With 13.357 million viewers, game seven of the ALCS between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays not only was the most watched baseball game in the history of cable television, it also was the most-watched program on cable all week. Congrats to TBS, who rebounded from a technical glitch Saturday night to have its best playoff baseball ratings ever on Sunday night.
We'll cut J.A. Adande some slack for rounding that 13.357 million up to 14 million viewers on today's Around the Horn, but come down on the side of Tim Cowlishaw who argued this year's World Series would be the lowest-rated World Series EVER. We agree.
Game sevens are always good for ratings, especially when the Red Sox are involved, but these numbers surprised me. They eclipsed even the Monday Night Football game (which featured the New York football Giants).
The top half of the top twenty was more baseball with games 5 and 6 of the ALCS, debate coverage (where Fox narrowly bested CNN), and post-debate coverage. SpongeBob still made it into the top 10 with an extra-absorbent 7.666 million viewers for last Monday's 8pm episode (the 8:30 episode garnered 5.778 million).
Not in the list below but among the data we saw were iCarly (4.376 million), 13 more SpongeBobs, the Michigan at Penn St. football game (4.291 million), the Naked Brothers Band season premiere (Nielsen had this listed as "NBB Movie Mystery Girl "on Nick (4.031 million), two additional O'Reilly Factor airings (last Monday and Thursday), and also on Fox News Channel, last Thursday's Hannity & Colmes with 3.42 million. Army Wives checked in at #40 with 3.360 million. Check back as we'll likely update the post with updates of shows that were not in the top forty data that we see.
Update 10/22/08 6:30AM PDT: TLC's Jon and Kate Plus 8 drew 3.2 million viewers, Lifetime Movie: Living Proof drew 2.2 million, Comedy Central's Chocolate News premiere drew 2.2 million. Crash on Starz and Encore last Friday drew 449,000.
Update #2: 10/22/08 6:30PM PDT: (with a hat tip to "Drake", and "Travis Yanan" via Marc Berman's forums:
Mad Men 1.0/2 0.5/1 N/A True Blood (53 minutes) 1.2/2 1.1/3 2,098,000 Entourage (27 minutes) 1.0/2 0.9/2 1,586,000 LITTLE BRITAIN USA (29 minutes) 0.3/1 0.3/1 447,000 Army Wives 2.4/4 1.3/3 3,360,000 Dexter (54 minutes) 0.5/1 0.3/1 863,000 Californication (28 minutes) 0.3/1 0.2/0 469,000 ACLS GAME 7 (231 minutes) 7.9/13 4.7/12 13,357,000
Our sources at AMC say Sunday's Mad Men had 1.4 million viewers.
Full Top 20 Cable Results for the week ending 10/19/2008:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY(S) | Live+SD HH rating | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | MLB ALCS (RED SOX-RAYS 7) | TBSC | SUNDAY | 7.9 | 13,357 |
| 2 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L (GIANTS/BROWNS) | ESPN | MONDAY | 7.2 | 11,422 |
| 3 | PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE(S)-10/15/2008 | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 5.5 | 9,068 |
| 4 | SR/PRES DEBATE 3 2008(S)-10/15/2008 | CNN | WEDNESDAY | 5.4 | 8,931 |
| 5 | MLB ALCS (RED SOX-RAYS 6) | TBSC | SATURDAY | 5.4 | 8,928 |
| 6 | Anderson Cooper 360 | CNN | WEDNESDAY | 4.8 | 7,795 |
| 7 | SpongeBob | NICK | MONDAY | 4.3 | 7,666 |
| 8 | ON THE RECORD W/GRETA | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 4.6 | 7,394 |
| 9 | MLB ALCS (RAYS-RED SOX 5) | TBSC | THURSDAY | 4.7 | 7,211 |
| 10 | SpongeBob | NICK | MONDAY | 3.3 | 5,778 |
| 11 | MLB ALCS (RAYS-RED SOX 4) | TBSC | TUESDAY | 3.8 | 5,732 |
| 12 | SpongeBob | NICK | MONDAY | 3.1 | 5,041 |
| 13 | PRES DEBATE/ANALYSIS(S)-10/15/2008 | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 3.1 | 4,800 |
| 14 | Project Runway | BRVO | WEDNESDAY | 3.2 | 4,787 |
| 15 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 3.1 | 4,651 |
| 16 | WWE Entertainment (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 2.7 | 4,612 |
| 17 | Anderson Cooper 360 | CNN | WEDNESDAY | 3.0 | 4,573 |
| 18 | WWE Entertainment (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 2.6 | 4,519 |
| 19 | MLB ALCS (RAYS-RED SOX 3) | TBSC | MONDAY | 3.0 | 4,499 |
| 20 | COLL FTB TONIGHT SCOREB L | ESPN | SATURDAY | 2.7 | 4,395 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
