NBA playoff basketball was very popular on cable this week, taking four of the top five airings and pushing many regulars down, or completely out of the top twenty. The best WWE Raw airing dropped to sixth and the best the yellow and porous SpongeBob could muster was thirteenth. But the most-watched program of all was the iCarly "movie" on Saturday night, which led all cable viewing for the week with 6.47 million viewers.
In Plain Sight grabbed 3.6 million, but that wasn't good enough to get it in the top twenty, and the second episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that featured Jeff Goldblum drew 3.14 million and was 36th for the week, but keep in mind that 11 out of the top 40 shows last week were NBA related (10 games, and one post-game coverage on TNT).
I know there are several of you who are interested in ratings for other shows, but unfortunately, it's not very many people and while we'd love to make everyone happy, all the time, it winds up being a lot of work for not much reward. Given our server issues, and other events, I'm not breaking out a separate list from the top 20 or taking requests today. Sorry.
Top twenty cable network television shows for the week ending May 10, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | iCarly MOVIE:DATEABADBOY | NICK | Sat | 08:00P-09:00P | 6,472 |
| 2 | ROCKETS/LAKERS | TNT | Wed | 10:43P-01:33A | 6,321 |
| 3 | LAKERS/ROCKETS | ESPN | Fri | 09:51P-12:25A | 5,952 |
| 4 | ROCKETS/LAKERS | TNT | Mon | 10:46P-01:29A | 5,400 |
| 5 | CELTICS/MAGIC | TNT | Sun | 08:06P-11:00P | 5,089 |
| 6 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:11P | 4,794 |
| 7 | iCarly | NICK | Sat | 09:00P-09:30P | 4,585 |
| 8 | HAWKS/CAVALIERS | TNT | Tue | 08:00P-10:51P | 4,501 |
| 9 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,488 |
| 10 | MAGIC/CELTICS | TNT | Mon | 08:00P-10:46P | 4,352 |
| 11 | MAGIC/CELTICS | TNT | Wed | 08:00P-10:43P | 4,345 |
| 12 | iCarly MOVIE:DATEABADBOY | NICK | Sun | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,080 |
| 13 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,077 |
| 14 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,033 |
| 15 | MAVERICKS/NUGGETS | TNT | Tue | 10:51P-01:40A | 4,004 |
| 16 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 09:30A-10:00A | 3,963 |
| 17 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,870 |
| 18 | iCarly | NICK | Sat | 09:30P-10:00P | 3,828 |
| 19 | PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 3,792 |
| 20 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,736 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
Congratz iCarly even if Miranda is a terrible actress i mean come on she can’t act in iCarly but the Jennette and Nathan bring up the quility standard. Go iCarly
A shame JONAS is not doing so well i haven’t seen it yet but people are telling me it s a good show
is In Plain Sight up this week?
Christopher, you are as capable of checking as I am:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/category/ratings/nielsen-top-cable-tv-show-ratings
the numbers are in the prose for last week’s post.
Not a surprise Raw sunk, the show sucked last week (and last night).
I know this sounds like whining, but I’m a little disappointed in the coverage of cable this week. One of this site’s unique features is much more in-depth coverage of cable networks and individual shows, which just isn’t available elsewhere.
Not to quibble, but do we need daily posts on Chuck? Information about that show is readily available on many other sites. It’s a little odd to see such intensive coverage of one broadcast show, while cable only gets the same top twenty list available throughout the web.
Oh well, keep up the good work, and maybe cable requests will become more possible as time goes on.
Casey, the Chuck posts don’t wind up being much work, and one single Chuck post generates more traffic than the weekly cable post even when requests are taken. The problem is somewhat compounded because people are greedy. First, Nielsen limits us to posting lists of 20, otherwise I would just post the top 100. If you know of a site that posts the top 100, or even the top 40, please provide a link and I will happily link to it.
But even if I did post the top 100, some people would ask for the top 500. People want to know how Chelsea Lately did, I’d need to post the top 1000 to include it. If I did, those posts would take so long to load they would strain our server.
I try to skirt the “20″ limit some by posting additional shows without ranking them, but it winds up being a bit of work, I still don’t make everyone happy and not that many more people read the posts with the additional info. If there was nearly as much interest in Chelsea Lately and Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches Moonlight Reruns and the MTV/VH1 shows, as there was in Chuck, I would be willing to do more work. But there isn’t.
Kind of Disapointed on the iCarly, My daughter and I watched it. So it’s ok if he steals Motorcycles but having stuffed animals is a reason to dump a guy? (Seems like a Reverse of what iCarly should be doing IMO) Even my daughter of 13 said it was a stupid reason to dump a guy.. Of course if he steals bikes and she’s ok with that. I guess you have to be stupid in reason for dumping.
Can we just take a moment to mark the fact that over its two airings on Saturday and Sunday the iCarly movie had 10 million viewers… I don’t get that at all…
Are you taking requests this week?
If so I would like to request the Duel 2 numbers. (Please do not mind if I ask every week, this si about the only thing I watch reality tv wise).
is*
Nickelodeon has learnt how to create a tween phenomenon from Disney with iCarly now doing better business than Hannah Montana. Paramount and Nickeledeon Movies should greenlit a big screen iCarly because it would make megabucks on a moderate budget.
IPS and CI are holding steady considering they are airing against quite tough competition from the broadcasters, I expect it will pick up once the season ends for the broadcasters.
Just out of curiosity, but do you guys no longer get the morning show ratings for the cable news channels?
(and that new layout is horrendous!)
NBA playoffs on TNT are doing great. 6-5 million for almost 3 hours with highs in all the key demos during late night: wow!
I normally wouldn’t expect a Krod Mandoon ratings update. But the last episode was the season finale and I was curious as to what its ratings were (to see if it gets a second season; not the greatest show but I still watch it). Where can we find the out of top 20 shows so we don’t have to bug you about them all the time?
This isn’t a request, but I was just curious if you receive PBS ratings. I know premium, non-ad-supported cable doesn’t distribute its numbers like basic cable, and I thought since PBS is also non-ad-supported, maybe they fall outside the scope of the Nielsens.
Just curious.
Put iCarly up against Randy Orton and the Legacy and see how long she lasts!
Delsy, if you think that Miranda Cosgrove is a bad actress, you should really watch Jonas sometime.
Dan, the problem is information outside of the top 20 isn’t widely available. Stuff like ratings for the Krod Mandoon finale (last Thursday it had 858,000, by the way) get posted if someone feels like writing about it or if a press release gets issued by the network. It’s all on a piecemeal basis. Various trade pubs will post info for a few shows outside the top 20 in their weekly write-ups, but only a few shows.
If there were a site I could point you to that had all the cable ratings available, we’d point you to it. So far as I know, there isn’t one.
Anonymous, I don’t believe we ever got the morning cable news numbers here except on an occasional basis. I’m not a fan of the new format either, but the format we received the info in changed but I’m also not a fan of the work that would be required to reformat it.
I agree with Dan. I would like to see the shows out of the top 20.