A strong showing for the season 3 premiere of Burn Notice and the series premiere of Royal Pains, especially given the NBA Finals competition. Burn Notice outdid NBC's The Listener in adults 18-49 and viewers!
here's the press release from USA Network. Unfortunately for purposes of our contest I need to see the actual data as the six million referenced could be slightly under or slightly over 6 million and our contest was out to two decimal places. (update: I've reached out to a Burn Notice press contact for the P2+ live+SD info, so hopefully we won't have to wait until Tuesday for an exact viewer number so we can figure out who won the contest!).
USA CRUSHES COMPETITION WITH NEWEST HIT SERIES Royal Pains
Burn Notice STILL ON TOP AS #1 SCRIPTED SERIES ON CABLE
NETWORK ADDS ANOTHER POWER BLOCK TO ITS ROSTER
NEW YORK, NEW YORK June 5, 2009 The season three premiere of Burn Notice and the series premiere of Royal Pains crushed the competition when they hit the airwaves on USA Network last night.
Burn Notice, the #1 scripted series on cable this year, opened season three with its best season premiere ever. Burn Notice delivered 2.8 million in P25-54, 2.5 million in P18-49, 1.2 million in P18-34, 6 million total viewers and a household rating of 4.24. Season three premiere of Burn Notice grew over the season two premiere by +7% in P18-49, +4% in P25-54 and +11% in total viewers.
Burn Notice outperformed broadcast competition with stronger deliveries of P18-49 and P25-54 over the series launch of "The Listener" as well as beating "CSI" in P18-49.
Royal Pains continued the string of successful original launches for USA delivering 2.5 million in P25-54, 2.3 million in P18-49, 1.1 million in P18-34, 5.6 million total viewers and a household rating of 4.18. Royal Pains beat the second episode of "The Listener" among 18-49 and 25-54 and also beat "The Mentalist" among 18-34. The Royal Pains viewership in both P18-49 and P25-54 grew each half hour over the course of the airing.
Royal Pains delivered more total viewers and P18-49 than the series premieres of the USA originals IN PLAIN SIGHT and Burn Notice.
Characters Welcome.
Here’s to hoping for a surprise million viewers out of nowhere! (7.06 mil was my guess).
My guess rounds to 6 mil so at least I’m good at ballpark guessing!
Didn’t the contest also call for +24 hour DVR views? A little early to call it 6 mil IMHO.
ihate2fly, the contest specifies Live+SD (Same Day) which includes viewing through 3am. Every number on our site, or anywhere else, that isn’t specifically about DVR viewing is Live+SD these days.
Never mind. Live + same day DVR viewing. Liked Royal Pains, too. USA could be my Thursday evening summer watching.
good to see USA has great shows i watch Burn Notice, In plain Sight, Law and Oder Ci and know Royal Pains
Not bad, not bad at all for the premiere. Significant increase over the last season premiere and delivering numbers in the ballpark of Chuck, 30 Rock, and Heroes on the peacock network during the past regular season. It even blew past “The Listener” and a CSI repeat in key demos. Niiice. I’ll be more than a bit curious to see if this holds up as the episodes unspool.
Now to actually go watch the show
USA and Tnt are the best summer shows
Burn Notice has taken off on USA and with Monk ending they have the perfect replacement, Royal Pains did very well as well retaining most of its lead in. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bonnie Hammer and the other execs at USA are promoted to NBC if Ben Silverman and Zucker are gone by the end of this year or not.
I know the number aren’t available but I’m interested how Casino Royale did as it must have provided a decent lead in to Burn Notice.
USA have another show coming up called White Collar which I think it being considered as a companion show to Psych but it doesn’t debut until either end of 2009/early 2010.
White Collar i am looking foward to and the other day when i was on Hollywood repoter i said they picked up another show
Wow great numbers! Burn Notice is by far one of the best shows on television (in my opinion) and getting these ratings and beating out some network shows is even better. Bonnie Hammer should be running NBC programming
Given how heavily they promoted Royal Pains leading into its debut it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that people stuck around after Burn Notice to see how it panned out. Obviously the real test is how it’ll hold up without monster promotion behind it every week, I wasn’t blown away by the pilot but it was a good start so hopefully it doesn’t collapse next week.
Burn Notice meanwhile continues to perform incredibly well for USA and I really enjoyed the season opener. I am however eagerly awaiting the new season of Psych more than anything else USA has to offer…
I guessed 6.00M, do I get a consolation prize if it turns out to be 6.01M? XD
Assuming 5.95-6.04 all round to 6 mil, one of the following is the winner:
David Burns 5.95
Mel 5.96
Michael 5.97
Matthew 5.98
avburns 5.99
Pere 6.00
Julia 6.01
CP 6.02
Nick 6.03
HeroesforGhosts 6.04
Michael Weston rules Thursday night!!! AWESOME beginning to what promises to be a great season.
I have Royal Pains DVR’d and I will watch probably tonight.
The thing about USA is that the original programming isn’t that edgy, wresting aside but the branding absolutely works to a tee from the reruns of NCIS and House to films, using Casino Royale as a lead in to Burn Notice was a great idea.
Way to go for Burn Notice! It’s an excellent show.
USA hasn’t seen nubers like these since 2002/2003 with Monk and The Dead Zone.
I second the idea of promoting Bonnie Hammer and the other execs from USA to NBC. GE should really step in and clean up the mess Silverman and Zucker made.
TomSD, I don’t follow your reasoning. Zucker is responsible for all of NBC Universal. If he deserves blame for how things have gone on the broadcast side (and I believe he does), then he also deserves credit for how things have gone on the cable side. At this point I believe Zucker cares about the cable side of the business more than the broadcast side (especially as it applies to local broadcast affiliates). I doubt he will be quick to break what’s working on the NBCU cable properties, and if I’m Bonnie Hammer, I’m not sure I’d want to move to the broadcast side.
Actually I think Robert’s right, didn’t Kevin Reilly go from FX to NBC unsuccessfully, he’s doing an okay job at FOX although TBH FOX doesn’t have as many problems compared to NBC.
Silverman is the wrong person to lead NBC and it shows. NBC were having problems before he arrived but he seemed to make it worse with half baked ideas like Knight Rider and Kings, most of the shows he commissioned for the last season failed to make a second season and only SouthLAnd and Parks and Recreation made the cut.