| Scoreboard |  |
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 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 17.257 | 11.545 | 9.697 | 8.869 | 4.415 | 2.026 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 6.9/16 | 3.5/8 | 2.2/5 | 3.4/8 | 1.7/4 | 1.0/2 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 6.0/16 | 2.9/7 | 1.5/4 | 2.8/7 | 1.8/5 | 1.2/3 |
Of course Fox swept the night, and of course American Idol was the most watched show of the night, but the most interesting story last night was how ABC's Inaugural specials beat down NBC's and CBS's competitive offerings. ABC went with the more party focused Neighborhood Ball: An Inauguration Celebration which was #2 behind Idol at 8pm, and tops in viewers at 9pm while finishing 3rd behind Fringe and Biggest Loser in the demos. CBS's more historically focused Change & Challenge: The Inauguration of Barak Obama was embarrassed at 9pm, doing less than half of ABC's demo in the hour. At 10pm ABC jumped off the party wagon with A Moment in History: The Inauguration of Barak Obama and still easily beat NBC's The Inauguration of Barack Obama. Too bad for the Mouse that it we elect a president only once in 4 years!
I hesitate to read much into any of the other results for last night. Sure, American Idol was down from last week, but it was up against American President. That won't happen again. CBS went with reruns at 8 and 10, likely a smart move. Fringe got a nice boost post-Idol, again, on a very unique night. Biggest Loser improved nicely over last week, it could be one of few bright spots for NBC. CW's 90210 and Privileged got thrashed, but I'll wait until I see what happens next week, minus the President, to sing a sad song for them.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (000) | 18-49 Rating | 18-49 Share | 18-34 Rating | 18-34 Share |
| 8:00 | FOX | American Idol | 22,420 | 9.0 | 22 | 8.1 | 21 |
| ABC | Neighborhood Ball: An Inauguration Celebration | 12,591 | 3.5 | 8 | 2.9 | 8 | |
| CBS | NCIS (repeat) | 11,743 | 2.3 | 6 | 1.3 | 3 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser | 8,378 | 3.2 | 8 | 2.7 | 7 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Ángel | 5,041 | 1.9 | 5 | 2.0 | 5 | |
| CW | 90210 | 2,395 | 1.2 | 3 | 1.4 | 4 | |
| 9:00 | ABC | Neighborhood Ball: An Inauguration Celebration | 12,577 | 3.9 | 9 | 3.5 | 9 |
| FOX | Fringe | 12,093 | 4.7 | 11 | 4.0 | 10 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser | 12,043 | 4.8 | 11 | 3.9 | 10 | |
| CBS | Change & Challenge: The Inauguration of Barak Obama | 6,897 | 1.8 | 4 | 1.4 | 4 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 5,016 | 2.0 | 5 | 2.1 | 5 | |
| CW | Privileged | 1,657 | 0.8 | 2 | 1.0 | 2 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | The Mentalist (repeat) | 10,450 | 2.6 | 7 | 1.7 | 5 |
| ABC | A Moment in History: The Inauguration of Barak Obama | 9,466 | 3.0 | 7 | 2.3 | 6 | |
| NBC | The Inauguration of Barack Obama | 6,187 | 2.2 | 6 | 1.9 | 5 | |
| UNI | Aqui y Ahora | 3,189 | 1.3 | 3 | 1.3 | 3 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. Timeslot demo winners are in bold.
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.
I also feel that last night may have been a fluke for AI. Tonight’s numbers will be interesting.
Wow, Idol took a dive. Yes, competition and all, but that’s probably a steeper dive than anyone would’ve expected. I wonder if when it picks up a bit next week if Fringe has a chance of picking up as well. I wouldn’t bet on it.
That’s a pretty awful retention out of Idol (but nothing except House has ever done good retention out of Idol), nevertheless it’s a pretty huge boost for Fringe. It was doing what, 7-8 million lately? Can’t wait to see what Lie to Me does with the lead in tonight.
Damn Fringe is doing well. Like an extra 5m viewers isnt it?
nowhere near 5 million extra, and there is benefit of a minute or two of AI in there. It doesn’t look like giant slugs crawling out of someone’s mouth is a good way to retain the teens (or others) who hung on after AI.
It dropped from 13.436mm the first half hour to 10.75mm the second. the 18-49 rating went from 5.2 to 4.2.
Fringe is getting better and becoming more focused. The mysterious line at the end about the two sides is interesting. Who are the 2 sides? The cold viruses on steroids were kind of gross and rip off of the macro viruses from Star Trek Voyager, but cool nonetheless.
I hope Michael Gaston (formerly the mayor of JERICHO) will become a regular on Fringe.
Privileged actually went up from last week, half a million viewers and a 0.3 in the demo. It seems (and makes sense) that Fringe isn’t such an issue for it than AI was. So hoping it gets renewed. But even for CW standards, those numbers might be too low. Only three episodes left, gah!
Its great to see not everyone is in love with THE ONE. He couldnt even beat American Idol (though he clearly dented Idols ratings a bit).
Wow, the biggest surprises this winter is Biggest Loser and The Bachelor.. the 2 hour edition helps a lot
Name Required: based on the early metered market data/household rating info, the one, won — at least when it came to the inauguration itself. That didn’t go head to head with AI, but it looks like it will wind up well over 30 million.
Soory i was looking at the early episodes of Fringe that dropped to7m. Still though it has gained at least 3m more viewers so looks like Fringe will be sticking around
Anybody expecting 100% or even 90% retention would be kidding themselves. Those two audiences are completely different people. One show is a singing competition, the other one is a sci-fi/mystery show. I’m sure Marc Berman is screaming to cancel Fringe right now…
Hearing that Fringe dropped off from the first half hour to the next dosen’t suprise me. They bit off more than they could chew it that episode. The first 12 mintues were seralized, than after the first commerical break, they tried to shoe horn in a stand-alone stroyline. Then, they jumped back to the seralized elements. Bad, bad, bad. I’m hoping it gets better next week.
wow on AI. I was fully expecting at least 25 million. As for Fringe, I never thought it would retain well out of American Idol. For some reason I just don’t see a lot of cross over in the demos.
When you have a 22+ million lead in and you couldnt beat The Biggest Loser, is a failure.. Fringe is not a bomb but is not what FOX was expecting.
I think it’s exactly what Fox is expecting. It’s not a mass appeal show but I think Fox is ok with that. Retention out of Idol will be stonger for Lie To Me than Fringe but it’s not necessarily a better show, just a better match out of Idol. Fringe is what it is and Fox is doing the right thing in pairing it with it’s biggest hit for the 2nd half of this year. Any new exposure is good and it will get some new audience after AI. I’m sure they are hoping by next year it could be a stand alone show but even if it’s still pulling in what it did in November it will be ok with Fox IMO.
Yeah, I’m sure Fringe won’t beat the Biggest Loser when Idol isn’t at its lowest numbers of the season. Failure, cool, who are you kidding?
I’m amazed FRINGE managed 12 million even with AI up front. I’d go so far as the say that had it been left on it’s own from the start it would have been pulled within a month but with House & now AI babaysitting it the numbers are up – sorta.
Can’t wait to see how LOST does against AI tonight..
No one is _expecting_ 100% retention out of anything. Doing about 50%, most likely less when they finals are in, however shouldn’t be spun as some huge success.
I am sure FOX is fine with it and will leave Fringe where it is, because except giving Dollhouse (which has likely even less of a common audience with AI) a one time exposure post AI what else can they do?