| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 5.0/14 | 2.6/7 | 2.4/7 | 1.7/5 | 1.5/4 | 1.2/3 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 3.7/12 | 1.7/5 | 2.1/6 | 1.2/4 | 1.5/5 | 1.4/4 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 14.86 | 10.58 | 6.67 | 6.39 | 3.63 | 2.63 |
Update 4: James Hibberd is reporting that between broadcast and cable the Obama press conference averaged 28.8 million viewers, a 29% drop from his last press conference. Fox News had the most viewers (more than CBS, ABC or NBC). Here is the information for the cable news networks.
Update 3: Full data table now included below.
Update 2: President Obama's news conference averaged 22.02 million viewers across ABC, NBC, CBS and Univision, and a 6.0 rating among adults 18-49. Lie To Me averaged a 2.4/7 (rating/share) with adults 18-49, and 7.88 million viewers. The 100th episode of Lost averaged a 3.9/10 with adults 18-49 and 8.81 million viewers overall.
As for the president's news conference more people watched on NBC overall, and ABC and NBC tied in the 18-49 demo, with ABC winning with adults 18-34. I'll post the full data table shortly.
Update: In the early metered market numbers, the President's news conference averaged a 14.1/24 (household rating/share) on ABC, CBS and NBC combined. Lie To Me averaged a 4.8/8 coming in just behind NBC and ABC's coverage of the press conference and ahead of CBS'. But, if the early numbers hold up, Lie To Me doesn't appear to have gotten any ratings benefit by being counter-programming. Last week it had a 5.3/9 rating share in the same early metered market reporting.
We should have average viewer and age demographic ratings from the fast affiliate ratings up by ~9:30AM PDT. Check back.
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Just getting an early jump on the ratings post for Wednesday and just getting a placeholder post up that I'll update when we see the data.
There won't be much, if anything at all in the data that will impact renew or cancel decisions - American Idol will have big numbers, Lost is coming back next year regardless and, The Unusuals isn't. But there will be some interest in the night's ratings.
President Obama took to the airwaves at 8pm, but FOX was the lone hold out of the four major broadcasters, so people will be very interested to see how Lie To Me does up against the Obama's press conference. People will also be interested in seeing how Obama's ratings do. He's been a ratings powerhouse, though his ratings have been sliding a little (whose haven't?!). Obama's first press conference in February averaged over 49.5 million viewers between the broadcast and cable nets that aired it, but a subsequent conference in late March averaged just over 40 million.
Previous Wednesday overnight reports are available for comparison.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 8:00 | FOX | Lie To Me | 2.4/7 | 2.1/7 | 7.88 |
| CW | America's Next Top Model | 1.8/6 | 2.1/7 | 4.00 | |
| ABC | President Obama Press Conference | 1.6/5 | 1.4/5 | 6.12 | |
| CBS | President Obama Press Conference | 1.5/5 | 0.9/3 | 6.01 | |
| NBC | President Obama Press Conference | 1.6/5 | 1.1/4 | 6.68 | |
| UNI | Conferencia de Prensa: Barack Obama | 1.3/4 | 1.3/4 | 3.224 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | American Idol | 7.5/19 | 5.5/15 | 21.85 |
| ABC | Lost | 3.9/10 | 3.7/10 | 8.81 | |
| CBS | Criminal Minds | 3.3/8 | 2.1/6 | 13.27 | |
| UNI | Mañana Es Para Siempre | 2.0/5 | 2.0/6 | 4.64 | |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU (R) | 1.3/3 | 1.0/3 | 4.81 | |
| CW | 90210 (R) | 0.6/1 | 0.7/2 | 1.25 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI:NY | 3.2/9 | 2.3/7 | 12.47 |
| NBC | Law & Order | 2.2/6 | 1.7/5 | 7.69 | |
| ABC | The Unusuals | 1.7/5 | 1.4/4 | 5.08 | |
| UNI | Don Francisco Presenta | 1.2/3 | 1.2/3 | 3.02 | |
Shows are sorted by Adults 18-49 rating 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.
im expecting lost to get over 10 million(heavy promotion), plus the Obama speech might actually help achieving that. (I guess its a better lead in than the ABC sitcoms..
