| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 15.82 | 11.42 | 10.88 | 8.50 | 4.11 | 2.30 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 3.5/9 | 2.5/6 | 4.7/12 | 3.5/9 | 1.6/4 | 1.1/3 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 2.2/6 | 1.6/5 | 4.4/12 | 3.0/9 | 1.7/5 | 1.7/5 |
While we do love seeing the total viewer numbers, increasingly it's as meaningless as DVR numbers. It's used for PR, chest-thumping and bragging rights -- and CBS can say it's "America's Most Watched Network", last night it certainly was. But consider in the important age demographics NBC with two hours of The Biggest Loser and an hour of Law & Order: SVU tied CBS among 18-49 year olds and beat it outright among 18-34 year olds even though CBS had almost twice as many viewers.
But in CBS' defense both NCIS (4.0 rating among 18-49 year olds) and The Mentalist (3.9) had good demo numbers. CBS demos were dragged down by Without a Trace which even though it had almost three million more total viewers than Law & Order: SVU, it trailed badly among 18-49 year olds. And props to The Mentalist for actually winning the 9pm hour in viewers and beating out the Dancing with the Stars results show.
Fox's House may be past its prime, but its middle-age years still dominated the 8pm hour among 18-49 and 18-34 year olds. It averaged a 5.5 rating among 18-49 year olds compared to NCIS' 4.0. NCIS' number isn't bad, it's just House's number is relatively...great. Unless you compare it to past years' performances of House, in which case you could theoretically get depressed. But the landscape keeps changing and now a 5.5 is great.
Fringe, while not dominate like House still won the demos for the 9pm hour, although in the second half hour, Mentalist beat it among 18-49 year olds (3.9 to 3.7).
Eli Stone fans, sorry... At this point if ABC keeps this show, all I can do is throw my hands up in the air and ask WHY!? I mean seriously, it couldn't even get to a 2.0 in the 18-49 demographic without needing to round up and that includes a couple minutes of Dancing with the Stars overrun baked in.
Keeping it just seems wacky to me, but I understand that perhaps I just do not understand. Because seriously, I don't. If you're a major shareholder of Disney stock and ABC keeps Eli Stone, would you do me a favor as a major investor in Disney and please ask them why they are investing your money like that? And then explain it to us so we will understand.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | NCIS | 18.79 | 4.0/10 | 2.3/7 |
| FOX | House | 12.88 | 5.5/14 | 5.4/15 | |
| ABC | Dancing With the Stars (Recap) | 10.43 | 2.1/5 | 2.3/7 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser: Families | 7.55 | 3.2/8 | 2.8/8 | |
| UNI | Cuidada con el Angel | 4.38 | 1.6/4 | 1.8/5 | |
| CW | 90210 | 2.73 | 1.4/4 | 2.0/6 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | The Mentalist | 16.46 | 3.9/9 | 2.5/7 |
| ABC | Dancing With the Stars Results | 16.39 | 3.6/9 | 2.1/5 | |
| FOX | Fringe | 8.88 | 4.0/9 | 3.6/9 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser: Families | 8.53 | 3.7/9 | 3.3/9 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 4.84 | 1.9/4 | 2.1/5 | |
| CW | Privileged | 1.87 | 0.9/2 | 1.4/4 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Without a Trace | 12.21 | 2.8/7 | 1.7/5 |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU | 9.42 | 3.7/10 | 3.2/9 | |
| ABC | Eli Stone | 7.44 | 2.0/5 | 1.4/4 | |
| UNI | Aqui y Ahora | 3.12 | 1.3/3 | 1.3/4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
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.
Gotta agree with you on Eli Stone. I know it’s something about keeping producers happy, but at what cost? When Berlanti has two series that are failing miserably, and one that is just doing okay (Brothers & Sisters), is it worth it to keep him happy?
90210 is trending downwards, not looking good:(
Robert, do we know the cost per episode for DSM and ES?
So since Fringe’s average was 4.0 it must have dropped 0.6 from 4.3 to 3.7. Do I have that right? That’s a little worrying. With that kind of viewer dropoff it looks like Fringe is heavily dependent on a strong leadin.
Paul, I agree, so far Mondays (and Thursdays, a night the CW doesn’t even really care about) are the only night going more or less exactly to plan for the CW. It’s not impressive and I’m really surprised and disappointed it hasn’t tried mucking with the bad parts of Tuesday and Wednesday to see what else could happen w/Privileged. I’d still move Privileged to air after Gossip Girl, put OTH after 90210 and figure out quickly if 9pm is going to fly on Wednesdays.
