Comments on: WWE RAW, Hannah Montana and Northern Lights lead cable show rankings

By: kwhy8strm

kwhy8strm — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:09:32 +0000

Its sad that a great show like Damages, cant find an audience

By: jay

jay — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:30:06 +0000

There are sites with age breakdowns for top cable shows. They only give top twenty. Cable ratings are still for the pros or fanatics. Speaking of which, South Park seems to be back. I must be a tunehead or bored with ” humanity ” because I always watch Futurama, but its ratings don’t show up on the radar screen. Good for Family Guy – its not a waste of time while you’re waiting for the hardcore adultswim shows.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:22:45 +0000

I updated the data with Big Love finale info on Tuesday, it’s in the post’s prose along with other HBO shows.

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:14:40 +0000

Shea, Big Love is on HBO, which Bill and Robert don’t see the numbers for. For some reason I doubt it got 3 mil, but if it did, I’m sure someone will have news on that.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:43:06 +0000

Roomates premiered to 1.5 million viewers and Sophie did even worse with only 892,000 viewers! Haha.. good! They deserve to crash and burn after the horrible treatment Kyle XY received!

By: Shea

Shea — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:41:08 +0000

to Holly,

Leverage was actually pulling in an average 3.2 million if I recall correctly. That was realy good and I can’t wait for season two. Where’s Saving Grace on this list? And what about the Big Love finale? That must’ve topped 3 million viewers at least. Best season of Big Love so far!

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:54:40 +0000

Sil, this list is for the week ending Sunday, March 22. That episode was on Monday the 23rd. It will be in next weeks list.

By: Sil

Sil — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:52:32 +0000

Jon & Kate Plus 8′ Season Finale Grabs 4.6 Million Viewers
Beats CBS, NBC CW and Fox in key female demos
By David Tanklefsky — Broadcasting & Cable, 3/25/2009 2:13:34 PM MT
TLC’s hit reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8′s season finale Monday night was the highest-rated episode in six demographics. The show was watched by 4.6 million viewers and ranked first among all ad-supported cable in the 9:30 p.m. half-hour among HH, W25-54, P18-49, W18-49, and W18-34.

Where was this on your list?

By: DanXY

DanXY — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:31:40 +0000

Glad to see that Kyle XY’s numbers went up for the finale at least. I really believe that trend would have continued if the series kept on going because many viewers were finally learning that it wasn’t canceled a long time ago. The long months between seasons forced many viewers to forget about the show and it seemed that they were finally trickling back. Sux that such a long hiatus and poor marketing doomed such a great show.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:01:09 +0000

KWise, because of the way we receive the cable data, including the household rating (percentage of TV households viewing) would be somewhat problematic in these posts, though I will think about including it for the top 20 shows. We could easily include the P2+ rating which would give the % of people watching rather than households, but that becomes confusing in that people aren’t generally familiar with P2+ ratings points. I’m not sure what your Google searches are on, this particular post is not optimized around the word “ratings”, and we do have many posts on this site that *do* list ratings. I do agree there is a distinction between ratings and viewers, and sometimes we offer one or the other, and sometimes both.

By: KWise

KWise — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:53:38 +0000

Ugh, your website is frustrating. You say these are “ratings” for cable, but I don’t see ratings. Aren’t ratings a percentage? You’re providing us viewership in raw number format. So can you re-label yourself as such so you don’t keep coming up on my google search as providing cable ratings WHEN YOU DON’T.

By: 30H3 Tre

30H3 Tre — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:57:26 +0000

Can u give me a site where i can see all the shows viewers?

By: TEh Eh

TEh Eh — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:56:30 +0000

why did you stop posting making the band 4

By: Trwe

Trwe — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:55:50 +0000

Where’s Making the band 4?????????

By: Roark

Roark — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:35:36 +0000

Do you have info on ‘Breaking Bad?’

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:45:55 +0000

Northern Lights had a very strong showing.. I think I read it was Lifetime’s biggest movie in years..

