TNT’s The Closer was cable’s top show by a fairly wide margin, but there was no new iCarly special this week! And even without a new Burn Notice, In Plain Sight or Law & Order Criminal Intent, USA Network still led cable during primetime both in viewers and adults 18-49 for the week.
USA’s WWE Raw took the second and sixth spots and Royal Pains and Monk grabbed the fourth and fifth spots. An NCIS rerun was 10th (and 16th, 17th, 18th, 23rd, and 25th -- speaking of which, I’ve expanded this table to the top 25 shows, beginning this week, but with all the NCIS, I’m not sure that really gained anything this week).
And no, I didn’t expand the list simply so Sponge Bob would appear at least a little absorbent!
Two broadcasts of Disney’s Ratatouille (great movie!) made the list, and though I don’t have the exact numbers yet, I squeezed True Blood, which set another series high, onto the list at number nine with 4.46 million viewers.
Two airings of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor made the list, but that won’t surprise anyone who check’s out the daily cable news results.
ESPN grabbed two of the top 10 spots with NASCAR (#3) and a special Thursday edition of Monday Night Football (#7).
Though nobody cares but me, probably, Terrell Owen’s The T.O. Show (not in the top 25!) scored 1.415 million viewers last Monday (Aug 10) at 10pm, and sure, that’s a better timeslot than 4:30pm, but it’s still a lot more viewers than Jim Rome's Rome is Burning pulled in his best airing of the week (808K). But stay humble fellas, the Friday night 11:30pm airing of That’s So Raven averaged 2.34 million.
That’s not about T.O.’s numbers stinking (it was still VH1’s third most-watched show for the week behind two airings of Real Chance of Love 2 that pulled 1.655M and 1.569M respectively) or Jim Rome’s numbers stinking. That’s about Raven’s numbers being amazing.
In total viewers, USA, Disney, Fox News, TNT and Nick at Night were the top networks in primetime, in 18-49 primetime viewers, It was USA, TBS, TNT, ESPN and A&E (yes, A&E!).
For those wanting more detail on Mad Men’s Sunday premiere, the initial airing at 10pm drew 2.769 million between 10p-10:54p. The 11p-12:02A viewing averaged 879K, and the 1a-2:02a airing averaged an additional 289K. For those keeping score at home, that’s 3.937 million….
Top 25 basic cable shows (plus HBO's True Blood) for the week ending August 16, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | CLOSER, THE | TNT | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 6,953 |
| 2 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:07P | 5,755 |
| 3 | NASCAR SPRINT CUP L | ESPN | Sun | 02:15P-05:48P | 5,622 |
| 4 | ROYAL PAINS | USA | Thu | 10:00P-11:00P | 5,562 |
| 5 | MONK | USA | Fri | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,305 |
| 6 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,236 |
| 7 | CARDINALS/STEELERS | ESPN | Thu | 08:00P-11:07P | 4,755 |
| 8 | RATATOUILLE | DSNY | Sat | 08:00P-10:00P | 4,565 |
| 9 | TRUE BLOOD | HBO | Sun | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,46x |
| 10 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,223 |
| 11 | PSYCH | USA | Fri | 10:00P-11:00P | 4,195 |
| 12 | SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | Fri | 08:35P-09:00P | 4,136 |
| 13 | RATATOUILLE | DSNY | Sun | 12:00P-02:00P | 4,079 |
| 14 | WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE | DSNY | Fri | 08:00P-08:30P | 4,062 |
| 15 | ARMY WIVES | LIFE | Sun | 10:00P-11:00P | 4,008 |
| 16 | NCIS | USA | Thu | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,990 |
| 17 | NCIS | USA | Thu | 09:00P-10:00P | 3,848 |
| 18 | NCIS | USA | Thu | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,831 |
| 19 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXN | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,814 |
| 20 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXN | Wed | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,788 |
| 21 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 3,736 |
| 22 | FAMILY GUY | ADSM | Tue | 11:30P-12:00A | 3,692 |
| 23 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,671 |
| 24 | FAMILY GUY | ADSM | Tue | 11:00P-11:30P | 3,662 |
| 25 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,648 |
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Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
