Start with the second most highly viewed NFC Championship game in history, add an American Idol show holding steady from last season, and you've got the recipe for an epic broadcast primetime ratings beatdown by Fox. The rest of the broadcast competition could only stand by as they got steamrolled. It will be interesting to compare this week's results to CBS's for Super Bowl week. Also, note how close Univision finished to NBC in adults 18-49
Update: Chart now includes 18-34 and 25-54 ratings as well.
Note that the chart includes RATINGS not VIEWERS as was typical in our weekly network ratings posts prior to July, 2009.
Each rating point is a percentage of the US TV population in that demographic group and equals: 2.90 million viewers, 1.32 million adults 18-49, 0.68 million adults 18-34 and 1.24 million adults 25-54.
You can see past week's broadcast network primetime weekly TV ratings results here.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
FOX always seem to know what they r doing. NBC take some notes. oh and ABC u might wanna take some too, cuz u r going downhill also
FOX rocks. They have some of the best line ups like Monday with House and 24, Tuesday with American Idol
Wesnday with AI and Human Target and my personal face: Sunday’s Animation Domination. Looks like FOX might be on top this year
That very well could have been CBS were the timeslots for the games swapped. Not sure how much it is FOX “knowing what they’re doing” as opposed to good fortune.
Acey is substantially correct, the week of the conference championships only one network gets a big primetime boost, this year it was Fox, next year it will be CBS.
FOX’S WIN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ” THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING”. IT HAS TO DO WITH THE WAY FOOTBALL IS SCHEDULED. NEXT YEAR, WHEN THE SUPER BOWL IS ON FOX, CBS WILL HAVE THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP IN PRIMETIME. FOX HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE OF HAVING THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME WITH BRETT FARVE AND THE “WHO DAT” NEW ORLEANS SAINTS. IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS IT WILL BE CBS THAT WILL HAVE THE SUPERBOWL AND THEIR REGULAR LINE-UP THAT WILL GIVE THEM A HUGE RATINGS WIN. A LOT OF RATINGS SUCCESS HAS TO DO WITH EVENTS, LIKE THE SUPER BOWL AND WORLD SERIES. IN THE OLD DAYS RATINGS WERE WON BY GREAT PRIMETIME LINEUPS, NOT “STUNT” SCHEDULING LIKE WE HAVE TODAY.
NSFAN, surely you have seen the chart showing FOX to be on their way to a key 18-49 victory this season.
If we are talking economics here and with ratings we are, the “special” shows like the above football game are going to have their own ratings scales anyway. Look how much it costs to advertise on the Superbowl. The regular prime time schedule is what counts in the long run to set advertising rates for the season. That is why Idol is so huge. It is part of the regular schedule.
Football in prime time is always going to be big to a extent because it attracts the sacred male demo audience. This just seems to be a good year for sports in general.
Guess we’ll see how good when we get The Olympics.