Update: First, the one piece of information I know people want to see are the numbers for the season premiere of HBO's True Blood.
Note: the numbers in the table below are for the ad-supported basic cable only, but the 3.7 million for True Blood will be in the top twenty when I see the consolidated data. I have updated the table based on the consolidated info. This is the first HBO (or premium cable show of any kind) I've seen make the top 20 (or even top forty) since the finale of Sopranos was the #1 cable show in June 2007.
Unfortunately I haven't seen the numbers anywhere yet and other than telling you that it wasn't among the top twenty shows, I can't tell you much. Normally one might read into the lack of information or HBO press releases that HBO is hiding bad news. But I don't think you can do that here. HBO is perhaps the least boastful network we've ever encountered. The DVD launch of season one of True Blood in the first few weeks makes for one of the better launches of a TV series DVD. Sales estimates put the DVD at over 850,000 units and $30 million in revenue after three weeks of release. And there was no boasting from HBO. Sooner or later I'd guess we'll see the numbers somewhere and we'll post them.
The season premiere of The Closer stood tall above its summer cable competition and nothing got within a million viewers of it. WWE Raw (allegedly WWE Raw was just purchased by Donald Trump -- The Donald made Vince an offer he couldn't refuse -- whether like the show, that announcement was for entertainment purposes only, we'll see!). Royal Pains again scored 5.59 million, though it increased its demo viewing over it's first week. Burn Notice dropped to 5th and 5.24 million viewers, but it aired against game four of the NBA finals, so look for it to rebound some this week.
In Plain Sight rebounded nicely from the prior week, going back up over four million (4.27) and back into the top ten, edging out Jon & Kate Plus 8 and Deadliest Catch.
In a rare event, SpongeBob did not make the top twenty. The yellow and porous one's best outing was #28 with 3.4 million.
I'm not the only one catching up on NCIS on USA. Five airings made the top twenty, and ten airings made the top forty.
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Top twenty cable network television shows for the week ending June 14, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | CLOSER, THE | TNT | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 7,139 |
| 2 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:14P | 5,935 |
| 3 | Royal Pains | USA | Thu | 10:00P-11:00P | 5,590 |
| 4 | NASCAR POST RACE SHOW | TNT | Sun | 04:58P-05:11P | 5,531 |
| 5 | BURN NOTICE | USA | Thu | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,242 |
| 6 | SPRINT CUP RACNG/MICHIGAN | TNT | Sun | 01:59P-04:58P | 5,118 |
| 7 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,873 |
| 8 | IN PLAIN SIGHT | USA | Sun | 10:00P-11:00P | 4,271 |
| 9 | JON & Kate Plus 8 | TLC | Mon | 09:00P-09:30P | 4,252 |
| 10 | DEADLIEST CATCH | DISC | Tue | 09:00P-10:01P | 4,189 |
| 11 | LAW & ORDER: CI (ORIG) | USA | Sun | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,141 |
| 12 | PARENT TRAP, THE (1998) | DSNY | Thu | 08:00P-10:20P | 4,119 |
| 13 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 09:00P-10:00P | 3,812 |
| 14 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,781 |
| 15 | LONESOME DOVE PT 3&4 | AMC | Sun | 08:00P-12:00A | 3,745 |
| 16 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 09:00P-10:00P | 3,723 |
| 17 | ARMY WIVES | LIFE | Sun | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,710 |
| 18 | TRUE BLOOD | HBO | Sun | 09:00P-09:58P | 3,700 |
| 19 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,683 |
| 20 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,669 |
| because I lost a bet: | |||||
| GREEK | FAM | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 665 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
First, the one piece of information I know people want to see are the numbers for the season premiere of HBO's True Blood. We haven't seen any info yet, but we will post it when we see it.
Nice to see In Plain Sight back in the top 10 with over 4 million viewers. Its also nice to see Royal Pains as the number 1 scripted show on USA!
USA is becoming one of my favorite networks, followed by TNT.
According to this:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/294649-cable_Ratings_True_Blood_Delivers_For_HBO.php
The second season premiere of True Blood drew a whopping 3.7 million viewers for the first showing!
Stephen, I beat you to updating the post, but only by a minute.
Any news on last night’s premiere of “Zeke & Luther” on Disney XD?
If you’re NBC Universal, at what point do you conclude it’s more profitable to invest money in Monk, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, etc. on the USA network than it is to dump good money after bad on the broadcast network?
Outlander, to some extent I think that point has already been passed. Not in absolute dollars, but in a “Where’s our best ROI?” way. I think that NBCU feels that its money is better invested in its cable properties and has been shifting the broadcast/cable balance for several years.
USA has 55% of the spots
and very interesting that the Nascar post race show beat the actual race itself
In Plain Sight back in the top ten? Good news.
Also that’s a big jump between the two hours of Raw this week – an increase of more than a million people.
Cullen, not really that surprising. The post-race show had the advantage of only being 13 minutes in duration and being immediately after the end of the race, while the race had to pull its average for almost 3 hours.
I agree, Robert. The NASCAR fans I know will check in every few laps during the early part of the race, and not settle in continuously until the last hour or so.
For The Parent Trap airing on Disney Channel for the millionth time, those numbers are pretty darn good.
Was going to watch the basketball game but the HD signal kept doing the wave on our local ABC affiliate, had seen the CBS shows, and had no real interest in the NBC programming in addition to the fact that the weather guy kept breaking in with severe weather reports, so I was wandering around the dial and saw that “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” was on. Jeff Goldblum adds a lot to that show. Then I saw that “In Plain Sight” was on after that. Odd but interesting show. Usually watch USA on the Fridays with “Monk,” “Psych,” and the aforementioned current “House” reruns but I think I will be watching on Sundays too. Would have watched “True Blood” but our cable company decided to take away our movie channels a year or so ago in the hopes that we would all switch to digital cable. Saved me thirty bucks a month. If I want to watch any of the premium movie channel shows I have to find other outlets but there are plenty.
Any numbers for Nurse Jackie and Weeds ?
law and order criminal intent with jeff golblum was great sunday night they seem to have gotten better on usa network
In Plain Sight and Criminal Intent are really benefitting from lack of the competition, the renewal seems likely and Royal Pains is doing stellar as well.
Army Wives is up from last week which is good and Lonesome Dove on AMC did very well too.
Also just want to note the race was over well earlier than the scheduled time due to very few cautions. The race was scheduled to run til 5pm but was over around 4:25, post-race was to run 5-5:30pm. Fans who like to tune in to catch the end of the race missed out this past weekend.
Winston, we published them last week:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/06/09/showtimes-nurse-jackie-pulls-in-135-million-viewers-and-is-picked-up-for-season-two/20426
I’ll be interested to see RAW next week with no commercials. I assume the numbers won’t change much.
Thats one of the reasons why I hate watching WWE on TV. So maybe I’ll tune in this time, rather than watching the matches on youtube.
Hmm, do any non-summer non-sports cable programs regularly get 5 million?
I didn’t know True Blood was so big. Though I’m guessing critics would say it’s for reasons different from Sopranos’ bigness, since while Metacritic reviews are “generally favorable,” no critic cited loves it.
Yay Jon + Kate sub-5 mil.