Thanks to commenter TVBill (also @TVBill on Twitter). Last night's summer finale of Burn Notice set a series high with 7.59 million live plus same day DVR viewers. It also averaged a 2.1/7 rating/share with adults 18-49 and a 1.7.6 with adults 18-34.
In terms of total viewers, it trailed only last night's finale of So You Think You can dance, and trailed both SYTYCD and Big Brother in terms of adults 18-49. Still, damn decent.
I won't likely see the results out to 3 decimal places until Tuesday and it's possible the number is 7.585 million to 7.594 million, so I won't be able to declare a winner in our Burn Notice guess-the-ratings contest until then, though I will be able to narrow it down a bit... Either way, darn good numbers for Burn Notice.
Separately freshman hit Royal Pains garnered 6.69 million; and a 1.9/6 with adults 18-49 at 10pm
Update: here's the official press release from USA Network with a few more details
Excellent for Burn Notice, I imagine it will hit 8m+ when it reaches the season finale in March, will be interesting what Royal Pains got.
USA is on a roll at the moment, I expect Monk will hit 5-6m for its opener tonight and 7-8m for its series finale although it could go higher and Psych will probably get 4-5m.
Cool hopefully. CI and IPS will hit the 5 to 6 million mark when they take their respective bows this Sunday.
Great numbers can see the season fianle hitting 8M+. Quick question for rob what is the highest ever amount of viewers a cable show has ever done
^ I think Disney’s High School Musical 2 with 18 million viewers
17.2 million, in its initial airing, but yeah.
I think there might have been a Monday Night Football game or two on ESPN that surpassed it since then, but in terms of any kind of scripted content, HSM is still tops.
I think i should of added not including movies whats the highest a scripted tv show has done on cable
episodes of the Sopranos routinely had over 10 million. The series finale had 11.9 million and it wasn’t the most-watched episode. I believe (but could be wrong) that was the season four premiere with 13.4 million in 9/02. I’m not aware of any hour long drama on cable, on HBO or off doing better than that.
However, there is some scandal associated with the 2002 measurement of HBO. Back then, Nielsen measured what was on ALL versions of the multiplexed HBO and added up the hour but had stopped doing that and only counted the primary HBO by the time of the season 5 premiere of The Sopranos that drew 12.1M in its first airing.
cheers rob just wanted to see what burn notice had to do to become the best scripted tv show on cable still a long way to go.
Burn Notice can only do better from here, nice job both shows. Its funny that a NBC owned cable network has higher ratings than most of NBC shows airing at the same time.
Speaking of High School Musical, I’m surprised that none of the major nets have recently tried to program any tweener fare in primetime. It can’t be all that expensive to produce, and if they manage somehow to hit that pre-adolescent groupthink switch, the sheer numbers the bring are phenomenal.
Tweens aren’t 18-49.
I was impressed with the episode too. I always enjoy it more when a show gets out of its “mode” and does some different things with the characters. Until last night Weston was almost infalliable, but you finally saw him do something acting on emotion only to, if not really “regret” it, at least realize that it would have a larger impact than expected it by the end of the episode.
“Tweens aren’t 18-49″
That’s true, but a rather frightful lot of them turn out to be 18-34. In fact, I wonder how the percentage differential of overall viewers to prime demographic viewers of top ‘Family’ prime time-ish fare compares to some top CBS shows like NCIS.
If you wondering why networks arent making shows like that, here’s an example. Disney Channel’s Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana recorded 9.29 million viewers, a great number! However, it only recorded a 1.6 demo among 18-49 year olds. Thus why should networks go after them? Most likely, kids wont travel to those channels either as they already have Nick and Disney Channel.
I’m not at all surprised by the record BN midseason finale. I expect, upon it’s 2010 return, to match or come close (the only reason I would suspect the number would be down) if there is something on a network channel that is popular on Thursdays @ 9pm. I can’t think off the top of my head what will be showing on network television since I watch it in minimal rations.
JanieJones,
The Office, Grey’s Anatomy and CSI air at 9 PM on Thursdays.
still that’s a good rated number by our viewers we’ll see!
USA much more impressive than Fox last night given the diffs. Probably the most impressive scripted adult fare on cable this year…sports, Disney star crossovers, and the 2 Jon + Kate tabloid-spiked eps I know have had higher #’s.
Thursday nights are the most popular. Greys and CSI can still pull over 20 million viewers each during the 9:00 hour. So more than 40 million viwers at 9pm alone by just ABC and CBS.
Hannah Montana in summer 2007 pulled in 10.7 million viwers. John and Kate Lpus 8 recently in June pulled in 10.6 million. I believe Hannah Montana is still the number 1 for cable. dont quote me though.
Historically, Thursday has always been the strong night. Going back decades the most popular shows have been on Thursdays.
A thought: if a network could attract a huge number of viewers showing Tween fare, mightn’t the tweens follow said network if it had a smart programmer as they get older? Which would take them into their demographic years? Nurture an audience.