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:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | EAST VS WEST | TNT | Sun | 08:25P-11:23P | 7,621 |
| 2 | NBA ALLSTAR SAT NIGHT | TNT | Sat | 08:30P-11:05P | 6,554 |
| 3 | 2009 NBA ALLSTAR PST GAME | TNT | Sun | 11:23P-11:29P | 5,707 |
| 4 | CLOSER, THE | TNT | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,437 |
| 5 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:06P | 5,378 |
| 6 | MONK | USA | Fri | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,114 |
| 7 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,099 |
| 8 | BURN NOTICE | USA | Thu | 10:00P-11:00P | 4,845 |
| 9 | NBA TIP-OFF ALLSTAR | TNT | Sun | 08:00P-08:25P | 4,589 |
| 10 | PRES OBAMA NEWS CONF | FOXN | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,268 |
| 11 | PSYCH | USA | Fri | 10:00P-11:00P | 4,266 |
| 12 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 07:00P-08:00P | 4,120 |
| 13 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,016 |
| 14 | NCIS | USA | Tue | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,938 |
| 15 | iCarly | NICK | Sun | 07:00P-07:30P | 3,923 |
| 16 | WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE | DSNY | Sun | 08:30P-09:00P | 3,920 |
| 17 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXN | Thu | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,869 |
| 18 | SpongeBob THE MOVIE | NICK | Fri | 06:00P-08:00P | 3,827 |
| 19 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 12:00P-12:30P | 3,814 |
| 20 | NBA TIP-OFF ALLSTAR | TNT | Sat | 08:00P-08:30P | 3,780 |
| Other Shows | |||||
| BACK AT THE BARNYARD | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 3,722 | |
| SECRET LIFE/AMERICAN TEEN | FAM | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,507 | |
| SONNY WITH A CHANCE | DSNY | Sun | 08:00P-08:30P | 3,480 | |
| MIGHTY B! | NICK | Sat | 10:30A-11:00A | 3,411 | |
| HOUSE | USA | Thu | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,286 | |
| TOP CHEF | BRAV | Wed | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,271 | |
| NORTH CAROLINA/DUKE | ESPN | Wed | 09:03P-11:15P | 3,269 | |
| HOUSE OF PAYNE | TBSC | Wed | 10:30P-11:00P | 3,228 | |
| LEVERAGE | TNT | Tue | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,212 | |
| DOG SHOW | USA | Tue | 08:00P-11:00P | 3,149 | |
| STAR WARS:CLONE WARS | TOON | Fri | 09:00P-09:30P | 2,936 | |
| JON & Kate Plus 8 | TLC | Mon | 09:00P-09:30P | 2,715 | |
| IMPORTANT THINGS | CMDY | Wed | 10:30P-10:59P | 2,412 | |
| AMERICAS BEST DANCE CREW | MTV | Thu | 10:00P-11:00P | 2,372 | |
| NIP TUCK | FX | Tue | 10:00P-11:02P | 2,330 | |
| DAILY SHOW | CMDY | Wed | 10:59P-11:30P | 2,303 | |
| FOR THE LOVE OF RAY J | VH1 | Mon | 10:00P-11:00P | 2,254 | |
| INTERVENTION | A&E | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 2,242 | |
| BEFORE YOU SAY I DO | HALL | Sat | 09:00P-11:02P | 2,145 | |
| I LOVE MONEY 2 | VH1 | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 2,064 | |
| DIRTY JOBS | DISC | Tue | 09:00P-10:00P | 2,054 | |
| THATS SO RAVEN | DSNY | Wed | 06:00P-06:25P | 1,939 | |
| TRUST ME | TNT | Mon | 10:00P-11:00P | 1,914 | |
| THATS SO RAVEN - LN | DSNY | Sun | 12:00A-12:30A | 1,858 | |
| GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATL | SCIF | Wed | 09:00P-10:01P | 1,892 | |
| ROCK OF LOVE 3 | VH1 | Sun | 09:00P-10:00P | 1,758 | |
| BATTLSTR GALACTICA (ORIG) | SCIF | Fri | 10:00P-11:01P | 1,738 | |
| ECW | SCIF | Tue | 09:00P-10:00P | 1,658 | |
| HOUSE HUNTERS INTL | HGTV | Sun | 08:30P-09:00P | 1,690 | |
| REAL WORLD XXI | MTV | Wed | 10:00P-11:00P | 1,505 | |
| MAKING THE BAND 4 | MTV | Thu | 09:00P-10:00P | 1,337 | |
| MOONLIGHT | SCIF | Fri | 09:00P-10:00P | 1,242 | |
| PARDON THE INTERRUPTION | ESPN | Mon | 05:30P-06:00P | 1,078 | |
| PARKING WARS | A&E | Sun | 03:30P-04:00P | 1,002 | |
| DAMAGES | FX | Wed | 10:00P-11:01P | 941 | |
| BAD GIRLS CLUB | OXYG | Tue | 10:00P-11:00P | 874 | |
| AROUND THE HORN | ESPN | Mon | 05:00P-05:30P | 760 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
All numbers are live viewing plus same day DVR viewing
Leverage – 3,21 mln! Great!
Talk about going out on top – Monk’s still pulling in good numbers.
Looks like the first half-hour of Clone Wars did well. I know Cartoon Network aired two back-to-back new episodes on Friday night. Hopefully the second episode did well enough.
Does anyone have numbers for 1×04 episode of Leverage?
^When did it air?
@Jim, I posted the better performing episode, but the gap between the two wasn’t big. Serialnik, post the date of the episode for 1×4 and I’ll see if I can dig it up later.
it’s official
“Damages” is FX’s “Friday Night Lights”
“Battlestar Galactica” has lost a lot of Mojo since Season 1 (not sure how much, but I know it’s steadily been losing steam). I guess people just don’t care anymore.
Robert could you please tell me how Kyle XY did?
sorry for leaving off Kyle XY. 1.366 million (that’s Monday 2/9 at 9pm — won’t see 2/16 until next Tuesday).
Acording to Scifi “Battlestar” has about 2.5 million viewers with Live+7 numbers, around the same as season 1 numbers.
Jon, haha. somewhat in the irony dept., FNL actually airs (syndicated) on FX. Two airings last week, one 871K, one 854K.
Kyle XY is up! now doing better than Lincoln Heights and Greek yet it’s cancelled, it makes me sad:(
Please, Big Love and United States of Tara ?
FNL numbers on FX are really surprising. The show is cheap to produce. Maybe FX will consider buying it from NBC.
What’s up with Sonny With A Chance? It got so little viewers, was there something else in its timeslot or something?
Robert, I’m just curious — is there a website that shows the difference between Live / Live+SD / Live+7 numbers? Is Damages the only show with that type of increase?
USA Network re-runs its programs so often I’m wondering if there’s any significant impact on their ratings…
Stephanie, we post a lot of live+7 numbers for broadcast shows, but there is sadly nothing like that for cable shows. Shows like Burn Notice and Battlestar Galactica get good DVR bumps on cable w/live+7. but those shows also have a higher first airing than Damages and it’s easier for Damages to have a high % of DVR since its numbers are relatively low (similar to 90210 on the broadcast side).
please food detectives and Solitary 3.0…thanks
Not that I’m complaining, I love the show, but DAMAGES must be being produced for free to keep going with these numbers. Or GM (Cadilliac) likes the few eyes that are watching it.
Thanks for the info Robert. It should be interesting to see how Clone Wars fares in reruns on TNT.