| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 9.91 | 9.20 | 7.37 | 6.14 | 4.30 | 1.37 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 2.5/7 | 3.4/9 | 2.6/7 | 1.9/5 | 1.6/4 | 0.5/1 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 1.8/5 | 3.1/9 | 2.3/7 | 1.7/5 | 1.7/5 | 0.6/2 |
Updated to include 18-34 demographic data below.
A little bit of an early Christmas for NBC, as Christmas in Rockefeller Center averaged over 10 million viewers. That served to be a better lead-in for Life than Knight Rider usually is and Life climbed to a season high 8.1 million viewers. Still, even with the bump in viewers, the best it could do among 18-49 year olds was fourth place. Not a good sign.
In the 18-49 demo, the lighting of the Christmas trees in Rockefeller Center was about the same as last year with a 2.2/6 (rating/share). The annual airing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer easily took the most viewers and both age demographics at 8pm, though Rudolph's 4.2/12 among 18-49 year olds was down 18% from last year's 5.1/14 on Tuesday, December 4, 2007.
Meanwhile, this year's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was up among 18-49 year olds by ~38% with a 3.6/10 this year versus last year's 2.6/7.
Fox's Secret Millionaire premiered for two hours and performed much better than I thought it would. It built every half hour and it won the 18-49 and 18-34 demos between 9pm-10pm.
With two out of three shows for the night (Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money) in the "cancel" pile, ABC didn't have it's best night. Sandwiched in-between was the soon to be relocating to Thursdays Private Practice which came in second in the age demos to Secret Millionaire in the 9pm hour.
For those who love doing comparisons to the prior week: since last Wednesday was not typical due to special holiday eve programming (though last night wasn't necessarily typical either) I recommend using the overnight report for Wednesday 11/19.
I'll try to update the show data table with the 18-34 data later on today.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer | 11.74 | 4.2/12 | 3.0/9 |
| NBC | Christmas in Rockefeller Center | 10.35 | 2.2/6 | 1.8/5 | |
| FOX | Secret Millionaire | 6.69 | 2.3/7 | 2.1/6 | |
| ABC | Pushing Daisies | 4.91 | 1.5/4 | 1.4/4 | |
| CW | Stylista (R) | 1.32 | 0.5/1 | 0.5/1 | |
| 9:00 | NBC | Life | 8.10 | 2.3/6 | 1.7/5 |
| FOX | Secret Millionaire | 8.05 | 3.0/8 | 2.6/7 | |
| ABC | Private Practice | 7.84 | 2.6/7 | 2.4/7 | |
| CBS | Grammy Nominations Concert Live! | 7.15 | 2.4/5 | 2.0/6 | |
| CW | Stylista | 1.41 | 0.6/1 | 0.7/2 | |
| 10:00 | NBC | Law & Order | 11.26 | 2.9/8 | 2.2/6 |
| CBS | Victoria's Secret Fashion Show | 8.73 | 3.6/10 | 4.4/12 | |
| ABC | Dirty Sexy Money | 5.67 | 1.7/5 | 1.4/4 |
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.
Wow. Life did VERY well last night. So did Law and Order. Both went to season highs. All this proves is that Life needs a better lead-in to succeed better than it does now.
I hope ABC will air all 13 episodes of Pushing Daisies because it’s a fantastic show. I think they will air the 3 episodes in january because it’s only 3 more episodes. Does anyone have an insider scoop whether or not they will?
when is the next episode of knight rider?
Yes Life and Law and Order did good but only because Criminal Minds and CSI:NY were took the week off.
oups! That should have been “Yes Life and Law and Order did good but only because Criminal Minds and CSI:NY took the week off.”
pushing daisies increased in viewers and demo
too bad its been cancelled
ABC DONT KNOW WHAT THERE MISSING
GET RID OF PRIVATE PRACTICE AND KEEP PUSHING DAISIES
We can only imagine, Robert, if Life were on CBS…
Cam: and it was still the lowest-rated show of the night among the real networks.
Cam, I suggest it is you who doesn’t know what you’re missing. But it’s just a suggestion (and the suggestion is this: LOOK AT THE FREAKING NUMBERS!).
Without commenting on either show’s quality and only looking that the numbers, it’s fairly definitive. ABC shouldn’t keep Pushing Daisies. But getting rid of Private Practice to keep it would be insanity.
dirty sexy money what a great show. shame on you abc!
I am happy for Life. At least it kept/grew slightly the demo of its lead in and gained total viewers. It does show signs of being responsive to any help NBC can give it, which might not be the mark of a hit show, but is much more than can be said about any of the other NBC or ABC croakers.
dirty sexy money what a great show. shame on you abc! (2)
CAM relax…a 1.5 in the demo? oh ABC knows what it is missing and it’s not much.
Plus, Idizzle, it was the #1 show in viewers at 9pm for all networks. Its demo is not that far off from the shows on CBS and ABC, and I’m sure NBC is happy (given its dismal Fall record).
Maybe now, those oldies from CBS who crossed over to NBC and discovered what the heck Life was (a procedural!) may stick around–even a couple of million defections is good news.
Regarding FOX–God no! Not another reality show hit! Yuck.
Woo! Good on Life!!!
Hi Robert – it looks like the CBS, Fox, and NBC logos need to be switched.
I’m also a fan of Life. Given enough time and a decent lead in, I think it could find an audience. It reminds me of House before American Idol introduced it to the world.
Even with a buttload of caveats (demos, competition, etc.), who would have ever guessed Life would ever win any hour ever in total viewers? It’s at least a giant moral victory, and a sign for NBC that they might be able to turn it into a decent success if they can somehow figure out how to help it along (not that I have hope Ben Silverman could even find his butt with a funnel).
Will it ever be a monster success? Probably not, but I’m pretty certain everyone here would have said the same about NCIS six years ago. Never know what might happen, and NBC is at least a network that has nothing else going for it at the moment. That Life is showing at least some signs of life has got to be good for it.
That said, the numbers from here on out will tell the tale more so than one nice showing against marginal competition (I mean you, Private Practice). But it can’t be that expensive, and given their absolute dearth of programming (NBC running out of shows??), never know where this might lead.
God, I hope so, because come January there will be almost nothing on that I like. And Damien Lewis should always be on the air somewhere at all times.
Schmokey, next week will be more telling. Again, it won’t have Knight Rider as its lead in — but the lead-in is a kid’s special “Little Spirit: Christmas in New York,” which is still likely a better lead in than KR. Unfortunately for Life though, Criminal Minds is airing next week.
I don’t understand how NONE of the NBC Shows was lower than 8 millions and yet NBC got 7.17. Also, I think Chuck would be a better lead in for Life than Knight Rider
tooltip — i’m surprised nobody beat you to it. The numeric data is correct, but the labels aren’t. I’ll fix them, but NBC was the first column…