Last Monday's Monday Night Football contest between the Carolina Panthers and Dallas Cowboys averaged 15.71 million viewers on ESPN, and was the top show of the week by a huge margin (and also the most-watched program on cable so far this year).
Next up was Disney's Suite Life on Deck, with its first hour-long episode setting series highs. Spike's The Ultimate Fighter took the third spot with a bout featuring the ratings magnet that is Kimbo Slice.
Subscribers to our RSS feed knew all of that already! But we won't hold it against you if you like waiting until Tuesdays for the table.
A thirty minute version of Suite Life that led into the hour long version took the fourth spot. WWE Raw took the fifth and sixth spots, with more kids' programming (iCarly, SpongeBob and Hannah Montana) rounding out the top ten.
My new favorite show, Sons Of Anarchy made the list at number 14 with 3.763 million. We posted those numbers last week too though.
I know some of you love to make requests, and most of you are quite decent about it, but some of you ask for like 87 shows, and it's just annoying and makes me wanna slap you upside the head.
Then there are the well intentioned folks who ask for stuff that was already posted on the site because they didn't bother searching for it first. Also kind of annoying! Sorry.
I will do a separate post (but it will be much later today) with some shows outside of the Top 25. While we do not see numbers for HBO and Showtime directly unless they make the top 40, if we see any numbers for Sunday night, including the season finale of Entourage, we will definitely post them separately.
Top 25 cable shows for the week ending October 4, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY | Time | Households (000) | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L (PANTHERS/COWBOYS) | ESPN | MONDAY | 8:30 PM | 9.9 | 15,705 |
| 2 | SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | FRIDAY | 8:00 PM | 3.9 | 6,808 |
| 3 | THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER | SPIKE | WEDNESDAY | 10:00 PM | 3.2 | 5,306 |
| 4 | SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | FRIDAY | 7:30 PM | 2.9 | 4,817 |
| 5 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 10:00 PM | 2.7 | 4,586 |
| 6 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 9:00 PM | 2.6 | 4,413 |
| 7 | iCarly | NICK | SATURDAY | 8:00 PM | 2.8 | 4,388 |
| 8 | SpongeBob | NICK | SUNDAY | 9:30 AM | 2.7 | 4,147 |
| 9 | HANNAH MONTANA | DSNY | FRIDAY | 9:00 PM | 2.5 | 4,137 |
| 10 | SpongeBob | NICK | SATURDAY | 9:30 AM | 2.8 | 4,129 |
| 11 | SPORTSCENTER: L | ESPN | MONDAY | 11:37 PM | 2.9 | 4,119 |
| 12 | CARS | DSNY | SUNDAY | 4:55 PM | 2.2 | 3,808 |
| 13 | SpongeBob | NICK | SATURDAY | 9:00 AM | 2.6 | 3,796 |
| 14 | SONS OF ANARCHY | FX | TUESDAY | 10:00 PM | 2.4 | 3,763 |
| 15 | SpongeBob | NICK | SUNDAY | 9:00 AM | 2.5 | 3,735 |
| 16 | PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR | NICK | SATURDAY | 10:00 AM | 2.5 | 3,720 |
| 17 | SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | FRIDAY | 7:00 PM | 2.3 | 3,674 |
| 18 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 8:00 PM | 2.3 | 3,561 |
| 19 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | SUNDAY | 12:00 PM | 2.3 | 3,548 |
| 20 | COLL FTBALL-SAT PRIME L (AUBURN/TENNESSEE) | ESPN | SATURDAY | 7:41 PM | 2.1 | 3,531 |
| 21 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 8:00 PM | 2.3 | 3,527 |
| 22 | WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PL -LN | DSNY | FRIDAY | 10:00 PM | 2.2 | 3,501 |
| 23 | SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | FRIDAY | 6:30 PM | 2.2 | 3,445 |
| 24 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | THURSDAY | 8:00 PM | 2.3 | 3,444 |
| 25 | iCarly | NICK | SATURDAY | 7:30 PM | 2.1 | 3,427 |
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Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All ratings above Live+SD (live viewing plus same day DVR viewing)
