the demo for the 8pm hour…
Bill, we can easily change that so two links gets through and three links get queued. Your call.