| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 16.55 | 11.22 | 6.69 | 4.91 | 4.32 | 2.26 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 5.7/16 | 2.9/8 | 2.8/8 | 1.6/4 | 1.8/5 | 1.0/3 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 4.5/14 | 1.9/6 | 2.6/8 | 1.2/4 | 2.0/6 | 1.3/4 |
In a night where the CW beat NBC in the 8pm hour FOX took top honors fueled by Lie To Me and American Idol. The premiere of Better Off Ted on ABC did not soar, although ABC's 8pm comedy block was competitive with CBS' 8pm comedy block among adults 18-49. But, Ted was the lowest-rated comedy series debut [on ABC] in over three years (since Hot Properties 2.2/6 in the demo in 10/05).
Update: as commenter Michael notes below, The Return of Jezebel James did worse on 3/14/08 (much worse - a 1.0 in adults 18-49). But as Michael also notes, that was on a Friday...
We know Jeff Zucker doesn't think NBC can be #1 in prime-time, but surely he wants at least a firm grasp on fourth place. But with Chopping Block at 8pm, NBC was in fifth out of the five English Broadcast nets, including the mini network that is the CW. Ouch.
Lie To Me was down about 10% in adults 18-49 versus last week (3.1 rating vs 3.4 last week), but is still holding up well on its own and won the hour. Lost lost steam from its last new episode two weeks ago when it had a 4.9 rating in adults 18-49. But two week ago it didn't compete against Idol, and ran against a repeat of Life. Still last night's 4.2 adults 18-49 rating for Lost was two-tenths lower than prior nights when Lost had run up against Idol and a slate of new programming. It was Lost's lowest 9pm rating ever (excluding clip shows).
I enjoyed last night's Life, even the new partner, but, last night's episode had fewer viewers than two weeks ago when it was a repeat! Last night was better in the demo than two weeks ago, but that's of little consolation. Life on Mars has already been canceled and the one good outcome of that is the show's producers knowing it in advance is that they are writing it in a way that wraps things up. It's down to its final two episodes.
Past overnight reports for Wednesday are available.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | FOX | Lie To Me | 10.03 | 3.1/10 | 2.5/8 |
| CBS | New Adventures of Old Christine | 7.37 | 2.1/7 | 1.2/4 | |
| ABC | Scrubs | 5.80 | 2.2/7 | 2.1/8 | |
| CW | America's Next Top Model | 3.60 | 1.6/5 | 1.9/6 | |
| NBC | The Chopping Block | 3.46 | 1.3/4 | 1.0/3 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | Gary Unmarried | 7.57 | 2.3/7 | 1.3/4 |
| ABC | Better of Ted (premiere_ | 5.64 | 2.2/6 | 2.0/7 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | American Idol | 23.07 | 8.4/21 | 6.5/18 |
| CBS | Criminal Minds | 13.49 | 3.2/8 | 2.1/6 | |
| ABC | LOST | 9.08 | 4.2/10 | 4.1/11 | |
| NBC | Life | 4.22 | 1.5/3 | 1.1/3 | |
| CW | 90210 (R) | 0.91 | 0.4/1 | 0.6/2 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI: NY | 12.70 | 3.3/9 | 2.2/7 |
| NBC | Law & Order | 7.07 | 2.1/6 | 1.5/4 | |
| ABC | Life on Mars | 5.27 | 2.0/6 | 1.4/4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
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.
i knew it would flop and it looks like Motherhood will too now that its premiere is VS american idol
hopefully SW? wont sink as well but i guess ABC cant cancel all its shows
i guess lost will improve a little for the finals like it usually does.
CSI: NY was not a repeat!
Horrible numbers for the ABC sitcoms, but their 18-34 numbers are somewhat good. I mean they beat the CBS sitcoms.
I was wrong about Castle tanking, but correct about Better Off Ted. I think it even hurt last night’s episode of Lost.
And the sad thing is, its demo numbers aren’t really that bad.
ABC deserves lower LOST numbers for lying that they’d show the season without repeats. Once you break up the schedule with repeats, the numbers will go down. How they haven’t figured this out yet is mind-boggling.
But Better Off Ted retained 100% of its lead-in, so surely
Bermanthe nameless retionistas consider it a winner!The CW needs to find something to put on besides 90210 reruns. That show repeats so horribly. That’s just bad business. I know it’s basically a commercial for new episodes, but when the next new episode airs, I bet it proves this is not good business.
Better Off Ted is a goner and In the Motherhood will likely be crushed by American Idol and NCAA Basketball.
As much as CBS may want to keep the Wednesday Comedies, I think it would much easier and better to air the NCIS spin-off or another crime drama in that slot and boost Criminal Minds and CSI:NY plus it would fare better against Idol.
Between errands and NCAA B-Ball,I will be offline most of the day until this evening. Play nicely
Robert, the Return of Jezebel James last year debuted with lower ratings but it was on a Friday.
I forgot that Ted was premiering last night. I thought it looked good in the previews and I wanted to watch it. oh well.
Shame that Lost’s numbers weren’t great because last night’s episode was incredibly good.
I don’t understand how people can watch Lost sometimes but not other times. There’s not a whole lot of episodes left, and I would think that the ratings would be very steady now as the core loyal fan base will want to watch every episode from now until its finale next year.
Unless they are DVR-ing it, which is a definite possibility. If people like both Lost and Idol, they will prefer to watch the reality shows live and tape the scripted shows because otehrwise you might find out the results accidentally.
Michael, I was going to ask, but maybe Robert meant for ABC?
Michael, good catch
Aw, that’s a shame about about Better Off Ted; I really liked it. Maybe NBC wants it, given Zucker’s never-be-number-one again attitude.
@Alan
I think your last paragraph hit the nail on the head. When Lost is up against Idol, I think more people watch it via alternate methods.
@Julia — yes, you are correct, I did mean ABC. I might have been skimming, too uncaffeinated or something else, but it is only ABC’s lowest-rated debut. I’ve updated the post, and now I am out of here
Alan— I think the DVR explains a lot regarding slight fluctuations for LOST. I also like American Idol and I watch that live/same day, but wont be watching “Lost” until this weekend, when I have time to pay complete attention and savor it.
Ouch for The New Adventures of Old Christine, ties Scrubs in the demo and GU grew in viewers and the demo. I have a feeling this and Worst Week are gone.
oh and everyone laugh at Life, series low 4.22. Simply pathetic.
I think DVR is huge for Lost. I don’t remember the last time I actually watched an episode live.