With two games on the NFL Network this week, NFL took the top three spots, including the NFL Network viewing record-breaker on Saturday between the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints which grabbed the #2 spot with nearly 10.5 million viewers.
For whatever reasons, The Closer was not its usual powerhouse, though it was the most-watched scripted show on cable. Men of a Certain Age trailed an NCIS rerun in total viewers. Keeping Up with the Kardashians garnered more than 4.2 million viewers, a viewing record for E!, although it trailed not one, but two repeats of NCIS.
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 20, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY(S) | Time | HH Rating | Viewers Live+SD (000)2 |
| 1 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L (CARDINALS/49ERS) | ESPN | MONDAY | 8:30 PM | 8.3 | 13,077 |
| 2 | NFL REGULAR SEASON GAME (COWBOYS/SAINTS) | NFLN | SATURDAY | 8:22 PM | 5.7 | 10,497 |
| 3 | NFL REGULAR SEASON GAME (COLTS/JAGUARS) | NFLN | THURSDAY | 8:22 PM | 3.8 | 6,195 |
| 4 | CLOSER, THE | TNT | MONDAY | 9:00 PM | 3.6 | 5,454 |
| 5 | WWE Entertainment (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 9:00 PM | 3.0 | 5,349 |
| 6 | PRE-KICK (COWBOYS/SAINTS) | NFLN | SATURDAY | 8:00 PM | 3.0 | 5,161 |
| 7 | WWE Entertainment (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 10:00 PM | 3.0 | 5,135 |
| 8 | NCIS | USA | WEDNESDAY | 8:00 PM | 3.0 | 4,796 |
| 9 | SpongeBob | NICK | SATURDAY | 9:30 AM | 3.1 | 4,737 |
| 10 | Men of a Certain Age | TNT | MONDAY | 10:00 PM | 2.8 | 4,425 |
| 11 | NCIS | USA | WEDNESDAY | 9:00 PM | 2.8 | 4,308 |
| 12 | WWE Entertainment (WWE Raw) | USA | MONDAY | 8:00 PM | 2.5 | 4,267 |
| 13 | KEEPING UP KARDASHIANS | ENT | SUNDAY | 10:00 PM | 2.7 | 4,237 |
| 14 | SpongeBob | NICK | SATURDAY | 12:30 PM | 2.5 | 4,214 |
| 15 | NCIS | USA | THURSDAY | 7:30 PM | 2.7 | 4,133 |
| 16 | PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR | NICK | SATURDAY | 10:00 AM | 2.7 | 4,125 |
| 17 | S SANTA CLAUSE 2, THE(S)-12/18/2009 | DSNY | FRIDAY | 8:50 PM | 2.3 | 4,075 |
| 18 | SpongeBob | NICK | SATURDAY | 9:00 AM | 2.6 | 3,964 |
| 19 | NCIS | USA | THURSDAY | 6:30 PM | 2.6 | 3,884 |
| 20 | iCarly | NICK | FRIDAY | 7:30 PM | 2.4 | 3,809 |
| 21 | iCarly MOVIE: GO TO JAPAN | NICK | MONDAY | 6:00 PM | 2.4 | 3,800 |
| 22 | NCIS | USA | MONDAY | 7:00 PM | 2.6 | 3,796 |
| 23 | SpongeBob | NICK | SATURDAY | 12:00 PM | 2.3 | 3,768 |
| 24 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | MONDAY | 8:00 PM | 2.3 | 3,767 |
| 25 | RATATOUILLE | FAM | SATURDAY | 8:00 PM | 3,766 |
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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)
Could you please post Sanctuary’s 12/18/09 final rating and demo?Thanks in advance.
@ Ben – I’m pretty sure Travis Yanan posts SANCTUARY’s numbers. In the meantime, it got 1.376 million viewers, 0.4/1 A1849.
Looking that up, I did notice Starz ratings right above SyFy’s. CRASH got 0.094 mil, 0.0/0 A1849?! That can’t be a first run episode, can it? Anyone know? I don’t usually pay attention to Starz ratings; Bill/Robert – are these especially low for them?
94,000? there’s no way that could be a new episode. Those would be especially low for a new episode, not sure for an encore and sadly, I am not very up on the Starz schedule.
Crash had a new episode scheduled for Dec 18th at 10 PM. It should have been the season finale
Yeah, Andrea2, that was for the 10pm airing on 12/18. Yikes… if that was the season finale, I doubt they’ll be getting season!
