While last week, Fox swept every viewership category by edging CBS in average viewers, this week Fox still easily beat the competition in the demos, but CBS did the edging out for the viewership win in the week of March 2-8, 2009, the 24th week of the 2008-9 season.
CBS's average viewership of 11.23 million just edged second place Fox by just 30,000 average viewers, but in the demos it was a different story. For demo adults 18-49 it was Fox way over CBS by 5.43 million to 3.66 million. It is noteworthy that CBS, which some see as entirely viewed by geriatrics, has been far more competitive in the 18-49 demo this season.
Fox won demo adults 25-54 over CBS by 5.94 million to 4.59 million viewers. In adults 18-34, is was Fox with 2.37 million, way above second place ABC with 1.48 million. Univision came within shouting distance of both CBS and NBC in the 18-34 demo.
Tiny Network Smackdown Update! With America's Next Top Model back, the CW catwalked away from its tiny rival MyNet, leaving it in the dust across the board this week.
(click chart for full sized image)
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
nbc is constantly bashed everywher you look (and usually rightly so) while cbs is touted as the “stable” network with the least number of holes to fill (which isnt completely untrue. however, i think the gap between the *perceived* health of these two nets is much, much smaller than most realize. is cbs better off than nbc? OF COURSE. is it better to have a show with 10 million viewers and a 2.5 demo than 6 million viewers and a 2.5 demo? YES. But still, cbs only beat nbc by 0.7 in the demo (and nbc barely edged them out in 18-34). FOX is the only net that is far and away ahead this week.
Am I wrong or has NBC been slipping in the demo the past month or two? ABC has shoved them aside and with DWTS it will be downright sad.
Actually abc had such a good week in part because of 4 hours of the bachelor. They only have 2 hrs of dancing this week. On the other hand, don’t greys and private practice return this week? If so, it may even out.
“Tiny Network Smackdown Update! With America’s Next Top Model back, the CW catwalked away from its tiny rival MyNet, leaving it in the dust across the board this week.”
The CW’s narrow lead over MyNetworkTV will be reduced considerably going forward in the March Sweep since Week 24 had four hours of ‘ANTM’ and regular weeks will only have two hours. Based on the trends evident after five nights, I expect that the first week of the Sweep will finish with CW ahead in A18-49 0.63 to 0.57, but with MyNetworkTV ahead in viewers 1.7 million to 1.6 million.
true dumont, though for the last few weeks CW has been mostly repeats (the current week, too) but that changes the week of 3/16-3/22.