Can anyone help me in finding out how Lifetime movies– Sigourney Weaver’s “Prayers for Bobby” and Rosie O’Donnel’s “America” rated earlier this year? I enjoyed both and hope they faired well.

By: Stephany

Stephany — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:38:25 +0000

Wow, the new episodes of SpongeBob did great! So glad! Thanks for this.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:30:36 +0000

Kyle, fair enough. there were hundreds of cable shows that did better than Trust Me though, by my count there were more than 115 airings on TNT alone last week that did better! But Saving Grace was its top scripted program with 2.123 million (it trailed a couple of movies, so it wasn’t TNT’s top show, but it did come in ahead of both the Thursday NBA games on TNT)

By: Jose

Jose — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:24:17 +0000

“Was iCarly a repeat?”

No. It was a new episode that for some reason was not promoted by Nick. I watch Nick and Nite everyday and when there is a new icarly coming out
they have non stop ads. Last week I did not recall seeing an ad for the show. if it wasn’t for Tv Guide I would have had no idea there was a new episode.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:23:08 +0000

How come TNT’s Saving Grace isn’t included in the ratings? It had a new episode last week and it surely did better than Trust Me.

By: vic

vic — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:46:50 +0000

@TomSD: I was wondering the same thing, and it seems icarly was a new episode. that’s a big dropoff since the last new one (which i believe was ~6m). these kids shows mystify me.

By: Chris the TV Sage

Chris the TV Sage — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:03:24 +0000

According to the USA Network site, they were airing SVU at 10 pm on March 20.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:56:57 +0000

Doghouse, not really since the finale was on March 5… But, I speculate the numbers are perhaps otherwise correct but with Live+7 DVR viewing baked in. I don’t regularly see the Live+7 #s for cable shows, so I can’t confirm.

By: Doghouse Reilly

Doghouse Reilly — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:47:39 +0000

Any idea why Marc Berman included the following in today’s Programming Insider:

–

-Record Burn Notice on USA:

The second season-finale of USA drama Burn Notice rose to a record 7.31 million viewers in the Friday 10 p.m. hour on March 20. Comparably, this was the largest audience in the time period since WWE Raw on Sept. 11, 2000. And it was USA’s best performance among adults 25-54 (3.90 million) since the series-premiere of The Dead Zone on June 16, 2002, and best among adults 18-49 (3.56 million) since the debut of theatrical The Pirates of the Caribbean on July 15, 2006.

–

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/community/programming-insider/newsletters/e3iafdb4cafada99f43e42dc07d37329cd1

By: Christy0405

Christy0405 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:04:04 +0000

The City :’(

By: Shem

Shem — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:07:17 +0000

With all the promotion of Lifetime, I expected Northern Lights to be #1 this week. I can’t really say much cuz i haven’s seen it yet.

By: moonlightfan

moonlightfan — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:54:49 +0000

Yeah mon, Nothern Lights Ruled! Hooray for Nora Roberts. Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! Will become a Saturday Night regular at LMN for the rest of the month!
God bless Romance Novelists Everywhere!

Can’t say I’m not surprised though. But if you do romance right, it works for you, its that simple.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:53:38 +0000

Gosh WWE RAW losing viewers I think they will be up next week and the upcoming weeks but they are still the #1 Cable show in Americicana!

By: TomSD

TomSD — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:57:21 +0000

Was iCarly a repeat?

By: tom

tom — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:22:23 +0000

with daily and south park doing well… i’m wondering how futurama is doing in that lineup? any info?

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:19:28 +0000

I can understand the ratings for the WWE, Spongebob, I Carly etc… BUT I don’t get NCIS repeats scoring as well as they do. I just don’t know anyone that ever has watched this show but it’s all over the place and it’s huge. It’s boggles the mind how a repeat of a NCIS will destroy an incredible series like Damages(and it’s not even close).

