| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adults 18-49: Rating/Share | 3.8/12 | 2.4/7 | 2.0/6 | 1.7/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.0/3 |
| Adults 18-34: Rating/Share | 2.8/10 | 1.4/5 | 1.6/6 | 1.4/5 | 1.6/6 | 1.0/4 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 11.75 | 9.58 | 5.78 | 5.90 | 3.70 | 2.22 |
Wednesday's hour of American Idol improved over Tuesday night's two hour average, when it averaged a 6.0 rating with adults 18-49 in the preliminary numbers, but its 6.3 rating on Wednesday night was still down two-tenths from last Wednesday's preliminary 6.5 rating and saw its worst Wednesday since 2002. Nonetheless there was still enough gas left in Idol's tank to race past its broadcast competition.
Down was a (continuing) theme all around on Cinco de Mayo, though CBS was in all new episodes this week and wasn't last week, which probably accounts for some of the downward movement at ABC, FOX and NBC.
Modern Family still led the night with a 3.8 adults 18-49 rating, but that was down three-tenths from last week. Cougar Town's 2.4 adults 18-49 rating was four-tenths off last week and, The Middle's 2.2 adults 18-49 rating at 8:30p was down a couple of tenths from last week as well.
A special repeat of The Big Bang Theory at 8:30 averaged a 1.8 rating with adults 18-49, exactly the same rating as a special repeat of Two and a Half Men garnered last week (though in Men's defense, last week's New Adventures of Old Christine was a repeat and this week it was new). While even repeats of CBS's Monday 9pm comedy block perform fabulously when they air on Mondays from 9p-10p, a Wednesday 8pm comedy block has been a tough nut for CBS to crack.
At 8pm America's Next Top Model won the 8pm hour with CW's target of women 18-34 with a 2.3 rating, and won the hour with all adults 18-34 as well (by comparison Tuesday night's episode of The Hills had a 3.5 rating with women 18-34 on MTV.)
Hardly a surprise, but Happy Town dropped from its premiere -- four tenths to a 1.2 adults 18-49 rating. NBC's Up against Idol, NBC's sure to be canceled Mercy didn't fare as well this week as last. It dropped four-tenths to a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating, its lowest-rated original telecast ever.
NBC claimed another 10pm victory (two nights in a row) with Law & Order: SVU besting CSI: NY. SVU was still down 10% from last week when it faced a repeat with a CSI: NY. I look at CSI: NY's ratings and think it will be interesting to see what CBS does next season.
Nielsen overnight ratings for Wednesday, May 5, 2010:
late night info is below the primetime table.
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Sh | Viewers (Millions) |
| 8:00 | CBS | New Adventures of Old Christine | 1.8/6 | 6.43 |
| NBC | Minute to Win It (R) | 1.6/6 | 5.50 | |
| CW | America's Next Top Model | 1.5/5 | 3.40 | |
| ABC | The Middle (R) | 1.3/5 | 4.87 | |
| FOX | Lie To Me (R) | 1.3/4 | 4.44 | |
| 8:30 | ABC | The Middle | 2.2/7 | 6.78 |
| CBS | The Big Bang Theory (R) | 1.8/6 | 6.15 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | American Idol | 6.3/17 | 19.05 |
| ABC | Modern Family | 3.8/11 | 9.32 | |
| CBS | Criminal Minds | 3.3/9 | 12.22 | |
| NBC | Mercy | 1.0/3 | 3.95 | |
| CW | Fly Girls | 0.6/2 | 1.14 | |
| 9:30 | ABC | Cougar Town | 2.4/7 | 5.91 |
| CW | Fly Girls (Season Finale) | 0.4/1 | 0.94 | |
| 10:00 | NBC | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit | 2.6/8 | 8.25 |
| CBS | CSI: NY | 2.2/7 | 10.22 | |
| ABC | Happy Town | 1.2/4 | 3.89 |
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In Late-Night Metered Markets Wednesday night (via NBC press notes):
- In Nielsen's 56 metered markets, household results were: "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," 3.1/8; CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman," 3.2/8; and ABC's "Nightline," 2.9/7; and "Jimmy Kimmel Live," 1.3/4.
