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
I’m sick of seeing these things cluttered up with sports, politics, and Spongebob. It’s a shame, really.
I don’t think it’s a shame where the numbers shake out. I wish we had access to more cable information so we could regularly provide more comprehensive cable show information, but unfortunately we don’t.
Fortunately (for me and for you) this kind of political coverage is a once every four year proposition. As for sports, it’s seasonal and cyclical, but I don’t think it’s going away. As for SpongeBob, yellow and porous is he…
How are the ratings for “World’s Toughest Fixes” on National Geographic?
any idea how the futurama movie did on sunday? sucks it ended up against game 7.
I’m glad that the SpongeBob special of last friday got so many viewers!
Sorry, I meant last Monday!
Rod, tom, we see only the top 40 cable shows each week, and those were not among them. We may run across those numbers in a press release. If so, I will post them.
Again I’m here hat in hand asking for the True Blood numbers PLEASE
You guys are ever so helpful!
Sunday Ratings:
MAD MEN (HH:1.0/2; A18-49:0.5/1)
TRUE BLOOD (HH:1.2/2; A18-49:1.1/3; V:2,098,000)
ENTOURAGE (HH:1.0/2; A18-49:0.9/2; V:1,586,000)
LITTLE BRITAIN USA (HH:0.3/1; A18-49:0.3/1; V:447,000)
DEXTER (HH:0.5/1; A18-49:0.3/1; V:863,000)
CALIFORNICATION (HH:0.3/1; A18-49:0.2/0; V:469,000)
Source:
http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/63310451/m/113101861/p/12
thanks Drake, I added it to the post — and we hear Mad Men had 1.4 million viewers on Sunday.
And wow, True Blood is stomping Dexter and even beating Entourage.
Thanks so much!
It’s getting better and better viewership
Rob, are you shocked True Blood is beating Dexter so bad in the ratings? I thought with it being on CBS it would do better this year. It seems like Dexter is missing some bite this year…the storyline is not as good as the past 2 years.
Shawn, I can never be shocked w/HBO beating Showtime since it is in roughly 50% more homes, but I wouldn’t have predicted that True Blood would do so much better than Dexter. I agree Dexter isn’t nearly as good this year, but I think it was amazing that they got two great season (at least IMO) out of the premise and am not surprised that it’s harder to do three years in a row. I’m more surprised True Blood did noticeably better than Entourage.
Robert Seidman wrote:
I still haven’t seen the latest episode of Dexter, but I have to agree about what I’ve seen so far. The premiere actually made me think it was really going to be able to pull off another amazing season, but the whole Miguel thing is not playing out very well.
(But mostly I just wanted to try out this new quote and reply thing!)
@ Julia:
And I don’t think it works quite as nicely as it should. There’s not much of an indicator that the quote has finished and the new comment has begun.
should it stay or should it go, Julia? I was just playing around with it because “it was there”
Robert Seidman wrote:
I like the idea, but the execution doesn’t quite work the way it should, I think. The tag is blockquote, but it doesn’t actually block the quote. If it did, I would keep it. I’m not sure why it’s not working right, though.
Does demo performance matter much for networks like Showtime and HBO?
Noah, since the age demos are all about advertising, I wouldn’t think the paid cable networks would value them any more than any other viewer group. A paying subscriber is a paying subscriber, regardless of age.
I think Dexter is somewhat different in terms of a straight foward narratative this season than the last two, but its still a terrific piece of Television. Sunday’s episode were he proposes to Rita was a great hr of TV. True Blood is a really interesting show that keeps me coming back week after week, but it soley relies on it’s quirky characters like Twin Peaks did years ago. There’s no real storyline to propel it forward, at least so far! Still there’s something about it that I enjoy! Id give it a 6.5 out of 10.
CHUCK