Two NFL games and the Heisman trophy presentation were in the top 10, as was the return of TNT's The Closer, the second-most watched program on cable of the week. TNT's debut of Men of a Certain Age last Monday also made the top 5, though it will be interesting to see how it fared last night. And Disney's Phineas and Ferb rounded out the top 5 with over 5.2 million viewers.
The premiere of Keeping Up with the Kardashians was a top-ten cable show for the week, and brought in over 4.1 million viewers for E!
Sadly, I've made the decision to no longer field requests. We always post whatever data we see via press release or other trade publications already. You can subscribe to our RSS feed and you can also follow @TravisYanan on Twitter. During the week he usually posts some (not all) cable results for each weekday, usually late in the afternoon on the east coast (and Friday night data isn't posted until Monday) and he posts the links to that info on his Twitter account to the info on Marc Berman's PI Forums. You should also follow @TVBill (it's not Bill Gorman, but he is a TV ratings junkie and sometimes posts cable ratings info. You can also follow me on Twitter, sometimes I will post some cable ratings, though I am not taking requests there either...
Update: top 25 list updated to include shows that were left off the initial list I had (if you're interested in why, see comments in the comment section).
Top 25 cable shows for the week ending December 13, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY(S) | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | RAVENS/PACKERS | ESPN | Mon | 08:30P-12:04A | 13,478 |
| 2 | CLOSER, THE | TNT | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 6,180 |
| 3 | HEISMAN TROPHY PRESENT L | ESPN | Sat | 08:00P-09:03P | 5,990 |
| 4 | Men of a Certain Age | TNT | Mon | 10:00P-11:00P | 5,397 |
| 5 | Phineas and Ferb | DSNY | Fri | 08:00P-08:40P | 5,213 |
| 6 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:15P | 4,865 |
| 7 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,751 |
| 8 | 2009 - STEELERS VS. BROWN | NFLN | Thu | 08:21P-11:18P | 4,547 |
| 9 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,306 |
| 10 | KEEPING UP KARDASHIANS | EN | Sun | 10:00P-11:00P | 4,117 |
| 11 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,111 |
| 12 | iCarly MOVIE: IQUITICARLY | NICK | Mon | 05:30P-06:30P | 3,956 |
| 13 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,872 |
| 14 | PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 3,866 |
| 15 | Phineas and Ferb SHORTS | DSNY | Fri | 08:45P-09:00P | 3,802 |
| 16 | SANTA BABY 2 PR | FAM | Sun | 08:00P-10:00P | 3,798 |
| 17 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:00A-09:30A | 3,793 |
| 18 | NCIS | USA | Thu | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,773 |
| 19 | NCIS | USA | Fri | 07:30P-08:30P | 3,747 |
| 20 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 09:30A-10:00A | 3,741 |
| 21 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 12:30P-01:00P | 3,728 |
| 22 | iCarly | NICK | Sat | 08:00P-08:30P | 3,720 |
| 23 | iCarly MOVIE: IQUITICARLY | NICK | Thu | 06:00P-07:00P | 3,710 |
| 24 | CHRISTMAS IN CANAAN | HALL | Sat | 08:00P-10:00P | 3,688 |
| 25 | POLAR EXPRESS, THE | DSNY | Sat | 07:00P-08:50P | 3,688 |
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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)
Just curious Robert…why aren’t you taking request any longer? It was a big part of our weekly Blog routine.
Good showing for the Hallmark movie. It should be the second most watched Hallmark movie of the year (after last week’s Mrs Miracle) and just ahead of Nanny Express (aired in January).
The Christmas season is probably Hallmark’s best period every year.
ABC Family’s Santa Baby 2 is not in the top 25, so it didn’t repeat the 2006 Santa Baby performance (4.7 million viewers) and was lower than other ABC Family Christmas movie aired this year (The dog who saved Christmas at 3,9 million viewers). It may still have had decent ratings though considering 3.6m was needed to be in top 25.
ok, I see the ABC Family press release was published while I was posting.
