TV Ratings: Sad Happy Town Premiere; But ABC's Smiling Over Modern Family

Scoreboard
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49	4.1/12	2.4/7	1.9/6	1.8/5	1.6/5	0.9/3
Rating/Share: Adults 18-34	3.1/10	2.0/6	1.5/5	1.1/4	1.7/5	1.0/3
Total Viewers (million)	12.34	6.53	6.52	7.45	3.86	2.12

Of Course FOX won the night with an hour of  American Idol. It's 6.5 adults 18-49 rating was up 10% versus last week.

The premiere of Happy Town on ABC were  bad, but probably only as bad as any reasonable person would've imagined, including the executives at ABC.  You know, the same people who cut the order to 8 episodes and kept it off the schedule for almost the entire season. Not even ABC could've been surprised it would be its lowest-rated premiere of the season.

Why put it on at all?   Perhaps they figured "C'mon, it can't do much worse than Ugly Betty or Eastwick!"    At least for one week, they were correct (though Eastwick premiered with a 3.0 before sinking)  The 1.7 adults 18-49 rating was better than the 1.4 Ugly Betty pulled with its last new episode.  But, that was the premiere and the typical trend with any premiere is the ratings for the second episode go down.  The half hourly trend was also not its friend either, dropping from a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating in the first half hour to a 1.6 the second half hour.   

Earlier in the night on ABC Modern Family scored a 4.1 adults 18-49 rating, which is sure to cheer ABC up at least a little.  It was up 11% from its last new episode. Cougar Town pulled a 2.8 with adults 18-49, up 12% from its last new episode.

The last night before May Sweeps officially begin tonight saw CBS entirely in repeats, but with a twist, a repeat of Two and a Half Men at 8:30p up against a new episode of  The Middle on ABC.   The new episode of  The Middle won easily with a 2.4  adults 18-49 rating vs. a 1.8 for the repeat of Two and a Half Men.  It is interesting to note that while Two and a Half Men repeats very well in its normal Monday timeslot,  it won't score those ratings with a repeat if they just stick it anywhere.

Against a repeat on CBS and Happy Town,  a new Law & Order: SVU had a 2.9 rating with adults 18-49, up from last week's 2.7 when it ran against repeats on both ABC and CBS.

Over on the CW, America's Next Top Model had its most-watched episode in more than a month (since St. Patrick's Day) with nearly 3.3 million viewers.  While TV gossip blogs are talking about a second season of High Society set in the Hamptons,  the CW has not picked the show up for a second season...at least not yet.

Based on last night's ratings it seems much more likely that Tinsley Mortimer and cast are behind that rumor than the CW.

Nielsen overnight ratings for Wednesday, April 28, 2010:

Late night data info is below the primetime data.

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

via NBC ratings notes:

In Late-Night Metered Markets Wednesday night:

• "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (3.5/9 in metered-market households) out-delivered CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" (2.6/7) and ABC's combination of "Nightline (2.9/7) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (1.4/5) in Nielsen's 56 metered markets.

• In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (1.4/6) ranked #1 among the major networks in the time period over "Late Show" (0.8/4), "Nightline" (1.0/4) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (0.5/3).

• At 12:35 a.m., "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" (1.5/5 in metered-market households) topped CBS's "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" (1.3/5 with an encore telecast).  In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, "Late Night" (0.7/5 in 18-49) topped "Late Late Show" (0.5/3 with an encore telecast).

• At 1:35 a.m., "Last Call with Carson Daly" averaged a 0.9/4 in metered-market households and a 0.5/4 in adults 18-49 in the 25 markets with local people meters.

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.