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.
