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.
Too bad Jeremy Piven’s foray into wrestling didn’t do much for his movie this past weekend. Numbers were NOT very good.
Huh my comment is gone!?
Good to see Monk and Psych up from last week and for Royal Pains to be in the top 5 without any lead in is impressive. NCIS repeats very well and for sevem episodes out of fifteen per week to be in the top 25 is a force like SpongeBob.
Any numbers for Raising the Bar and Dark Blue please.
Yeesh. Please don’t come here requesting 4, 5, 10 or 20 shows. talk about the ratings. participate. don’t be a leech and then ask for a show or two.
I am so incredibly happy that Psych is back on the list. If only it could have had that number for the premiere I could have won the contest. I’m glad Royal Pains is going strong too.
What were the numbers for Leverage and Warehouse 13? Thanks.
I hope they both make the list someday too.
warehouse 13 numbers were posted via press release during the week. I’d ask also that you use our search feature before asking for numbers…
I care about those T.O. Show numbers. I assumed episode 4 would drop a bit from episode 3 because I expected it’s lead-in (Real Chance of Love 2) to drop. So the numbers for those shows are very much appreciated and it makes it easier for me to only request one show this week.
So…..could you please post the numbers for Megan Wants a Millionaire? Thanks. it’s appreciated.
Isn’t FX quite high up in the 18-49s but low in total viewers, I believe they do so well in that demo because of the films they show whereas AMC and A&E skew older and I believe A&E target 25-54 for their shows.
I hope HBO is enjoying the success of True Blood and its effect on Hung and Entourage because I can’t see Curb Your Enthusiam and Bored to Death doing as well especially with competition from the broadcast networks and the return of Dexter on Showtime.
The last TO Show was the best yet, but they should have done more to advertise that Jessica White was on
Jon, re: FX. last week FX was #8 w/18-49 in primetime, (with less than half of #1 USA’s average, and also 10% or so behind #5 A&E). In primetime it was #16 overall, so yes, it did perform noticeably better w/18-49 than overall viewers, though it was still a top 20 cable network in prime time either way.
Ok i believe WWE RAW ratings will go up more and more with celebrities like Shaq, Lebron James, Floyd Mayweather and Al Sharpton all signed on to do a show. I really think some of the shows are going to get some huge ratings. I think the specil guest host thing is a very good idea.
I wonder how much an episode of Mad Men costs, because the ratings are not that great… I know that ‘The Secret Life Of The American Teenager’ costs 1.500.000 per episode, and they have 2.5-4.8 million viewers…
But of course, that depends of on which network the show airs.
And That’s So Raven is still the funniest show on Disney. But I see it hasn’t helped the Corey spinoff.
Thanks Robert, BTW I have read and know the ratings for Leverage, HawthoRNe and Warehouse 13 on another website, am I allowed to post or would be plagiarizing?
The Closer 5×10 – Smell like murder was a funny and great episode.. Brenda(Kyra Sedgwick) was so high and it’s so incredible funny. Maybe the season finale the closer get 8 million viewers.
I would like to know about Dark Blue’ numbers, please
Mad Men episodes costs around $2 million, but Mad Men has the most affluent audience on cable television.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/17/mad-men-amc-business-entertainment-television.html
(see, that’s how linking to OTHER PEOPLE’s content works — a skill you haven’t learned).
Jon, I would’ve posted them in an hour or two, but I have no problem with people posting info from elsewhere (give attribution!)
Robert
Thanks for the info on where i could find the Warehouse 13 numbers. 3.35 million is quite impressive for the Sci-Fi channel ( I refuse to use that other name). I wonder if it could eventually become a good stable lead in for another Sci-Fi show.
Robert, that’s cool:
Leverage: 3.06m
Warehouse 13: 3.3m
HawthoRNe: 3.3m
Source: PIFeedback, TravisYanan.
I also saw some numbers for last Monday’s shows at the PIfeeback forums but they are only in HH and 18-49 demo points with the exception of The Closer.
Secret Life of the American Teenager
- 1.7/3 HH
- 1.0/3 A18-49
Make It or Break It
- 1.2/2 HH
- 0.6/2 A18-49
Weeds
- 0.7/1 HH
- 0.6/2 A18-49
Nurse Jackie
- 0.6/1 HH
- 0.4/1 A18-49
Jon & Kate Plus 8
- 2.3/4 HH
- 1.5/4 A18-49
The Closer
- 6.95 million viewers
- 4.5/7 HH
- 1.6/4 A18-49
Raising the Bar
- 2.2/4 HH
- 0.7/2 A18-49