Updated: NBA All-Star festivities, The Closer, WWE RAW, and Monk lead week, Damages to return despite ratings

TNT had a nice week, grabbing the top spot with the NBA All-Star game.  TNT actually took the top four spots, and five out of the top ten spots and the top scripted show with The Closer.   TVbytheNumbers favorite Burn Notice was down some from last week, but still in the top ten.  Monk was USA's best performing scripted show (assuming you don't count WWE Raw as a scripted show).

The best SpongeBob could muster was 13th, but we're not worried for the yellow and porous wonder who is now a hit in China, too.

Please keep in mind that any of the numbers outside of the top 20 are sorted by number of viewers, but are not ranked.  Hundreds and hundreds of shows were not included.  The years old That's So Raven continues to mystify - especially the midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning airing. It was seen by more viewers than the initial airing of last week's Battlestar Galactica (which was a great episode).   And oh no, cover your eyes Moonlight fans, it  was down 20,000 viewers from last week.  ::mock gasps::

Hilary Lewis at Silicon Alley Insider tipped me off to a story she wrote where FX  both spins the numbers (extra airings, DVR viewing) and has confirmed FX is committed to Damages for season 3 (and confident it will continue even beyond!).  Especially interesting was the increase in 18-49 viewing attributed to DVR (from 497,000 for the initial airing to 828,000 via the live+7 numbers).   I buy that FX is committed to a season three, but I don't necessarily buy that it has anything to do with the initial additional airings or the DVR numbers.

No matter how  you slice it, the initial airing was beaten by a rerun of Moonlight on SciFi.  And also beaten by every individual airing of That's So Raven! Every show that airs episodes multiple times gains audience by doing so, whether it be Burn Notice, ESPN's Pardon The Interruption or FX's own Nip Tuck. Nip Tuck also has multiple airings, but it's initial airing beat all three Damages airings on Wednesday, and an additional airing of Damages on Sunday combined (2.33 million for first airing of Nip Tuck vs. 2.018 million for all four airings of Damages).

Sure, I know there will not be as many DVR viewers for That's So Raven and Moonlight, and all the numbers I'm listing here are live plus same day DVR viewing, but there's nothing particularly unique about Damages getting more viewers via multiple airings.  And though the Damages DVR percentages are somewhat unique, I'm pretty sure the advertisers don't care much about that. It makes for great spin, but doesn't probably mean much in terms of additional advertising revenue.  But despite that,  I don't know that the Damages on-air ratings are particularly important to FX anyway and I can sum up why in two words: DVD revenue.

I've enjoyed this season of Damages more than I thought I would.  At least right up until the last two minutes of last week's episode (saw it coming, but hated it anyway!).   But, I'll be watching this week.  And I'm in an almost immeasurable population - I watch it via On-Demand instead of DVR.  For whatever reason, I can't find FX in HD in my HD lineup so I can't DVR it in HD, but, it is available via On-Demand in HD, so I watch it that way.

These numbers are only basic advertising supported cable. If I see anything for HBO and Showtime, I'll post them here.  As for requests, sorry, but there's just no good way to do it.

Update: James Hibberd reports that Big Love averaged 2 million, and Flight of the Conchords averaged 826,000, while new comer Eastbound and Down only averaged 671,000 on Sunday night. Still haven't seen any U.S. of Tara numbers.

Top 20 cable shows for the week ending February 15, 2009:

Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved

All numbers are live viewing plus same day DVR viewing