I posted the weekly cable top twenty in a hurry yesterday, and was about to post this before our site crashed again today (sorry!).
I wanted to get back to you with some of the other numbers. Unfortunately I'm running into a weird issue with Excel table formatting for this post and at this point the quickest way to solve the problem is just type it out rather than put it into a table!
Some commentary about the top twenty first. As ever WWE Raw is a cable powerhouse, and it took the top spot. In Plain Sight returned slightly down from last year's premiere, but last year it premiered in June away from broadcast competition so its 5.11 million viewers were still impressive. Law & Order: Criminal Intent returned with 4.58 million.
Discovery gets a special mention for Deadliest Catch which pulled in 4.16 million last week.
With a Johnny Depp voiced episode of SpongeBob in the mix (meaning a new SpongeBob Squarepants episode) the absorbent one had an especially spongy week. The top viewing of SpongeBob took in 5.78 million viewers and the second most-watched 5.20 million. There were five more episodes of SpongeBob that did four million or better, and an additional TWENTY-FIVE airings of SpongeBob that did three million or better.
In fact, there are very few shows to talk about that did better than SpongeBob's thirty-second most watched episode. So let's get to them (I am not including anything that already appeared in the top twenty)
- Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place took in 3.72 million
- ABC Family's My Fake Fiance' pulled in 3.69 million
- Disney's Suite Life on Deck grabbed 3.466 million
- Nick's iCarly was watched by 3.42 million
- Ron White: Behavioral Problems snatched 3.36 million for Comedy Central
- Sonny with a Chance scored 3.35 million
- An 11:30pm airing of Family Guy a week ago Tuesday had 3.25 million viewers
- Last Wednesday's Hannity grabbed 3.24 million
- Sunday night's Miami Heat vs. Atlanta Hawks game averaged 3.23 million
- Natalee Holloway set records for the Lifetime Movie Network with 3.21 million
- An 8pm Sunday airing of House on USA drew 3.16 million
- The Houston Rockets vs. Portland Trailblazers on Saturday netted 3.09 million
- Mighty B! on Nick also grabbed 3.09 million
That's the list of shows that were more viewed than the thirty-second most-watched airing of SpongeBob (not including those shows already in the top twenty).
Here are some shows that didn't do as well as the thirty-second most-watched SpongeBob:
- House of Payne: 2.98 million
- On The Record w/Greta: 2.95 million
- Ghost Hunters: 2.94 million
- Law & Order: SVU: 2.92 million
- Fairly Odd Parents: 2.89 million
- Chicago Bulls vs. Boston Celtics 2.89 million
- South Park: 2.78 million
- 76ers/Magic: 2.76 million
- Hornets/Nuggets: 2.76 million
- Glenn Beck: 2.74 million
- George Lopez: 2.72 million
- The Hills: 2.61 million
- Phineas & Ferb: 2.57 million
- Saving Grace: 2.24 million
- Bill Engaval: 2.13 Million
- Mythbusters: 1.995 million
- Making the Band 4: 1.97 million
- Special Agent Oso: 1.97 million
- House Hunters International: 1.96 million
- Dog the Bounty Hunter: 1.93 million
- Real Housewives of NYC: 1.89 million
- ECW: 1.71 million
- Keeping Up With Kardashians: 1.56 million
- That's So Raven: 1.39 million
- The Soup: 1.20 million
- Candy Girls: .858 million
- Chelsea Lately: .857 million
- Moonlight: .898 million
- The Cougar (on TV Land): .660 million
- Bridget's Sexiest Beaches: .444 million
Wow, Chelsea Lately is turning into a bit of a cougar for E. Last I heard (several months ago), it was averaging 600k viewers, so it’s growing quite a bit. It’s a pretty decent show – better than the network late-night shows. I guess cable allows you more freedom, though.
Ouch for Bridget Sexiest Beaches (JUST around Travel Channel’s primetime average), hope it does better next week. The Soup and Chelsea Lately still delivering good figures. No Grey Gardens? That’s a shame.
Steven, we don’t see the data for premium cable channels. But I read in a couple of places that the initial airing of Grey Gardens did 1.8 million.
The Spongebob special wasn’t all that special, compared to past outings such as “Best Day Ever” which got 6.7 million. Is it too much to hope that the Porous One is wearing out his welcome?
Oh. Thanks. I was just wondering about Grey Gardens, since it was publicised a lot.
Perhaps, but only in the way that American Idol is wearing out its welcome. The combined total for all 87 airings of the yellow and porous one (including 22 airings on Nick Toons) was:
200,475,000.
I don’t see Greek on the list:(
Breaking Bad, where are thou
?
Any information on Krod Mandoon? It was pretty easy finding the premiere ratings but I can’t find them anywhere for last week’s show.
I’m curious about bridgets lead in “Dhani tackles the globe” any numbers? Its quietly become one of my obscure cable faves, anyone else?
In Plain Sight and Criminal Intent did very well and I am confident USA will have a great summer with the return of Burn Notice, The final season of Monk and the first season of Royal Pains which looks like it could become a hit.
Spongebob did very well too though it’s one of the few animated shows thats still attracts high ratings. It’s the tween comedies like Hannah Montana or iCarly that do big ratings.
Speaking of iCarly, now that Hannah Montana has released a 3D concert and a movie, I wonder how long before Nickelodeon and Paramount release iCarly: Live in Concert 3D and iCarly the Movie.
Anything on Rescue Me week 2?
I’ve been seeing reports that apparently Comcast has removed Cartoon Network (and therefore Adult Swim) from their basic cable lineup, and you now need to have digital cable to get it. I wonder if this will have any sort of effect on Cartoon Net and Adult Swim ratings. (That Family Guy airing was on Adult Swim, right?)
Julia, I commented to Robert earlier that this change by Comcast (and the other MSOs) is going to be a bigger deal than the attention that’s being paid to it. Here is the Comcast site about the switch http://www.comcast.com/digitalnow/
What it means is that everyone that gets cable TV currently without a digital cable box will lose those channels unless they upgrade. That effects everyone that plugs their coax directly into a TV or an analog DVR.
In fact, the change will likely effect more people than were effected by the much overhyped Digital Broadcast transition.
Is this similar to the whole switchover to DTT that was delayed? I know that over here in the UK, it’s being done region by region with London being the final region in 2012 (just in time for the Olympics).
I can’t believe that analogue cable still exists, it was phased out here a couple of years ago but will Comcast be offering free or discounted upgrades because I see a lot of outraged parents getting upset.
I agree with Bill, the lack of coverage on this issue given the huge focus on the broadcast transition, is surprising. To be clear, the very most basic (just the local channels plus some government-y channels) won’t require a switch. Extended basic, which is what most people get (and includes ESPN, Toon, etc) now requires the box, which is a change. So TOON/ADSM wasn’t moved off of the most very basic cable, it was always in the extended basic and still is. But now, a set-top box is required to tune it in. To Comcast’s credit, I feel I was pelted with postal mail reminders of this for six months. But, I know a lot of people completely ignore that sort of mail.
Jon, it’s somewhat similar in that it’s a transition from analog to digital and that its going to require changes from a lot of people.
And the hubbub about the digital cable moves begins:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/AR2009042203608.html?wprss=rss_artsandliving/television
Some friends of mine were complaining about it and I hadn’t heard a word about it, and Googled and the best I could find was a thread on the Adult Swim forums. I probably used poor word choice in my search, but I’m surprised it doesn’t seem to have been widely reported.
Robert, you say the only difference is that it now requires a set-top box, but the complaints I’ve seen claim that it will cost an extra $26 a month to get it.