Due to the nature of live sports programming the ratings for NBC (Sunday Night Football) and CBS (football overrun) are approximate and subject to significant revisions in the final numbers. See below for more information on these Fast Affiliate Ratings.
| Scoreboard |  |
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| Adults 18-49: Rating/Share | 7.1/19 | 4.5/12 | 2.1/6 | 1.1/3 | 0.7/2 | 0.4/1 |
| Adults 18-34: Rating/Share | 5.8/17 | 3.7/11 | 2.3/7 | 0.8/2 | 0.7/2 | 0.3/1 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 18.50 | 14.49 | 4.73 | 3.86 | 1.97 | 1.03 |
While the 61st Emmy Awards were up from the historic low viewership set last year, the Sunday Night Football telecast of the Cowboys vs. Giants in the Cowboy's new stadium was the big winner, along with NBC, for the night.
Last night football game also hit a number of heights for NBC (via NBC):
- NBC had the best fast affiliate primetime rating on a major network since the American Idol finale on May 20.
- It was NBC's highest Sunday average, excluding the Super Bowl and Olympics, since January 25, 2004.
- In metered-market households, it was the highest average rating ever for a Sunday Night Football game, and the highest primetime NFL telecast in more than 10 years (Broncos-Dolphins, 12/21/98).
The 61st Annual Emmy Awards were up from last years lows, but were still the third least viewed on record. Compared to last year's ceremony, the Emmys were up +6% in both households (from 8.2/13) and adults 18-34 (from 3.2/08), +9% in adults 25-54 (from 4.5/10), +11% in adults 18-49 (from 3.8/09) and added +980,000 viewers (from 12.34m, +8%).
Note that last night (9/20) was the CW Network's final national network Sunday night of programming, beginning 9/27 CW affiliates will begin programming Sunday night locally. I had earlier been confused and thought that next Sunday was the final one. My apologies.
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating | 18-49 Share | Viewers Live+SD (million) |
| 7:00 | CBS | Football Overrun | 7.4 | 23 | 21.66 |
| NBC | Football Night In America | 2.5 | 8 | 7.41 | |
| FOX | American Dad (repeat) | 1.5 | 5 | 3.86 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 0.8 | 2 | 3.36 | |
| CW | War Games: The Dead Code | 0.4 | 1 | 1.23 | |
| 7:30 | CBS | Football/60 Minutes | 3.9 | 12 | 14.35 |
| NBC | Football Night In America | 3.9 | 12 | 10.66 | |
| FOX | The Simpsons (repeat) | 1.7 | 5 | 3.91 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 1.0 | 3 | 3.51 | |
| CW | War Games: The Dead Code | 0.4 | 1 | 1.51 | |
| 8:00 | NBC | Sunday Night Football: Giants v. Cowboys | 9.1 | 23 | 24.26 |
| CBS | 61st Primetime Emmy Awards | 4.4 | 12 | 15.11 | |
| FOX | The Simpsons (repeat) | 2.3 | 6 | 5.11 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 1.0 | 3 | 3.77 | |
| CW | The Beautiful Life: TBL (repeat) | 0.4 | 1 | 0.96 | |
| 8:30 | NBC | Sunday Night Football: Giants v. Cowboys | 8.6 | 21 | 22.72 |
| CBS | 61st Primetime Emmy Awards | 4.6 | 12 | 14.80 | |
| FOX | The Simpsons (repeat) | 2.5 | 6 | 5.54 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 1.1 | 3 | 3.76 | |
| CW | The Beautiful Life: TBL (repeat) | 0.4 | 1 | 1.00 | |
| 9:00 | NBC | Sunday Night Football: Giants v. Cowboys | 8.6 | 21 | 22.72 |
| CBS | 61st Primetime Emmy Awards | 4.6 | 11 | 14.14 | |
| FOX | Family Guy (repeat) | 2.6 | 6 | 5.47 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 1.5 | 4 | 4.76 | |
| CW | Melrose Place (repeat) | 0.3 | 1 | 0.78 | |
| 9:30 | NBC | Sunday Night Football: Giants v. Cowboys | 9.2 | 22 | 23.66 |
| CBS | 61st Primetime Emmy Awards | 4.2 | 10 | 13.27 | |
| FOX | American Dad (repeat) | 2.1 | 5 | 4.49 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 1.3 | 3 | 4.03 | |
| CW | Melrose Place (repeat) | 0.3 | 1 | 0.72 | |
| 10:00 | NBC | Sunday Night Football: Giants v. Cowboys | 8.5 | 21 | 21.04 |
| CBS | 61st Primetime Emmy Awards | 3.8 | 9 | 11.67 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 1.3 | 3 | 4.03 | |
| 10:30 | NBC | Sunday Night Football: Giants v. Cowboys | 8.1 | 21 | 20.06 |
| CBS | 61st Primetime Emmy Awards | 3.5 | 9 | 10.94 | |
| ABC | King Kong (movie) | 1.0 | 3 | 3.56 |
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You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
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.
Football is the king of sports and television now.
