| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 30.074 | 16.321 | 9.057 | 5.924 | 4.369 | 1.654 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 11.8/28 | 3.5/8 | 3.4/8 | 2.3/6 | 1.7/4 | 0.8/2 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 9.9/26 | 2.1/6 | 2.9/8 | 2.2/6 | 1.9/5 | 1.1/3 |
Of course, the return of American Idol on Tuesday dominated the night, but as Robert reported, it was down about 10% from its season premiere in 2008. Interestingly, the two other shows to go head to head with the Idol premiere both seasons, NCIS and Biggest Loser were both up year to year. By this time last season, the WGA strike was beginning to cause problems with the broadcast schedules, so even while Idol was drawing the spotlight CBS and ABC did better in the 18-49 demo than last season's Idol premiere night, and NBC was down just a tick. The slight, and expected, Idol erosion plus rebound from the competition should make this spring far more competitive than last year.
Against the Idol assault CBS (NCIS, The Mentalist, Without a Trace) was up for the night vs. last week. Les Moonves is smiling this morning. NBC (Biggest Loser, Law & Order:SVU) was down about 20% in the demos for the night week over week. For ABC, Homeland Security USA was down about 15%, but Scrubs is in the ICU, down 30% in the 18-49 demo from last week. I wrote last week that it was too early for Scrubs fans to be hopeful for the future. Today, the future looks dim. The CW lineup (90210, Privileged) was hurt by Idol, down about 20% in the demos from last week
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (000s) | 18-49 Rating | 18-49 Share | 18-34 Rating | 18-34 Share |
| 8:00 | FOX | American Idol (season premiere) | 27.474 | 10.4 | 26 | 8.8 | 24 |
| CBS | NCIS | 18.483 | 3.8 | 9 | 2.2 | 6 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser | 7.966 | 2.9 | 7 | 2.6 | 7 | |
| ABC | Homeland Security USA | 6.040 | 1.9 | 5 | 1.4 | 4 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 4.698 | 1.8 | 5 | 2.0 | 6 | |
| CW | 90210 | 2.183 | 1.1 | 3 | 1.4 | 4 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | American Idol (season premiere) | 32.674 | 13.1 | 29 | 11.1 | 27 |
| CBS | The Mentalist | 18.090 | 3.8 | 9 | 2.3 | 6 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser | 9.545 | 3.7 | 8 | 3.1 | 8 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 5.173 | 2.1 | 5 | 2.4 | 6 | |
| ABC | Scrubs | 4.480 | 2.2 | 5 | 2.5 | 6 | |
| CW | Privileged | 1.126 | 0.5 | 1 | 0.7 | 2 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Without a Trace | 12.391 | 2.9 | 7 | 1.7 | 5 |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU | 9.660 | 3.6 | 9 | 3.0 | 8 | |
| ABC | Primetime: What Would You Do? | 7.253 | 2.9 | 7 | 2.6 | 7 | |
| UNI | Aqui y Ahora | 3.236 | 1.3 | 3 | 1.4 | 4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. Timeslot demo winners are in bold.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 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.
OUCH 90210!!!
Wow, Scrubs lost 2,3 milion viewers, that can’t be good. Great numbers for CW, that’s what you get when your goal is a niche-network only teen girls watch
Wow @CBS. They didn’t even lose any of the demo. Scrubs on the other hand… I guess we won’t need to worry too much about a Braff-less Scrubs next season.
To be honest The CW drop-off isn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be and I’m somewhat amazed at the CBS numbers.
Scrubs viewer numbers are bad, but the fact it still managed a 2.2 in the demo is pretty good. Quite a few of ABC’s shows this fall couldn’t do that against much less competition.
hate to see those ratings for scrubs since I love the show so much but at least that means we wont see a season without the main characters.
I’m surprised that Primetime beat Without a Trace in the demo with the half of viewers.
Ouchy for Scrubs. Hopefully once Fringe fills the 9:00 hour it will do better. Same for Biggest Loser and the stupid Mental guy. Have I ever expressed how I despise CBS?
NBC held okay, not great, but the CW (especially Privileged) is looking more anemic than I’ve ever seen on a Tuesday.
wow, looking at last year Biggest Loser is doing way way better.
I predict the ratings for american idol will start to severely decline this season. I thought the premiere would drop more than 10 percent but I am still confident that by the middle of the show’s run this season people will be shocked by the relatively low numbers it draws. I can imagine it being beat by CBS.
The retention of Without a Trace of The Mentalist is awful.
David, we can all dream…
L&O SVU is down a whole Demo point from last year…oh well.
The Biggest Loser is only 10% up from last year.
UNI Fuego en la Sangre 5.173
ABC Scrubs 4.480
OH MY GOD!
Why did ABC take Scrubs?
xxx
Because it brings to ABC 1 million per episode in syndication.
cool, Up anything vs. last year for any show is cause for celebration.
My math is estimates here, by the way, but to illustrate a point: NCIS and Mentalist only lost about a million-ish each vs. Idol. Counting 8 and 9pm hours only, we saw total broadcast veiwers of 48 million-ish, on average, last week. This week, there are 67 million-ish viewers. So approximately 19 million more people tune to broadcast TV, in those two hours, for no other reason but Idol?
I wonder what cable ratings were like last night, in terms of total viewers in the 8 and 9pm hours?
CBS is airing an all new ‘The Mentalist’ this sunday after football. Why? Not that I’m complaining, I’m a fan of the show. But, it just seemded kind of an odd thing to do, when they have all their other sunday night scripted programs they could air instead.
I’m always surprised to hear how much ABC makes off of Scrubs syndication. While I know the DVD sales are pretty good, I remember in the first season it was in syndication it was not faring too well. At least it was not on the local FOX affiliate.