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TV Ratings Thursday: Survivor, CSI, Mentalist Win; SNL: Gilly Christmas Does Well

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December 18th, 2009

survivor_dual_elimination

Scoreboard CBS NBC FOX Uni ABC CW
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 3.6/10 2.6/8 1.5/4 1.3/4 1.0/3 0.8/2
Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 2.3/7 2.5/8 1.2/4 1.4/5 0.9/3 0.9/3
Total Viewers (million) 14.567 6.904 5.399 3.479 3.685 1.873


Lead by the penultimate episode of Survivor: Samoa, and against reduced original broadcast competition, CBS dominated the ratings on Thursday.

Note: Fox affiliates were scheduled to carry the Colts/Jaguars game locally in the Indianapolis and Jacksonville (although it may have been blacked out in Jax, there was no blackout) markets. Those ratings will be removed from these numbers in the final ratings, so the preliminary numbers for Fox shows are subject to more than the typical revisions, likely downwards.

Even though it was universally down vs. last week, CBS' all new line up was way too much for the reduced competition. Survivor: Samoa was down 7% to a 3.9 adults 18-49 rating. CSI fell 10% to a 3.5 rating, and The Mentalist slipped 3% to a 3.5 rating.

NBC's SNL: A Very Gilly Christmas did surprisingly (to me) well, averaging a 3.1 rating from 8-10pm. That's identical to NBC's 8-10pm average last Thursday. And since it's 3.6 rating at 9:30 was better than the typical 30 Rock rating, it may have provided the boost that propelled The Jay Leno Show up 6% from last Thursday to a 1.7 rating. Another tough morning for the "Leno Ragers".

And I rarely comment on repeat performance, but it's interesting that Vampire Diaries repeats were quite competitive with both Grey's Anatomy and Fringe repeats, and better than the average new Melrose Place episode.

In Late-Night Local People Meters Thursday night:

  • Conan O'Brien (1.2/5 in 18-49 in local people meters) topped CBS's Late Show (1.0/4) in Nielsen's 24 local markets with People Meters.
  • At 12:35 a.m., Jimmy Fallon (0.8/5 in 18-49 in local people meters) tied CBS's Late Late Show (0.6/4).
Time Net Show 18-49 Rating 18-49 Share Viewers Live+SD (Millions)
8:00 CBS Survivor:Samoa 3.8 12 12.220
NBC SNL: A Very Gilly Christmas 2.9 9 7.734
FOX Bones (repeat) 1.7 5 6.445
ABC Grey's Anatomy (repeat) 0.9 3 3.991
CW The Vampire Diaries (repeat) 0.8 3 1.888
8:30 CBS Survivor:Samoa 4.0 12 12.674
NBC SNL: A Very Gilly Christmas 3.1 9 7.933
FOX Bones (repeat) 1.9 6 7.295
ABC Grey's Anatomy (repeat) 0.9 3 3.785
CW The Vampire Diaries (repeat) 0.8 2 1.873
9:00 CBS CSI 3.4 10 15.072
NBC SNL: A Very Gilly Christmas 3.2 9 7.865
FOX Fringe (repeat) 1.3 4 4.179
ABC Grey's Anatomy (repeat) 1.2 3 4.024
CW The Vampire Diaries (repeat) 0.9 2 1.891
9:30 CBS CSI 3.5 10 16.000
NBC SNL: A Very Gilly Christmas 3.2 9 7.497
ABC Grey's Anatomy (repeat) 1.3 3 4.099
FOX Fringe (repeat) 1.1 3 3.677
CW The Vampire Diaries (repeat) 0.8 2 1.841
10:00 CBS The Mentalist 3.6 10 16.092
NBC The Jay Leno Show 1.9 5 5.624
ABC Private Practice (repeat) 1.0 3 3.185
10:30 CBS The Mentalist 3.4 10 15.341
NBC The Jay Leno Show 1.5 4 4.771
ABC Private Practice (repeat) 0.9 3 3.027

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Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.

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.

(157) Comments - Add Yours!

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  1. Survivor wins again.And 4 million for a Anatomy repeat?

  2. Mark

    SNL did do pretty well. Followed by a big drop for Leno!

  3. rob

    I would also guess some kind of game aired on the CW because those repeat #s for VD are high.

    I cant wait for ABC Thursday to have new episodes. These repeats #s are horrific!

    Look at that drop on Leno. How sad!!

  4. Tommy

    Wow SNL’s special did great! I’m pretty impressed by those numbers. Survivor is really doing well too, I can’t wait to see what the ratings will look like for the Sunday finale.

  5. Johnjohn

    You gotta wonder how CSI and The Mentalist fail to get a boost by running against reruns. In The Mentalist’s case, the later timeslot, evidenced by the high DVR numbers, is highly responsible, but still, it’s essentially the same numbers the shows are getting against GA and PP originals.

  6. rob, no information as yet on any CW sports pre-emptions, but will update as I see anything.

  7. Those are some impressive numbers for the SNL special. I wonder if Weekend Update Thursday will get similar results when it resumes?

  8. Chuck Tranberg

    Lately Leno has been beating ABC at 9pm in reruns (and even some original programs). CBS is still in originals and we’ll see how that goes next week, I expect CBS will win but the ? is by how much?

  9. Marcos

    GA 8pm repeat did worse than FlashFoward repeat last week, but still not enough to make ABC regret replacing FF repeat.

  10. Mike

    How telling is it that the Fringe Repeat beat the Greys repeat for the first 1/2 hour and then lost views in the 2nd half hours.

    Says to me that some people gave Fringe a try and then switched back to the Grey’s repeat.

    Being a Fringe fan (not enough to watch a repeat) I hope it does better on Jan 11 following House.

  11. What is going to replace Survivor on CBS?

  12. Ren

    Great ratings for the Mentalist, love the show!

  13. John

    Hey Bill Gorman,

    When will CBS release their mid-season schedule?…AND also for ABC’s mid-season?…The Final Question; Post Super-Bowl>>>Still the strong Favorite Survivor 20 that is most still likely to get thye coveted spot?…

  14. Mike, your conclusion that Fringe watchers switched to Grey’s is unsupported by the facts. 50+% of the adults 18-49 last night were *not* watching ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW. Those Fringe watchers could have gone many other places, those Grey’s watchers could have come from many other places.

  15. Jared

    The Jacksonville Fox affiliate carried the game? That surprises me because I thought Jaguar home games were getting blacked out

  16. John, Robert’s been given broad dates for the CBS announcements, which effectively amount to “soon”.

  17. Jared, you are correct that there was a blackout threat, not sure if it happened or not. Will edit that into the post.

  18. rodshooter

    Guessing the new sketches helped SNL. That is a huge improvement and a clear sign of what NBC needs to do starting next year with their Thursday block. Maybe a Thursday Night Live for a half or full hour should be in the works. TNL could be huge. Already got the abbreviated name. LOL!

    CBS’ combo of CSI and The Mentalist are hanging around that 15 million viewer mark but I do feel that CBS should’ve never touched The Mentalist.

  19. rodshooter

    The Jacksonville Fox affiliate carried the game? That surprises me because I thought Jaguar home games were getting blacked out —— It didn’t get blacked out because the game was sold out. It was Jacksonville’s first sell out of the year.

  20. Edward

    lol @ CSI’s numbers.

    CBS- Criminally Bad Stuff
    Critical Breakdown of the Senses
    Crappy Broadcasting for Seniors

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