3.8 million Total Viewers for Santa Baby 2 which is good.
Actually, color me stupid…but with 3.8m shouldn’t it be in the top 25 above? or is the 3.8m the sum of more airings?
Andrea2, Robert’s list above doesn’t include ABC Family/Disney Network shows (but we get that data earlier). Here are the those shows that were in the top 25.
12/11/09 PHINEAS AND FERB DSNY Fri 08:00P-08:40P 5.213 million
12/13/09 SANTA BABY 2 PR FAM Sun 08:00P-10:00P 3.798 million
ABC Family/Disney shows do not appear in the standard Nielsen ratings list because they are not ad supported.
Bill Gorman, many thanks for the explanation (and the figures)
Andrea, Bill’s info is not quite 100%, since Phineas and Ferb was alwasy #5 in the table (and was mentioned in the post and in the headline!) and I used the Nielsen supplied list because it’s the only one that includes a good household rating (instead of coverage ratings).
I think for the network rankers, they do not use Disney since it isn’t ad supported, but for the show rankers they do. HOWEVER, the Nielsen supplied list we get is the top 40 shows, but it is the top 40 shows based on household rating, not viewers. So it’s quite possible the only reason Santa Baby wasn’t on that list is because of the household rating. Nonetheless, as you note it should’ve been among the top 25 based on viewers. We get information in various ways. This week I actually saw the data directly from Nielsen before the other list which did include Santa Baby.
Edit: either way, I have now updated the table
Maddhatter: for my sanity mostly. The requests went on endlessly sometimes. Some people would ask for TEN shows. A lot of the requests were for data already posted on the site earlier in the week or by Travis Yanan, and it wound up not being any fun to worry about the requests. Not the best outcome, but, with a gazillion separate cable airings each week, was the best outcome for me personally.
What a great ratings for The Kardashians, they doubled The Hills ratings!! Congratulations!!
Big numbers for the “Phineas and Ferb” Christmas special! But did I see that right that it did that on a 2.8 HH rating? And if so, that’s really low for 5.2 million viewers – must have been a lot of families watching together.
Ryan, since I switched to the other list and didn’t have good household ratings for all shows, I omitted it when I switched, but you did see that right, it had a 2.8 household rating. And though I wouldn’t say it was a low household rating, it definitely was more of a family affair than Men of a Certain Age. Phineas had 1.64 viewers per household. Men of a Certain age (with a 3.6 HH rating and more or less the same number of viewers) had 1.31 viewers per household.
No one has ratings for True Jackson VP or The Troop on Nickelodeon?
Good call on that, Robert. Must of been the contrast with “MoCA” that jumped out at me – the 2.8 HH rating for “Phineas” isn’t really out of line with what Disney and Nick shows in the 5 million range usually get.
As for Trev’s question, obviously not too well if a repeat “iCarly” beat both of them (new) on Saturday night.
Phineas and Ferb’s ratings are impressive considering it aired on Disney XD where it got 2.6m, itself impressive because Disney XD is in less homes than Disney Channel which either Robert or Bill could confirm.
Jon as of September it was ~97 million homes for Disney vs. ~72 million homes for XD. You can see the coverage estimates as of September here.
How is Nip / Tuck doing in its final season?
Does someone have the final rating & demo for “Sanctuary” that aired 12/11/09? I couldn’t find it here, and PI Feedback didn’t have the info either. Thanks in advance.
@ Ben — SANCTUARY, 12/11, 10pm on Syfy: 1.363 mil, 0.4/1 A1849.
I hear jersey shore has good ratings. I guess they mean good ratings for mtv. Mtv probably never cracks the top twenty five. They have somre awful shows, but true life is pretty good every now and then. I also see a and e didn’t have any top twenty five. That sucks, I like intervention and dog the bounty hunter. I’ve never been able to figure out who exactly gets credit for watching a show. I think its a select few who have nielson stuff on there television. Thats why the nielson ratings are a scam.