Due to the nature of live programming the ratings for CBS (NCAA Basketball) are approximate and subject to significant revisions in the final numbers. See below for more information on these Fast Affiliate Ratings.
| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 3.3/11 | 2.0/7 | 1.4/5 | 1.4/5 | 0.4/1 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 10.32 | 6.40 | 6.58 | 3.99 | 1.06 |
CBS easily won the night with the NCAA men's college basketball tournament, but in its Friday 9pm timeslot premiere Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution provided very strong numbers with 7.51 million, and more importantly, a 2.6 rating with adults 18-49. On any Friday night in recent history without a special event (like the basketball tournament) the 2.6 rating with the 18-49 crowd would've easily topped the night. It easily topped a new Kitchen Nightmares, which, with a 1.7 rating for adults 18-49 is actually providing Fox some of the best ratings its had on Friday night in a long time, though it was down from last week's 1.9 with adults 18-49.
At 8pm a repeat of the special premiere of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution from earlier in the week pulled a 1.6 rating with adults 18-49 at 8pm, second only to basketball and ahead of a new episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC. With a 1.5 rating with adults 18-49 "Who" was down a bit from last week when it scored a 1.7 with adults 18-49.
Here are some other notes from ABC:
Up against CBS’ NCAA Semi-Final Basketball coverage, ABC qualified as the #1 non-sports net on Friday among Adults 18-49 (2.0/7), posting its strongest rating on the night in 12 weeks (since 1/1/10) and its 2nd-highest number this season.
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Premiere (9-10pm):
Jumping over its lead-in (a repeat of the Sunday preview episode) at 9pm in Total Viewers (+2.0 million) and Adults 18-49 (+63%) and building throughout its telecast opposite CBS’ NCAA Basketball Tournament, the premiere of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution stood as the dominant #1 series telecast in the hour, beating NBC’s Dateline by 1.0 million viewers (7.5 million vs. 6.5 million) and Fox’s Kitchen Nightmares by 53% (2.6/8 vs. 1.7/7). In fact on its premiere airing, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution emerged as Friday’s definitive #1 TV series telecast in viewers and young adults.
- Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution produced ABC’s highest Adult 18-49 series number in the Friday 9-10pm time period in well over 3 years – since 12/29/06.
- Among Adults 18-49 it was ABC’s top-rated Friday night premiere (returning or new) in more than 4 years – since 2/24/06. In addition, Food Revolution registered as the highest-rated Adult 18-49 premiere for any network on the night (returning or new) since September 2007 – since 9/28/07.
- Impressively, Food Revolution even finished ahead of its Sunday preview this past week, coming out of Desperate Housewives, by 1.4 million viewers and by 18% in Adults 18-49 (6.1 million and 2.2/6 on Sunday 3/21 in the 10pm hour).
Details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Shr | Viewers (Millions) |
| 8:00 | CBS | NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament | 3.2/12 | 10.46 |
| ABC | Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (R) | 1.6/6 | 5.45 | |
| NBC | Who Do You Think You Are | 1.5/5 | 6.21 | |
| FOX | House (R) | 1.2/4 | 3.69 | |
| CW | America's Next Top Model (R) | 0.6/2 | 1.44 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament | 3.3/11 | 10.17 |
| ABC | Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (Premiere) | 2.6/8 | 7.51 | |
| FOX | Kitchen Nightmares | 1.7/5 | 4.29 | |
| NBC | Dateline | 1.3/4 | 6.62 | |
| CW | Fly Girls (R) | 0.3/1 | 0.78 | |
| 9:30 | CW | High Society (R) | 0.2/1 | 0.59 |
| 10:00 | CBS | NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament | 3.5/11 | 10.32 |
| ABC | 20/20 | 1.9/6 | 6.25 | |
| NBC | Dateline | 1.6/5 | 7.03 |
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Ratings data via Marc Berman's PI forums.
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
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 and Numbers 102.
Wow! For a network that usually does worst out of all 4 (sometimes even 5) on Fridays ABC made quite a comeback. Had CBS aired its normal programming it might have even won the night!
I think ABC has finally found a perfect fit for Fridays. Now they just need to fill that 8PM hour but not with scripted programming.
NBC's ratings are also good considering it's Friday night.
Wow a 2.6!!! well done ABC
wow, never would have guessed that jamie oliver would save abc on fridays.
Oliver's show is eye-opening, so for me it's a great documentary. I can't believe the school cafeteria feed those little kids chocolate milk or strawberry milk at breakfast and lunch. This show will have done a great public service if it gets even just a few parents to investigate what their local schools are stuffing their kids.
Too bad. The Matthew Broderick “Who do you think you are?” was really fascinating.
How strange that it did better here than on its Sunday premiere. Good for ABC though – that makes 3 keepers this season (this, Modern Family and the Middle).
Glad to see the CW fail on fridays keeping a stupid show like America's Next Top Model, High Society, and Fly girls where Smallville should be having repeats.
I'm glad Jamie's show did so well it's very genuine. But those schools had better meals then what i had here in healthy California. At least they had apples, all i had was a french bread pizza, fries and a chocolate milk for an average lunch, maybe every once in a while they gave out a high fructose corn syrup filled fruit cup, but those were just thrown away of course. Either way if your school offers a “free or reduced” meal program, then send those kids there with a PB&J.
A 2.6 demo? On a Friday? On ABC? Talk about shocker of the year.
i doubt the show will stay anywhere near 2.6. I bet 2.0 is probably the best it'll due in the future.
They should just call the show Obese America.
Yeah 2.6 is definitely the shocker of the year (along with Undercover Boss and a few other things lol). I'm pretty sure this series is quite old though as I remember it airing in Australia quite a while ago. And I'm not sure it's more than a one-off series unfortunately (for ABC). I think they should be thinking of moving Extreme Makeover to Friday at 8 or 9pm, and slot in the new Family show in it's place to rejuvenate Sunday night along with Body of Proof or the new serialised legal drama after DH, given they've confirmed they're moving B&S).
It looks like the networks are finally figuring out how to program for Friday. Well except the CW who can't seem to figure out anything. They're lucky Smallville has such great fans.
When did they confirm moving B&S?? If they did it will be soo interesting to see where
Pretty good for a show on Friday, if it were on any other day though, it would be toast.
Blame me a little for WDYTYA, I didn't make it back before 8, so I had to record it. I'll watch it tonight.
But yeah, Jamie Oliver rocks. I didn't expect it to top the Sunday preview; too bad it's a limited-run series(unless they do another city, who knows?). It's almost what reality TV should be: eye-opening, no embarrass… OK, a little embarrassment, and yet feel good. Believe it or not, I actually want to become a preschool or kindergarten teacher someday, so for me, learning what was happening to those kids really gave me great ideas.
Take that, Gordon Ramsay!
Hah I hadn't thought about it being Jamie vs. Ramsay. Hah!
I'm really not shocked that Jamie Oliver did well. He's been everywhere promoting it. But you have to hand it to ABC, and 2.6 is decent for them on any night these days let alone on Friday…WOW
How does a premiere air immediately following a repeat? Is it me or is this twisted logic?
9pm was its normal day/timeslot premiere. The repeat was from its premiere in a special timeslot last Sunday.