Due to the nature of live sports programming the ratings for NBC are approximate and subject to more than the typical adjustments in the final numbers. See below for more information on these Fast Affiliate Ratings.
| Scoreboard |  |
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 |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 7.0/20 | 1.9/5 | 1.8/5 | 1.5/4 | 1.2/3 | 1.2/3 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 6.4/20 | 1.3/4 | 1.9/6 | 1.7/5 | 0.9/3 | 0.8/3 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 17.750 | 7.702 | 4.113 | 3.625 | 3.980 | 3.88 |
The kick-off of the NFL season with a Thursday version of NBC's "Sunday Night" Football rolled over the rest of the broadcast competition, and NBC averaged a 7.0 rating / 20 share in the adults 18-49 demo for the night. The series premiere of CW's Vampire Diaries was stronger than other CW premieres this week, notching a 2.3 rating for adults 18-34 and 2.1 rating for adults 18-49 and 4.837 million average viewers.
Leading the night for NBC was NFL Kickoff pre-game which registered a 4.5 rating for adults 18-49 and 12.25 million viewers.
Here are the half hours for NBC's Steelers v. Titans game:
8:30, 7.3 demo rating / 21 share, 19.59 million
9:00, 7.6/21/19.95m
9:30, 8.1/22/20.13m
10:00, 7.2/19/17.28m
10:30, 7.3/20/17.30m
Here's some additional details directly from NBC:
- NBC Sports' coverage of the NFL OPENING KICKOFF game between the Tennessee Titans and the Pittsburgh Steelers averaged a 13.8/23 in metered-market households measured from 8:45-11:45 p.m. for the 8:41-11:50 p.m. ET telecast. It's the top-rated Thursday night NFL opener to date for NBCand highest overall since 2003 (Jets-Redskins, 14.5/23 on September 4, 2003).
- Versus the year-ago Giants-Redskins game (10.1/17), which started early to allow coverage of the Republican National Convention, last night's game is up 37%. Versus NBC's telecast two years ago (Colts-Saints, September 6, 2007, 13.0/21), last night's game is up 6%.
- This is the top metered-market result for any primetime telecast on any broadcast network since the American Idol finale May 20. It's the top metered-market average for any sports telecast since the Super Bowl February 1.
- In metered-market households, football dominated the night, with NBC's 8-11 p.m. average 12.2/20 in the metered markets establishing a 144% margin of victory over CBS's second-place 5.0/8. NBC quadrupled each of the other broadcast networks -- CW, 2.7/4; ABC, 2.6/4; Fox, 2.6/4.
- Last night's 8-8:30 NFL KICKOFF special averaged a 6.3/11 in metered-market households and the 8:30-8:45 PRE-KICK program earned a 10.8/19. All segments were decisively #1 in their time periods.
- Note that the Fast Affiliate-Based ratings currently available from Nielsen are not time zone-adjusted and are subject to significant revision. While those numbers are likely to shift somewhat in official nationals, they currently show NBC winning the night in all major categories.
The season premiere of Supernatural managed only a 1.5 rating/ 4 share for adults 18-34, and a 1.4 rating / 4 share for adults 18-49 and 3.388 million average viewers. That's down from last season's premiere (9/18) which had a 1.6 rating / 5 share in the 18-34 demo and a 1.7/5 in the 18-49 demo with 3.96 million average viewers in the fast overnight ratings.
Here's some details directly from the CW:
Vampire Diaries stormed out of the gate, scoring 4.84 million viewers, The CW's largest audience ever for a series premiere, topping last year's 90210 debut.
Vampire Diaries delivered the highest ratings ever in the Thursday 8-9pm time period with women 18-34 (3.0/10) and women 18-49 (2.8/8). And the best time period performance in adults 18-34 (2.2/8), adults 18-49 (2.1/6) and viewers since Oct. 2007.
Vampire Diaries out-performed the year-ago Smallville premiere by 114% in women 18-34, 75% in women 18-49, 22% in adults 18-34, 17% in adults 18-49 , 11% in viewers.
Competitively, Vampire Diaries was second in the hour (behind football), with women 18-34 and adults 18-34. Vampire Diaries did beat ABC and Fox in adults 18-349 and total viewers.
For its 5th season premiere, Supernatural improved over its premiere last year by 6% in women 18-34 (1.7/5). Supernatural also scored its best women 18-34 (1.7/5) and women 18-49 (1.7/5) ratings since Jan 09.
The new combo of Vampire Diaries and Supernatural scored The CW's best Thursday ever with women 18-34 (2.4/7) and women 18-49 (2.2/6). This was also The CW's best Thursday since March 07 with adults 18-34 (1.8/6), and largest Thursday audience (4.1mil) since Sept 08.
Competitively, The CW was 2nd on Thursday with women 18-34 and adults 18-34. The CW did also beat ABC and Fox in adults 18-49 and viewers for the night.
Versus its Thursday premieres last year, The CW is up 60% with women 18-34, 29% with women 18-49 and 6% with adults 18-34.
Big Brother drew 7.622 million viewers, a 2.6 rating for adults 18-49, and a 2.2 rating for adults 18-34, down a tenth of a point in both demos from last week.
Also at 8pm were repeats of Grey's Anatomy (1.1 rating/3 share, 3.973m) and Bones (1.2/4, 4.281m).
The 9pm hour also featured repeats of Fringe (1.1/3, 3.495m), CSI (1.4/4, 7.434M), and Grey’s Anatomy (1.4/4,4.506m).
At 10pm a repeat of The Mentalist drew (1.7/5, 8.050M) followed by a repeat of Private Practice with (1.0/3, 3.462M).
In Late-Night Local People Meters Thursday night: Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon were delayed by the NFL overrun and reliable Local People Meter Averages are not currently available.
