| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 2.4/8 | 1.9/6 | 1.6/5 | 1.4/5 | 0.8/3 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 7.54 | 8.01 | 5.72 | 6.09 | 1.97 |
Updated with full details at 10/17 at 10:45a PDT.
Due to the nature of live sports programming the ratings for FOX are approximate and subject to significant revisions in the final numbers. See below for more information on these Fast Affiliate Ratings.
FOX won the night with the first game of the MLB American League Championship series featuring the Angels vs. Yankees. The numbers below are significantly subject to revision so I wouldn't pay any attention to them.
Ugly Betty premiered to 5.1 million and somewhere between and a 1.4 adults 18-49 rating. It's not Dollhouse ugly, but it's not very pretty either. Of course it was going against stiff competition but so were Ghost Whisperer (2.0) and Medium (1.9) from 8pm-10pm when Betty aired.
The MLB playoffs were watched by at least twice as many 18-49 year olds as Dollhouse, but this overnight post will likely be one-fourth as read as last weeks! But what the hell. Happy birthday, George Wendt (NORM!) who turns 61 today. And to keep with the Friday night TV theme happy birthday to Numb3rs Alimi Ballard who celebrates his 32nd birthday today.
I'm sure baseball won the 10pm hour, but after that came 20/20 with a 2.0, which bested Numb3rs (1.8) and The Jay Leno Show (1.2). The 1.2 for Leno was a series low, but it's lead in "Secrets of the Lost Symbol" (Matt Lauer interviewing Dan Brown about his book, and of course, the Freemasons) only pulled a 1.3. Between that and baseball it was not a berry berry good night for Jay.
Smallville was up a tick vs. last week to a 1.1 adults 18-49 rating. Smallville fans who don't think CW has any love for Smallville, someone from CW sent us some info about last night's results on his weekend:
Smallville delivered its largest audience (2.62mil) and best adults 18-49 (1.1/4) of the season.
In fact, this was our best performance in the time period in these categories since our last Smackdown on 9/26/08.
Adults 18-34 remains steady at a 1.1/4.
Smallville ranked second in the hour among men 18-34 (1.3/6) and men 18-49 (1.3/5), beating the big 3.
Versus comedies a year ago, Smallville is up by 38% in adults 18-34, 117% in men 18-34, 38% in adults 18-49, 117% in men 18-49 and 46% in viewers.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 8:00 | FOX | MLB ALCS: Angels vs. Yankees | 2.2/8 | 7.21 |
| CBS | Ghost Whisperer | 2.0/7 | 8.21 | |
| NBC | Law & Order | 1.6/4 | 7.60 | |
| ABC | Ugly Betty (season premiere) | 1.3/5 | 5.01 | |
| CW | Smallville | 1.1/4 | 2.62 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | MLB ALCS: Angels vs. Yankees | 2.4/8 | 7.62 |
| CBS | Medium | 1.9/6 | 8.04 | |
| NBC | Secrets of the Lost Symbol | 1.3/4 | 5.69 | |
| ABC | Ugly Betty (season premiere) | 1.4/4 | 5.18 | |
| CW | America's Next Top Model (R) | 0.6/2 | 1.33 | |
| 10:00 | FOX | MLB ALCS: Angels vs. Yankees | 2.6/8 | 7.79 |
| ABC | 20/20 | 2.0/6 | 6.97 | |
| CBS | Numb3rs | 1.8/6 | 7.77 | |
| NBC | The Jay Leno Show | 1.2/4 | 4.97 |
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.
20/20 beat Numb3rs! Woah
And poor Ugly Betty, I guessed that it will get 5 million viewers but I was expecting at least 1.8 demo. Oh no, the show is really done
Any early numbers for Stargate Universe. These first 4 episodes have been very, very weak. The weakest of all the Stargate shows.
I still think the Ghost Whisperer vs. Medium battle for top show of the night is going to be an interesting one as the season progresses.
And whilst the Ugly Betty numbers are indeed ugly you have to wonder just what was ABC expecting from the show on Friday’s? Especially given that it was on the slide last year anyway…
GW and Medium holding on, Good. Not so good for Ugly Betty though. Goes to show that Fridays pretty much kill shows.
Good to see Smallville up. Very impressive!
too bad about betty. neighbor of mine loves the show and was surprised it was on last night. her dvr picked it up. outside of the diehard tv schedule/ratings whores out there… i think most people fall into that category. did abc promote? my friend watches abc shows… and still had no idea
Oh Smallville was up that’s great to see maybe as the season progresses the show’s ratings will go up, i hope it could go back to 3 million viewers and 1.4 demo at least
ABC must have expected low numbers for Betty on a Friday, it can hardly come as a shock
Forget about Ugly Betty, what about Ugly Jay?
Mike, Leno got 5 mil viewers and 1.2 demo
Well, after a low start L&O’s numbers have gotten down right respectable for a Friday. Not great, of course, but not horrible either.
The bump for Numb3rs is good, losing to 20/20 is not… but if it can stay close to GW and Medium, it could be OK.
Ugly Betty’s numbers are predictably bad.
Ouch, for Betty but to be honest I think ABC put UB on Fridays just to burn it out, anyway it is supposed to be its last season
I saw a lot of commercials for Ugly Betty on ABC, but the show’s premiere getting pushed back a week definitely confused some people. Friends on a message board were looking for it last week and didn’t know why it wasn’t on or if it would air at all until I posted about the date change. Not that it ever seemed like it would do well on a Friday anyway. Not much does.
Kenny, I’d say ABC kept it and put it on Fridays to get it to more or less of a respectable number of episodes for syndication. It will be around 88 episodes after this season. My guess is that’s close enough to 100 for ABC’s syndication purposes
The Leno show was marginally interesting when he was mainly interviewing celebrities but in the last two weeks he’s increasingly farmed out chunks of his show to 3rd rate comedians doing extended bits that just don’t work. If he’d drop that and just make the celebrity interview stuff the center it might rebound a little.
Anyway, that’s a surprising low. If it keeps going down, will they reduce the number of days he’s on or just live with it?
I just hope ABC won’t pull Betty off the air maybe next week it could gain next week as it settles to its 9pm slot.
But well looks like this is really is the final season for Betty, I just hope ABC will let it end on a good note, story wise. Just let the show have a closure.
Since it’s Ugly Betty’s ratings and not Ugly Betty herself the headline should be muy feo
The commenting is slow today eh? Due to lack of Dollhouse? hehe
What was the topic of 20/20, I’m curious with its ratings rise
do you have the hour-by-hour split ratings for betty?
I wouldn’t surprise if Ugly Betty goes up next week.