)
Somebody’s anxious.
noticed a typpo: it’s ‘whose’, not ‘who’s’
looking forward to the lie to me data as well
LOST is heading for a awesome season finale! I’ve heard that the next episode will be a Richard Alpert eppy!!!
Fox’s decision was made before the swine flu became bigger news. I think that many more people watched Obama than would have normally because they wanted to get a flu update. I think that the numbers will be much greater for Obama than if it had just been an update on his first 100 days. Thus I think Fox should have low expectations for Lie to Me.
I notice from forums how opinionated the UK “blokes” are on American TV, what is up with that ? Do they long to live in our great country ? I notice the zeal for which they get obsessed with certain tv actors. Don’t they have any good television to talk about in their home countries ? I wonder if they watched Obama online ? Probably not ! But I bet they have all sorts of ignorance based opinions.
I’m going to be bold and say that Lie To Me will get a 20% uptick in viewers from last week’s episode. A pity, too, because I thought this episode sucked.
Haha, I just woke up and come here first thing in the morning as always. I saw the headline and was so confused… “Wait, it’s Thursday, right? The Wednesday ratings can’t be out yet…”
I’m guessing the ratings for Lie to Me will be up. I tried to do my part by watching it live over the air in HD, and also turned my cablebox the FOX also.
It is kind of a bummer that the LTM vs. POTUS ratings situation happened on a particularly confusing episode of LTM. The show had a decent premise for the main plot – who’s lying among the cops about the kid who was shot? But instead of one subplot or secondary investigation, they crammed in an FBI undercover sting within the main investigation, a lawsuit from a case that happened in a prior episode, and Lightman’s personal investigation into the marriage of his partner. IMHO, this episode felt very crammed and dijointed, and it would have been tough to draw the interest of brand-new viewers. Or maybe I was confused because a friend popped in for a surprise visit, and would not stop talking through the whole episode. Pause…play…pause…rewind, pause…may have led to my disjointed “feel” on this episode
I wonder how many Fox affiliates chose to air the speech instead of LTM. I turned on the TV expecting to see LTM and saw a reporter instead. Luckily, I get two Fox affiliates so I switched to the other one. But it made me wonder if a lot of Fox stations bumped LTM for the speech. If so, the ratings could take a big hit.
People might have tuned into Obama and thought they were watching “Lie to Me”, since that’s what he does.
Clutz, I’m going to blame your friend.
The problem I usually have with Lie to Me (though it’s my favorite new show of the season) is that they haven’t quite figured out how to transition between the A story and the B story. I thought last night did it pretty seamlessly for once.
Overnights don’t look too good for Lie to Me. 4.8, down from 5.3 last week. Hope the demo at least looks better.
I’m pretty sure my local Fox station (Kansas City) was showing Obama. I will double check tonight (I like L2M and have it on DVR).
I watched LTM for the first time last night and felt the show had a long way to go. I was not impressed but the production value of the show. Tim Roth is a good actor, but the writing and the plot of the episode I watched needed to be fine tuned. It has a great premise just needs to be retooled to become an elite show and rating winner.
@Lisa, you raise a very good point! If large-market FOX affiliates, or a significant number of affiliates in any market size, chose to air the press conference, L2M will take a hit.
FOX decision had nothing to do with Lie to Me. It had everything to do with American Idol. I’m sure they won’t care about the lower Lie to Me numbers and I’m sure that Fox News had a good amount of viewers for Obama speach.
lost got around 8.9 mil(i guess in the finals it will go to 9) and a 4.0 in the demo, so its the same as 2 weeks ago. Oh well, still good, just expected more from the 100th ep.
“Lie to Me” didn’t actually air in every market last night. Some affiliates (like the one in STL) opted to show the press conference anyway.