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:12:03 +0000

Thanks Kyle

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:10:45 +0000

Joe – TNA Impact got a 1.3 household rating last week, and 1.9 million viewers.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:57:29 +0000

South Park was really good with Cartman being “The Coon” lol funny stuff….I was wondering since ECW numbers are on here can we start having the TNA numbers on the weekly cable ratings too? it’s the two hour wrestling show that comes on Spike TV thursday nights i’d like to know how well they do if it’s possible Thanks

By: Terry

Terry — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:34:00 +0000

i am glad kyle xy finished well!! I hope the new abc family shows fail miserably!!!!

By: paul

paul — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:32:06 +0000

kyle xy = season high:P too bad it’s dead now:(

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:25:13 +0000

Jon, Emmy awards were in mid September, and by the time season one of Mad Men had won its Emmy, season two was ~3/4ths through its run. The Emmys didn’t seem to help a ton for the later episodes — they went down after Mad Men won the award. Some of that might have been due to Mad Men taking a week off the night the Emmy Awards aired so there was some lost momentum.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/10/22/mad-men-ratings-for-season-two-july-2008-october-2008/

By: RJ

RJ — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:24:57 +0000

Trust Me is doing AWFUL!

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:07:50 +0000

Robert, I agree though Mad Men did launch its second season around the time it got got the Emmy for best drama while Damages launched in January which was a few months after Glenn Close got best actress so any momentum was gone when it launched. Although saying that, Breaking Bad launched later and was up from the previous season.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:03:37 +0000

Jon, in season two Mad Men did better than 2x as well as Damages is doing and improved over its first season, and on AMC at that. HBO had subscription fees. I don’t think the landscape is the same for Damages at FX and these ratings aren’t improvements over the first season, though I do agree networks do like to hold on to their critical darlings.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:01:10 +0000

I expect Damages will get another season despite its awful ratings, it’s a critical darlings like Mad Men, The Wire etc which are/were low rated but get praise heaped on them.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:58:55 +0000

Nick, I think logically Damages should not be safe, but FX confirmed that the third season is a go. So I think you can trust them. Maybe.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:58:06 +0000

Nick, I don’t know. Unfortunately I have no insight into how much commitment there was for the 3rd season (whether FX signed on the dotted line, etc). The numbers are not good, but if FX takes the multiple airings into account, as well as On Demand (which I’ve seen no numbers for) and the DVDs are good…

…it still sounds like a lot of IFS to me.

By: mytwocents

mytwocents — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:56:54 +0000

Trust me.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:55:46 +0000

Robert, do you still think Damages is safe? I really never thought it’d get this low and am starting to get worried. I know you talked about DVD revenue giving it a good chance of surviving but can FX really afford these kinds of numbers for a show that can’t be cheap to produce? And it seems like there’s a decent chance they fall even further. I don’t think this season has been as good as the masterful first one but it’s a real mystery to me how anyone can watch this and not be gripped and itching to see the next installment. Where did everybody go? Unless repeat airings and the DVR give it out of this world boosts, I don’t know how FX would see this as a good investment.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:55:46 +0000

The season finale of Clone Wars did pretty well. I thought it would have been beaten by Battlestar Galatica, but it trounced it. I also didn’t expect it to beat South Park.

By: JayDub

JayDub — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:39:32 +0000

I’m expecting the RAW rating to be higher for the next three weeks. ECW looks like it has gone up in the viewers too

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:23:37 +0000

Sara, was definitely up versus last week’s 1.283 million, but it has been canceled and that was the series finale, and I don’t see that changing any based on the finale numbers.

By: Sara jule

Sara jule — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:20:29 +0000

kyle xy: 1,66 milion viewers, is there any improvement for the show?

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:56:11 +0000

Those Lifetime movies do really well on a Saturday. Didn’t the last Nora Roberts TV movie get nearly 6m?

Trust Me is dead and TNT know it, I’ve mentioned that TNT were a little overabitious with their originals all year round strategy. I guess they will stick to procedurals when they next commission a pilot.