I usually don’t watch award shows (or HIMYM)…but Neil Patrick Harris did a FANTASTIC job hosting the Emmy awards, and the whole show was really well done overall. From the stage, to the graphics and everything in between, I was genuinely impressed.
tbl rereats well!better than mp!i wonder how the numbers will be this wed!!!this was the last cw sunday night!!!
emmys did well!!!!
Wow, Simpson’s scored 5.54 million viewers for a rerun at 8? that’s the best viewership ive seen for a rerun all summer. and it even beat Family Guy in viewership for once. although FG demo was slightly better, still good considering the rating slump it had at the end of last season and the since it’s only been getting 3-4 million in reruns lately.
NPH is a stud when it comes to acting……..
i thought next week was the last CW Sunday? well TBL did so shitty for its premiere, CW didnt even bother doing a press release about it. but hey, it may be the lowest premeire, but it performs better than Melrose in reruns. I bet this week, we’ll see it go up a bit, and see Melrose slide again.
wow TBL is still doing better tan MP in repeats and it did receive waaaaaaaay less promotion. personally i think both should be cancelled
Yay! Welcome back, old format!
There was a lot that was painful to watch last night but overall this year was far more enjoyable than any other recent year. I wasn’t sure about the whole dividing the night by format but I think I liked it better. Yeah, I was bored during reality and movies, but at least the extreme boredom was contained.
Nick, I
may have been confused. I thought next Sunday (9/27) was the last CW network Sunday, but it may have been last night (9/20).I was confused, last night 9/20, was the final CW national network Sunday.
Do you guys get the 18-34 ratings for the shows?
Jim, we do, but for the time being we are not including them in the tables.
So maybe I missed it, but is the whole table issue resolved now? To be honest, I never quite understood what the problem was…Nielsen complained about posting tables? HUH??
Reading every show mashed together made comparisons kind of difficult. My brain thanks you.
Only thing about the Emmy’s I enjoyed was the first award for the PD lady. She was genuinely happy to get that. Good for her. I should have turned it off after that.
NPH was funny though. JLD’s end of television comment was great too. Have Steve Carell and Hugh Laurie won Emmy’s yet? No? Why not? 30 ROCK is sooo overrated. It’s a good show, but come on.
I really don’t like Neil Patrick Harris. I don’t know why but something about his whole aura just makes me angry.
I hope all the NPH love from the Emmys translate into increased ratings for HIMYM’s premiere tonight.
Hmm. Can NBC leverage all this unusually great early-season viewership into decent sampling for their premieres? Nah, probably not.
On an entirely different note: WOW! It took until the *13th* comment for somebody to misspell “Emmys” with an apostrophe! Awesome.
On the other hand, I just drove past an auto dealership in Hillside, NJ, with a big sign that said, “Car’s, Truck’s, Van’s,” and my brain nearly exploded.
Hi Bill,
Nobody watches “Mad Men”. “30 Rock” has mediocre ratings…but they won loads of Emmy’s last night. For me “Mad Men” is a poor attempt at recreating Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment”.
The comedy of “30 Rock” after a couple of years has become stale, predicable and the characters are so cartoonish and over the top at this point.
Charlie Sheen deserves an Emmy!!! Jon Crier’s poor mans Tony Randall is annoying and when the show revolves around Crier’s Felix Unger-like character I turn it off. “Two and a Half Men” is cool but a blatant ripoff of “The Odd Couple” but the “kid” and Charlie and his revolving door of girlfriends are great to watch. Crier and the woman who plays their mother make me reach for the clicker.
Marishka Hargitay does not deserve to be nominated or win awards for zzzzzzzzzz portrayal of “Olivia Benson”. But she kisses up to the press and does all of her goody goody charity work and women tv execs dig her “strong woman” character so she gets the nod at awards time. But giving awards to her for her acting…puhlease. May as well give one to Richard Belzer and Ice-T while your at it. Marishka probably went to the same acting achool as those two…DTI…Drivers Training Institute.
And if they’re going to keep making Neil Patrick Harris the host of all these awards shows they should at least give Gary Coleman and Adam Rich a shot as well. Then maybe I’d tune in.
Love,
Emily
PS- can’t wait to see “Glee’s” further dramatic audience erosion numbers this week….Please Dear Lord let’s have “Glee” lose even more then the 850,000 viewers it lost last week.
Can’t wait to see the terrible numbers I’m expecting from “Flash Forward” which may interest TV-philes but Jane and Joe TV Viewer will soundly reject!! Lousy, so what, who cares, trying anything to be different and new…premise!!
And …”Brothers”…FOX execs handed a sitcom to a retired football player…Michael Strahan…with zero acting or stand-up comedy experience…I hear the writing is even worse then his performance if that’s possible. A roomful of chimpanzees could pick hit television as well if not better then most of those development imposter’s who have no right to draw a paycheck.
The Emmys are so predictible – same people and programs seem to win the big awards every year. Plus, awards shows in general are boring to most people and folks generally believe the Emmys are politically motivated and have no credibility. In short, they’re boring. Nobody has even mentioned the Emmys today, while most people I’ve run into are talking about the Dallas-NY game. Football is the only sure thing for big ratings these days on both cable and network.
Wow, Byron/Emily/Etc actually likes something scripted!
Anyone who says Charlie Sheen deserves an Emmy has no right to say a single bad word about 30 Rock.