The economy may be bad. Business may be bad and CBS may have taken an incomprehensibly-sized write down for the last quarter, but when it comes to TV viewing, CBS ought to feel pretty good about the television broadcast network mother ship. A presidential-elect Barack Obama fueled 60 Minutes led to its best results since 1999, and CSI, and NCIS – which had its largest average audience ever in its history (now in its sixth season) all made the top four.
CBS dominated the top 20, with twelve shows, ABC had five, NBC had two -- Sunday Night Football, which came in second place for the week, and first among 18-49 year olds, as well as the Sunday Night Football pregame. Fox could muster but one show in the top 20, House, though the Fox network did win among 18-34 year old viewers for the week.
Some will chime in about CBS’ older skew (myself included) because it’s true it does skew older – but it was still the number on network for the week among 18-49 year old viewers. On the other hand, it was the number four network among 18-34 year olds, but remember that the relative difference between number one Fox and CBS was only about 250,000 viewers aged 18-34 on average. We believe the 18-49 demo pays most of the bills.
Though it’s true CBS had four shows on this list that were not among the top twenty-seven shows among 18-49 year olds (we only saw rankings for the top 27 this week), it placed two shows in the 18-49 top twenty that didn’t make this list: The Big Bang Theory (#17) and How I Met Your Mother (#12).
Nielsen Top Twenty Shows by viewers for the week ending 11/16/08:
| Rank | Shows | R=Repeat S=Special P=Premiere | Net | # Viewers (LIVE+SD) (000) | HH RATING (LIVE+SD) | HH SHARE (LIVE+SD) | 18-49 Rank |
| 1 | 60 Minutes | CBS | 25,104 | 15.1 | 23 | 2 | |
| 2 | NBC Sunday Night Football | NBC | 19,272 | 11.6 | 18 | 1 | |
| 3 | CSI | CBS | 19,050 | 11.6 | 17 | 6 | |
| 4 | NCIS | CBS | 18,745 | 11.2 | 17 | 15 | |
| 5 | Dancing with the Stars | ABC | 18,693 | 11.9 | 17 | 10 | |
| 6 | Desperate Housewives | ABC | 16,842 | 10.3 | 15 | 3 | |
| 7 | DANCING W/STARS RESULTS | ABC | 16,521 | 10.8 | 16 | 26 | |
| 8 | Mentalist, THE | CBS | 16,516 | 10.1 | 15 | 16 | |
| 9 | CMA AWARDS(S) | S | ABC | 15,905 | 9.6 | 15 | 7 |
| 10 | GREY'S ANATOMY-THU 9PM | ABC | 14,902 | 9.8 | 15 | 4 | |
| 11 | Criminal Minds | CBS | 14,833 | 9.3 | 14 | 20 | |
| 12 | Two and a Half Men | CBS | 14,504 | 8.9 | 13 | 8 | |
| 13 | CSI: MIAMI | CBS | 13,815 | 9.0 | 15 | 21 | |
| 14 | HOUSE | FOX | 13,062 | 7.7 | 12 | 5 | |
| 15 | SURVIVOR: GABON | CBS | 12,885 | 7.6 | 12 | 14 | |
| 16 | COLD CASE | CBS | 12,277 | 7.8 | 12 | ||
| 17 | WITHOUT A TRACE | CBS | 12,232 | 7.9 | 13 | ||
| 18 | Amazing Race 13 | CBS | 12,127 | 7.3 | 11 | ||
| 19 | SUNDAY NIGHT NFL PRE-KICK | NBC | 11,922 | 7.1 | 11 | 9 | |
| 20 | ELEVENTH HOUR | CBS | 11,627 | 7.6 | 13 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
All numbers above based on live plus same day DVR viewing.
Wow NCIS seems to keep climbing up that list. House – 14th? in total viewers, what happened to you? Yes yes you’re still doing well in the demo but I don’t care, get back to what you used to be
house is die.
cast changes destroy the show.
fans are disapponed and go on.
Glad to see that NCIS is doing so well. As for House, I am not surprised by the ratings. House is just as redundant as the reality show Kitchen Nightmares. House the character, is also getting more and more unlikable.
I cannot believe The Office is not in the top 20. It is clearly one of the funniest shows on television.
60 minutes is a propaganda nightmare – liberal crap all the time! Now we wil be stuck with the messiah every week! Please put a bag on michelle’s mug – the worst horseface since ma kettle! To me these rating are bull – give us all a voice and this crap would change! Another joke is nbc pre-show at 19th more BS! Plus they are selling the propaganda dvd about barackback mountain! Will they have scenes on wright, aires, larry craig (the crack limo ride for the down low), farahkhan, million boy march, and his muslim background? Personally, I don’t watch any of this liberal hollyweird crapola!
Where How I met your mother or Gary Unmarried? I guess not Private Practive either. Ghost Whisper should be in that list too.
Melissa, none of those shows made the top 20 in total viewing, so they are not in the list. How I Met Your Mother performs very well among 18-49 year olds though.