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
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Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
For more information see Numbers 101 and Numbers 102.
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 8:00 | CBS | Big Brother | 2.0/7 | 1.6/7 | 6.40 |
| FOX | Bones (R) | 1.5/5 | 1.3/5 | 5.19 | |
| NBC | 30 Rock (R) | 1.1/4 | 0.9/4 | 3.79 | |
| ABC | Grey's Anatomy (R) | 0.9/3 | 0.7/3 | 3.38 | |
| CW | Smallville (R) | 0.6/2 | 0.5/2 | 1.28 | |
| 8:30 | NBC | Parks & Recreation (R) | 1.0/3 | 0.8/3 | 2.97 |
| 9:00 | FOX | So You Think You Can Dance | 2.5/8 | 2.4/9 | 7.40 |
| CBS | CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (R) | 1.4/4 | 0.8/3 | 7.48 | |
| NBC | The Office (R) | 1.3/4 | 1.2/4 | 3.17 | |
| ABC | Grey's Anatomy (R) | 1.0/3 | 0.7/3 | 3.31 | |
| CW | Supernatural (R) | 0.5/2 | 0.6/2 | 1.27 | |
| 9:30 | NBC | 30 Rock (R) | 1.3/4 | 1.1/4 | 3.03 |
| 10:00 | CBS | The Mentalist (R) | 1.8/6 | 1.2/4 | 8.26 |
| NBC | Law & Order (R) | 1.2/4 | 0.7/2 | 4.17 | |
| ABC | Private Practice (R) | 0.7/2 | 0.6/2 | 2.39 |
Good news for Vampire Diaries. It really was an excellent pilot. Very odd for CW to have a new show be the lead-in for one entering its fifth season.
I’m guessing we will never be told how Supernatural or Smallville does with men.
Wow! at Vampire Diaries. The Twilight movies/books are popular, so I expected it to start well, just not quite this well.
Well done CW!
Not last for the night. That must’ve been a while
THATS VEY GOOD NUMBER!!!AND TVD WAS REALLY GOOD(NOT THAT GOOD AS SUPERNATURAL
)
NOW I WANT TO SEE HOW TBL WILL PREMIERE!I REALLY HOPE THAT IT WILL DO BETTER THAN MELROSE PLACE AND WILL REACH AT LEAST 3 MILLION VIEWERS!!!
chrisjozo, not in a CW press release, but I’ll put the numbers in the comments when I see them.
Very good for The Vampire Diaries, can this be a sign for Dawn that this is the type of show that people watch rather than rich people with problems in LA and NY.
I think Life UneXpected deserves a shot at midseason, I saw a trailer for it and it seems more Gilmore Girls than Gossip Girl but that may work in its favour and it’s nice to see a show that with ‘normal’ people.
If The Mentalist continues to build on CSI like it has in repeats then I think CBS will be very happy, I think 18-20m is possible but the slot will probably prevent that.
Wow, very strong numbers for The Vampire Diaries.Exceeded my expectations! The CW must be so happy after the disappointing ratings for Melrose Place. I guess The Vampire Diaries could hold on its own when the other shows premier. I’m guessing it would average around 3 million viewers but will be strong on the W18-34.
Supernatural did solid as well. So I guess VD-Supernatural is a good combination.
I hope Smallville will do decent on Fridays.
4.84 million for Vampire and 3.39 million for Supernatural! Finally, very good ratings for CW!
It was obvious that VD would do A LOT better than 90210 and MP. I knew it yesterday, but people seemed to forget that it was on Thursday and that syfy fans also like vampire shows. I’m not saying that it’ll hold those numbers, but a lot of people wanted to at least check it out. I’ll be watching it later today, because I watched football last night.
VD getting good numbers on the first episode was commonsense and nothing else.
I thought 90210 had a 3.91 million viewer rating last year for it’s premier? I guess The CW press release writers are just using their usual spin again. Still a good debut for The Vampire Diaries though, and Supernatural held up well without Smallville.
Wow!! Vampire Diaries ratings are huge for a network like CW. Good for them!! . I really liked it and I am going to be there next week. I guess most TV critics were right about this show , although it was an easy guess, Vampires are totally hot this year!. I bet another network, He,He,He…is not that happy for canceling their Vampire show instead of giving it a second chance like True Blood. Even if they will never admitt it , it was a very big mistake.
Good for CW and Vampire Diaries!!!!!
ONE SMART MOVE FROM DAWN OSTROFF TO CREATE A VAMPIRE SHOW.AND ITS THE ONLY ONE I THINK!!!
That would be 4.91 for 90210 even.
Big premiere numbers should have been expected. We’ll see how it holds up in the long run (my personal opinion: very well, by CW standards).
I suppose ANTM, Vampire and Supernatural are only shows on CW which can pull off good ratings. I doubt MP will rise anytime soon and Gossip Girl might not look promising for Monday.
Jon: I’ve read reviews on Life UneXpected and they all actually say that the show feels like a WB show during its prime. I saw the trailer too and its very promising.
Hopefully it will have a chance
If VD continues to do well, this might be their own “Dawson’s Creek”.
Wow, the vampires are so hot in the US pop culture right now, eh?
Of course, there are more new shows on CW yet to premiere.
Finally some good news for the CW!!! It even beat Supernatural. WOW!!
I doubt CBS actually care that they cancelled Moonlight because it wasn’t doing that well for them and anyway, nobody could have predicted the success of Twilight and True Blood although IMO True Blood is superior than Twilight. Medium is going to do fine for CBS since they have found a compatible show with Ghost Whisperer and they will continue to dominate Fridays.
George 11, I don’t mean to be rude but could you refrain from using Caps Lock as it looks like you’re shouting.