UPDATED TV Ratings Sunday: World Series Has Most Watched Game Since 2004

Due to the nature of live sports programming the ratings for  Fox (Football overrun, World Series Game 4) are approximate and subject to significant revisions in the final numbers. See below for more information on these Fast Affiliate Ratings.

Scoreboard
Adults 18-49: Rating/Share	7.7/19	3.4/8	2.2/5	1.4/4	0.7/2
Adults 18-34: Rating/Share	6.8/18	2.8/8	1.3/4	1.1/3	1.7/2
Total Viewers (million)	22.133	10.440	9.945	4.085	1.962

Fox and the Yankees ran past their competition last night as a football overrun plus the World Series Game 4 boosted them to a preliminary 7.7 adults 18-49 rating for the night.

Here are some time zone adjusted numbers for the World Series Game 4. They are likely to differ only slightly from the final numbers:

• Last night’s game ran from 8:19pm – 11:48pm ET and posted 22.8 million Total Viewers, up +47% from last year’s Game 4 (versus 15.5 million total viewers on 10/26/08),
• The game was the most-watched non-decisive Game 4 in 8 years (versus 10/31/01).
• Was the most-watched World Series game since Game 4 of 2004 (versus 28.8 million total viewers on 10/27/04).

On a related subject, Fox's good luck with sports this fall seemed to be holding up very well (including the Green Bay/Minnesota game staying  competitive until late) until A-Rod put the Yankees ahead to stay in the 9th. The Phillies looked like they were about to even the Series 2-2 in a game that went close into the 9th inning, guaranteeing at least 6 games. Now it could end in 5. Of course, since every game from now on is a potential clincher (which boosts ratings) for the Yankees, if the Phillies do manage to string it out  to seven games, ratings could go really big.

Against the World Series, ABC's women focused line up held up very well, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was up 14% vs. last week to a 3.4 adults 18-49 rating. Desperate Housewives was up 4% to a 4.9 rating and Brothers & Sisters was flat with a 3.3 rating.

CBS fared less well, The Amazing Race was down 6% to a 3.2 adults 18-49 rating. Three Rivers was flat with another anemic 1.7 rating, and Cold Case fell 11% to a 1.6 rating, its lowest ever. Three Rivers and Cold Case were both beaten by NBC's National Treasure movie. That's pitiful.

x- I will update the 10pm hour with World Series numbers when I get them.
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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.