American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, NCIS and The Mentalist led overall viewing again for the week ending April 5th.
The good news for NBC, it placed two shows in the top twenty -- the ER finale at number 6 and the ER retrospective at number twenty. More good news, the ER finale finished third among 18-49 year olds! The bad news for NBC: no more ER!
The curse of "look at the pretty improvement!" struck CBS. Last week some media outlets were chiming in on CBS' improved 18-49 ratings for 60 Minutes based on the president and other newsmakers appearing. So what happened? Well, the good news is 60 Minutes was still among the top twenty shows overall (#16). The bad news is it dropped to 49th among adults 18-49 with a 1.8/6 rating/share, basically in a dead-heat with Friday night's 10pm airing of 20/20 on ABC. The full top 20 sorted by 18-49 ranking is also available.
Nielsen Top Twenty Shows by viewers for the week ending April 5, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | R=Repeat S=Special P=Premiere | Net | # Viewers (LIVE+SD) (000) | HH RATING (LIVE+SD) | HH SHARE (LIVE+SD) | 18-49 Rank |
| 1 | AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY | FOX | 24,410 | 13.7 | 21 | 1 | |
| 2 | AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY | FOX | 24,342 | 14.2 | 22 | 2 | |
| 3 | DANCING WITH THE STARS | ABC | 20,484 | 12.9 | 20 | 6 | |
| 4 | NCIS | CBS | 17,230 | 10.7 | 17 | 22 | |
| 5 | Mentalist, THE | CBS | 16,957 | 10.5 | 16 | 14 | |
| 6 | E.R. | NBC | 16,378 | 10.4 | 17 | 3 | |
| 7 | ACM AWARDS(S) | S | CBS | 14,777 | 8.8 | 14 | 13 |
| 8 | CSI | CBS | 14,625 | 9.1 | 14 | 16 | |
| 9 | TWO AND A HALF MEN | CBS | 14,556 | 8.5 | 13 | 4 | |
| 10 | CBS NCAA BSKBL CHAMP SA-2(S) | S | CBS | 14,454 | 8.5 | 16 | 5 |
| 11 | DANCING W/STARS RESULTS | ABC | 13,513 | 8.6 | 13 | 26 | |
| 12 | CSI: MIAMI | CBS | 13,458 | 8.5 | 14 | 12 | |
| 13 | CBS NCAA BSKBL-BRIDGE(S) | S | CBS | 12,949 | 7.8 | 15 | 8 |
| 14 | WITHOUT A TRACE | CBS | 12,527 | 8.2 | 14 | 32 | |
| 15 | HOUSE | FOX | 12,511 | 7.5 | 12 | 7 | |
| 16 | 60 MINUTES | CBS | 12,267 | 7.9 | 14 | 49 | |
| 17 | SURVIVOR: TOCANTINS | CBS | 11,267 | 6.5 | 11 | 19 | |
| 18 | 24 | FOX | 11,265 | 6.5 | 10 | 18 | |
| 19 | RULES OF ENGAGEMENT | CBS | 11,025 | 6.6 | 10 | 10 | |
| 20 | E.R. RETROSPECTIVE(S) | S | NBC | 10,632 | 7.0 | 11 | 21 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
All numbers above based on live plus same day DVR viewing.
Two and a Half Men is a juggernaut! I have never heard a critic say they enjoyed it, not one, but it’s been the dominant comedy for 5 years now.
It might be juvenille, but you have to give credit to the cast for making the material they are given funnier than it should be.
I was way anti Two and a Half for a long time, but i;ve started watching in syndication and it has replaced Heroes on my DVR at 9 on Monday (along with 24 of course)
I love two and a half men, it`s one of the few scripted shows that I watch religiously. It’s definetely one of the best shows on tv, it gets good numbers even during the summer…
A lor of people say that the sitcom genre died when friends and everybody loves raymond ended, but I don`t think that’s true.
During the 1991-1992 season TV pundits proclaimed the child driven show “Eerie, Indiana” dead in the water because it was opposite 55+ “60 Minutes”, same with other youth driven shows like “seaQuest” vs. 55+ “Murder, She Wrote”.
For that matter, how could Murder She Wrote even stay on the air if nobody practically under the age of 40 ever watched it? Those demo’s must have been awful.
I guess this shows that at least people still remember what channel NBC is on! Now, if we could only get these people to shop at the Buy More…
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What is this NBC you post about?
Am thrilled to see that the ER finale did so well. It has been one of my faves since it premiered- I predict Ernest Borgnine will get an Emmy nomination for his role as the man watching his wife die. I have to admit- I passed on Southland- tuning in to the campy Harper’s Island instead…..if Chuck is canceled along with Life- Heroes and Medium will be the only shows I watch live on NBC anymore- ok I admit I do watch Days- but that is always on Soapnet late nights or weekends…
IF Chuck and Life are canceled then the only shows being watched on nbc are the Law and Order franchise for me. NBC needs to step their game up. They’re in this big mess mostly because they want to give Leno his old time slot back at 10pm. What good will that do?
With all the reality shows, ER may be last of that breed. CSI, maybe. Two and a half men? Don’t know. If you are not a Survivor of a Dancing Idol, you may not make it.