Hockey #1! Hockey. Yeah, baby. I'll say it again, HOCKEY! The "tremendously tremendous" (and it was) Olympic hockey match-up where the USA upset Canada on Sunday night was the week's most-watched program on cable. Hockey and "most-watched" rarely get into the same sentence around here.
Hockey and the post-game coverage catapulted MSNBC to the top 2 slots for the week, beating out WWE Monday Night Raw and the Keeping up With the Kardashian's season finale. SpongeBob absorbed nine out of the top 25, and NCIS reruns took five of the top 25 slots.
Top 25 cable shows for the week ending February 21, 2010:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY( | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | W OLY PRIME | MSNB | Sun | 07:45P-09:55P | 8,221 |
| 2 | W OLY PRIME POST | MSNB | Sun | 09:55P-10:08P | 6,477 |
| 3 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:06P | 5,111 |
| 4 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,807 |
| 5 | KEEPING UP KARDASHIANS | EN | Sun | 10:00P-10:30P | 4,807 |
| 6 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 07:00P-08:00P | 4,715 |
| 7 | PENGUINS | NAN | Mon | 08:00P-08:30P | 4,599 |
| 8 | Hannah Montana | DSNY | Sun | 08:00P-08:30P | 4,495 |
| 9 | SpongeBob | NICK | Mon | 10:30A-11:00A | 4,385 |
| 10 | STARSTRUCK | DSNY | Mon | 06:30P-08:00P | 4,367 |
| 11 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 11:30A-12:00P | 4,312 |
| 12 | SpongeBob | NICK | Mon | 10:00A-10:30A | 4,228 |
| 13 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,185 |
| 14 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 06:00P-07:00P | 4,152 |
| 15 | Burn Notice | USA | Thu | 10:00P-11:00P | 4,117 |
| 16 | Pawn Stars | HIST | Mon | 10:30P-11:00P | 4,107 |
| 17 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 11:00A-11:30A | 4,054 |
| 18 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,047 |
| 19 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,995 |
| 20 | PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 3,950 |
| 21 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:00A-09:30A | 3,906 |
| 22 | Pawn Stars | HIST | Mon | 10:00P-10:30P | 3,891 |
| 23 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,882 |
| 24 | iCarly | NICK | Mon | 05:00P-05:30P | 3,790 |
| 25 | SpongeBob | NICK | Mon | 05:30P-06:00P | 3,788 |
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Separately, we have already posted a bit of stuff that isn't on the list above( Damages, Psych and Leverage among them) and even Starz' Spartacus: Blood and Sand and FX's Archer, and Syfy's Caprica.
Unfortunately we can't post everything, but we post quite a bit, so in addition to the recommendations for finding cable ratings below, I also recommend our site's search feature near the top right of the site.
We always post whatever specific show data we received directly and see via press release or other trade publications. 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...
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All ratings above Live+SD (live viewing plus same day DVR viewing)
talk about spongebob domination, 7 of 25 not bad. were any of those new episodes? I know it doesnt matter much to the kids that watch it though.
Finally hockey dominates the cable landscape like it was made to be.
Pawn Stars is huge!
I have zero interest in hockey, even with my new 50 inch HDTV, but I do watch Olympic hockey. I think it must have something to do with the larger rinks and less fighting, but for some reason I enjoy watching me some hockey during the Olympics, and it has nothing to do with rooting for a particular country. I just actually enjoy the games themselves, yet when I try and the NHL on TV, I just fall asleep.
Actually, the hockey rinks this year were NHL dimensions, not dimensions used in Europe. Only 80 feet wide as opposed to 100 feet.
The olympics is the only time that liberal biased station MSNBC will see ratings like that.
The rink size in Vancouver is 85 x 200, the regulation size of NHL rinks.
Anybody know where the info on “Damages” is posted? Can’t find anything from today.
Couldn’t find it by searching, either.
What happened? We had a nice three-show battle going with iCarly, Spongebob, and NCIS, but iCarly nearly dropped out this week.
@Kevin,
If you mean the numbers from last night, they aren’t out yet.
If you mean from last week,
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/02/17/damages-crushed-by-the-kardashians/42296
Yeah, I meant last night. Robert said above that:
“Separately, we have already posted a bit of stuff that isn’t on the list above( Damages, Psych and Leverage among them)”
but I couldn’t find the Damages info.
So, the rink is the same. Has it always been that way? The only game I watched so far this year for a majority of it was USA-Canada, although I have seen bits and pieces of other games, and the style seems different from NHL hockey.
Is that my imagination? Or is that my imagination based on filling in blanks from previous Olympics where the rink was larger? Or was the rink never larger, and I’m just way off base?
Anyway, I watch the NHL and snooze, and I watch the Olympics and am interested somewhat (meaning I snooze less).
I have nothing against hockey, but I come from an area of the country where hockey is nearly nonexistent. Zero exposure to it my whole life is probably why I never was able to get into it, but maybe it is just the aura of the Olympics that makes it more watchable to me, rather than any difference in rink size or playing style.
Now only if Vs. would get the same ratings..
Schmoker, 2010 is the first Olympic tournament with the smaller, NHL-size rink. Prior tournaments used the larger international-size rink. The International Hockey Federation said since 52 percent of the Olympic players are in the NHL, they’ll be more used to their size of ice.
Finally, MSNBC has a program in prime time that people actually watched. Of course, it was Olympic Hockey & not the other crap that MSNBC has on at that time. I can’t wait to hear Olberdork talk about an 8:00 PM show tahat people watched. Of course, he will say that it was for “Countdown to no Ratings”.
Last night I really paid attention and could tell that rink size was not what I remember from the past. I’m about as hockey illiterate as you can get.
Is there something else that is different? Rules? Style of play?
@Schmoker
Yes, there are a few differences, but overall it is about the same as the NHL. The differences include:
-Automatic icing – in the NHL a player must touch the puck to get an icing call, in international/Olympic hockey, as soon as the puck crosses the goal line it is icing automatically.
-Crease violations – if a player enters the goal crease (blue area around the net) before the puck the play is blown dead. In the NHL you can stand in the crease at any time.
-During a shootout, the first three players that shoot must be different, but after that you can use the same player as many times as you want. In the NHL you must always use a different player.
-No trapezoid beind the net – In the NHL the goalie can only play the puck when he is outside of the goal crease in the trapezoid area behind the net or when he is in front of the goal line. In Olympic hockey he can play it anywhere.
I think those are the basic differences…I am probably missing a few.
Way to go U.S.A. hockey
capsnumber1 , you forgot it is bigger ice
supposed to be bigger anyway