Ljo, I don’t know the relative costs, but I don’t need to know the costs to know based on the numbers I’d keep neither Eli or DSM. I think the opportunity cost of keeping shows with below average performance is too high, regardless of how inexpensive they may be to produce.
CDN, 4.2 to 3.7, and it lost over a million viewers from one half hour to another. I imagine that is a bit unsettling. The Mentalist by comparison “only” lost ~700K from one half hour to the next
Well said Mr. Seidman
No way the Network should allow Berlanti to choose ES over DSM when ES follows a top 5 show and pulls a like demo
Also, based on what is posted at The Futon Critic, most of the 700K viewers The Mentalist lost were outside of the demo. (He shows it even at the half-hour in the demo).
NCIS might beat CSI this week. Amazing. I watch plenty of procedural shows and i’ve always find NCIS the worst. Clearly many others have another opinion. Great for The Mentalist against such tough competition
“House” was especially good last night. Glad it did (relatively) well.
I see ABC Family is moving “Secret Life” to air directly opposite “Gossip Girl” starting in January. Giving that the former got ratings that the latter could only dream about, it should be pretty funny to see what happens in a head-to-head matchup. (Not a big fan of the CW here, in case you couldn’t tell.)
This is still confusing…..is it still better to win in the demos than overall? Do the advertisers only look at demo or the overall ratings? Also with NCIS doing well on tuesday and on Fridays, what does CBS do mid season? Continue the reruns and wait for next fall, or do they put in a new show, Flashpoint maybe?
I don’t know what your problem with NCIS is Bob. It’s a well written procedural and has humor that CSI lacks (particularly Dinozzo!). That being said, it looks like its viewers and demo ratings are improving, and at least in viewers, its up to CSI level. CBS should be thrilled.
hookedonmick, everything indicates that the advertisers only care about the demos, and total viewers don’t count for much. It’s better to have a big audience, because that means you’ll likely have higher demos, but that’s about it.
Wow. Fringe was in double digits for total viewers last time wasnt it?
hookedonmick, I’d be very surprised if CBS keeps a rerun on Friday night for the rest of the season. Almost certainly they will put a new show in starting in January.
Those Biggest Loser ratings are eye opening to me. I admit not paying much attention to most unscripted show numbers, but I imagine the profits for that show have got Jeff Zucker smiling.
Notably, at least in the overnights, The Biggest Loser beat Heroes, both in total viewers and in 18-49 year olds…
Anthony, Fringe hadn’t aired a new episode since 10/21, I think it did do over 10 million but you’re welcome to scroll back through the overnight archive and find out.
NCIS is a “lighter” crime procedural show. I have never watched CSI, so I couldn’t tell you the difference. I actually like NCIS, though I admit I only started watching it this season. I do think that they should vary the formula, though. I think the segments with the goth chick and the coroner are in the same place in the show in every episode, which is kind of … eh.
I remain pissed at Fox for ruining TSCC by sticking it on Monday night, and running freaking Fringe in its place. Fringe is a bad X-Files knockoff. I mean, I watch the show because I’m a genre fan and will watch anything sci fi, but it’s decidedly not my favorite. [Well, almost anything... I quit watching Knight Rider two episodes ago.]
90210 producers are quite sad, it’s like their throwing crap at us between good episodes ( in which we’ve had like 3 since the premiere) The writers are average at best, so that reflects the viewership drop, they use past characters to create a buzz but atm it’s doing quite the opposite, Kelly returned last night and the viewership eroded further (-290k) the episode was lacklustre and on top of that Kelly only had a few minutes screen time. Next week will tell the story, whether it can vault back over 3 million, which i doubt even though Brenda returns. They have used only 2 original characters, we are now half-way through the season and the writers are teasing us by the 2 originals they are using leaving and then promoting the return of an old 90210 alum and it turns out to be them. I like the show, One tree hill is the best teen drama out there, with Gossip Girl a close second. I think Reaper should be given a chance behind 90210 and shift priviliged to Fridays (slot vacated by ANTM rerun).
Soon MNTV will be thrashing CW and that isn’t fiction, their weekly average is creeping up while CW favs are eroding by wide(for CW) margins. Dawn Ostroff has to get her head screwed on and fix this mess before WB and CBS do.
LAW & ORDER SVU beat HEROES this week! The winds are changing.
As for FRINGE, I feel that the show is silly. It’s probably not losing viewers, they pick up a decent amount on the C3 compared to Live numbers.