@tvbill
http://insidetv.aol.com/2009/12/18/what-to-watch-december-18/
I don’t follow it…. how many viewers did it usually get?
Do you know how many viewers Hallmark saturday movie (The 3 Gifts) got? Judging from HH and W25-54 numbers given by the channel press release it should be around 3.5m, I would guess.
Anyway to look up what Party Down was getting? That got a second season, so it seems like it would be a good yardstick for Starz shows.
Agreed, Julia. I’m gonna try to find PARTY DOWN’s numbers. Since I don’t get Starz, I don’t usually pay attention to their ratings. But those super-low numbers for CRASH just happened to catch my eye. (I happen to have a friend who writes on the show, so I probably should know more about its ratings than I do.
)
That’s what Netflix is for. Why would anyone pay for Starz when every original show on Starz is on Netflix watch instantly within 24 hours?
Quote—TVBill says:
December 22, 2009 at 10:43 am
@ Ben – I’m pretty sure Travis Yanan posts SANCTUARY’s numbers. In the meantime, it got 1.376 million viewers, 0.4/1 A1849.–unQuote
Thank you for posting that. It’s strange, this is the 2nd week in a row that Friday cable results have been AWOL.
@TVbill
I have followed Travis Yanan all day watching for the Friday Cable Finals
Do you have the links. I haven’t seen any numbers for Sanctuary or any other Friday Cable show.
@Tim/others to save TVBill from being hounded for data he has already posted here (12/18 numbers in comments ABOVE and 12/11 numbers in the comments of the Cable Top 25 for last week) I created a separate post:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/12/22/sanctuary-ratings-december-11-18-there-is-no-conspiracy/
TVBill/Andrea: wow, but I looked at the schedule and indeed episode 13 of season two (finale) was scheduled for 12/18:
http://www.starz.com/guides/0912STZ1.pdf
They didn’t waste any time announcing Chris Albrecht’s appointment and I’m guessing one of his first official acts will be not picking up Crash…
Thanks. I’ll definitely look up that link. Net ratings are so humdrum, both in general and particularly until January, that I too wonder about individual shows that got promoted heavily. 12 men of Xmas two weeks ago on Lifetime was promoted so much I watched it – really to see if the female voyeur mold has been broken since the late 70′s when I witnesses actual gender fault line fights over the remote simultaneously with the appearance of a male stripper character. ( It hasn’t changed.) That 12 Men thing was so constant on the screen I thought it was like 13 Days of Christmas or 30 Days of Xmas on the other cable nets a promo for weeks or months of shows, not just one. Also, no surprise to me the Kardashians are increasing viewership – I’ll bet, like maybe theDallas Cowboy Cheerleaders show, its a guilty pleasure for at least a few guys, muted – and I’m not necessarily talking about guys under 35.
Sorry, @Andrea2, just noticed your question re: THE THREE GIFTS. You were pretty darn close — it got 3.405 million, 0.5/2 A1849 for the 8pm showing. (W25-52 was it’s best demo.)
@Robert/Julia – Regardless of what PARTY DOWN’s numbers are, (and they’re not easy to find!), I just can’t imagine those CRASH numbers warranting a renewal, even on STARZ. I think you’re right about Albrecht swinging the axe toute de suite.
@tvbill,
Many thanks. It had similar W25-52 numbers of last week’s movie and just a bit lower HH ratings. Last week’s movie got 3.688m. So I guessed something around 3.5m
@moraliste
12 men of Xmas got 2,796,000 viewers (thanks to tvbill for providing the figure in 2 weeks ago’s thread)
(And by W25-52, of course I mean W25-54. Typo courtesy of fingers tired from gift wrapping…
)
Google doesn’t seem to have any information on Party Down ratings, and I’m sure you’ve got access to something much better than Google. (Just another reason I mourn losing out on my dream job as an assistant to head of TV research, when it came down to me and ONE OTHER PERSON!) Hopefully this year you and/or Travis can supply the info so there’s some data out there.
I’m always surprised when people make a fuss about how The Closer doesnt get its usual ratings when they air new episodes in Dec.
Doesnt surprise me at all for a couple of reasons. Most of its fans dont even know that these new episodes were even on because its dec and most fans are too busy doing christmas things to even noticce.
Dec is the equivilent of the Summer Season for the Closer so I would never expect these special Dec episodes to do as well.
Saying that, I am always happy that they air these episodes in Dec since many of the regular shows go on winter hiatus.