The first week of the broadcast primetime season (September 21-27) produced three winners across the three different adult demos we track. ABC edged CBS and Fox to top the adults 18-49 demo, while CBS edged ABC in the adults 25-54 demo. Fox had a slightly bigger lead over ABC to win the adults 18-34 demo. Although it's important to note that ABC, NBC and the CW were all well down from their first week's results last season.
Among tiny networks, with its new shows underway, the CW had no problem staying ahead of MyNetworkTV.
Note that since this is week 1 of the season, this post is also the "season to date" post. Half the work!
You can see past week's broadcast network primetime weekly TV ratings results here.
Each rating point is a percentage of the US TV population in that demographic group and equals: 2.90 million viewers, 1.32 million adults 18-49, 0.68 million adults 18-34 and 1.24 million adults 25-54.
Note that the chart includes RATINGS not VIEWERSHIP as was typical in our weekly network ratings posts prior to July, 2009.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
holy crow cbs skews old o_O
I’m kind of confused. Why are the viewers so low? Did you change the way you usually do them or something?
@Greg,
Read the bolded text under the chart. This is ratings numbers, not viewer numbers.
Oh alright thanks
I thought this was the year that the CW will beat Univsion. I guess not.
I guess the results may be too early to say, but I think nothing will change, but I think ABC will gain a little bit more viewers.
NBC and CW will pretty much be tied at the end of the year.
that sucks i liked it in viewers better i think for viewers it should be viewer numbers and 18-49, 18-34 and 25-54 should be a rating but viewers should be total viewers rather than a rating
Smallville944, I switched to ratings because they’re easier to compare with the overnight 18-49 ratings we post everyday. I tried splitting the axes and putting viewers on one and ratings on the other and decided it just was too confusing.
Is there a way you can find out the total amount of viewers by multiplying the average ratings by the Tv population # below the chart?
Greg, if you add up all the ratings in a particular age group and multiply by the number at the bottom of the chart, you will find the average number of that age group watching all of those networks during primetime for the given week.
Thanks