- At 1:35 a.m., "Last Call with Carson Daly" averaged a 0.8/3 in metered-market households and a 0.4/3 in adults 18-49 in the 25 markets with local people meters.
- In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, adult 18-49 results were: “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” 1.1/5; "Late Show," 1.0/5; "Nightline," 1.2/5; and "Jimmy Kimmel Live," 0.6/3.
- At 12:35 a.m., "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" (1.3/5 in metered-market households) trailed CBS's "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" (1.6/6). In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, "Late Night" (0.6/4 in 18-49) tied "Late Late Show" (0.6/4).
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
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.
Bye bye, Happy Town! At this point, I almost feel sorry for ABC considering every single one of their dramas failed. For the first time in years, I enjoyed the Idol results from start to finish. Connick, Jr. was hilarious in his segment and Lady Gaga's wild antics were oddly enjoyable with yet another catchy song. NBC moving Mercy to 10 annoyed me because I now have to do some timeshifting with my DVR, but I'll watch that some time today and still plan on watching till the last few episodes because I've made it this far… why quit now. Still think Taylor Schilling has a bright future.
Criminal Minds is not what it used to be, but for sure still my second favorite drama on broadcast.
2.2 for CSI:NY? YIKES!!!!
NBC really needs to put Mercy out of its misery. a 1.0 is scary.
Modern Family help up well, Cougar Town still losing all of its lead-in. This show better move!
Its so funny that NBC's Mercy was only 0.4 ahead of CW's very cheap Fly Girls in a18-49!
I wonder if FG was ahead in A18-34?
Last night's Happy Town episode was actually better than pilot but i start doubt that ABC will air all the episodes!
Nope, Mercy still had better 18-34 and W18-34 than FG,
bummer about CSI NY, it's the only CSI worth watching anymore
Mercy is the best of the medical dramas and I will miss it for sure, but I'm thankful it lasted this long. I hope Taylor Schilling gets another gig soon; she's just incredibly attractive without even trying.
Yes everything falls in the spring but the compete under utter crash of CSI: NY is somewhat surprising only because the quality of the show has not gone down at all, in my opinion. I think people are just getting CSI'd out.
“Mercy is the best of the medical dramas and I will miss it for sure, but I'm thankful it lasted this long.”
Thank Jay Leno.
The cold open of OC explains why Julia deserved both her star and her Emmys. She made a perfectly simple, silly scene into a hilarious one. Not many actors know how to do it.
The Middle had one of its best, most heartfelt episodes of the season. I loved the mother-daughter-granddaughter pairing as well as Neil Flynn, who's just amazing as the dad.
Modern Family was hilarious, I totally understand Claire. While I'm not afraid of flying, just show me a picture of a ship and watch me hyperventilate. It made it so hard for me to watch JAG back in the day…
Happy Town is a disaster. It's such a disaster, that I just started laughing at their lack of creativity. The episode started with the rabid sheriff who cut off his hand out of the blue, some very long scenes where nothing happened and then a whole bunch of characters just started quoting ancient movies for no apparent reason. By the time that blond chick started losing it in the hospital, I was out of there. I didn't watch the second half of the episode nor do I intend on watching this mindless drivel anymore. Without a doubt, the worst drama series I saw in years. Seriously, it makes Romantically Challenged look good.
As for the results, I can't believe Casey lived to see another week after mutilating Sinatra Tuesday night.
Why do u FOX air repeats of Lie to me? why the hell not new ones? are they not all filmed yet or somethnig? Stupid Network
It's so unfair! NBC's top drama vs. CBS's average. What do you expect to happen? (could be in the bingo excuse card)
It's disappointing because CSI: NY is the best CSI (I know this because I watch them all) yet it always gets the lowest rating.
Why kill Mercy now with only one episode left to air?
Fans of Happy Town better hope there is a satisfactory resolution to the story in the 8th episode because ABC won't renew this show.
With repeats of Two and a Half Men and the Big Bang Theory airing on 8:30 pm the last two Wednesdays, CBS now has more data to make a decision about Wednesdays for next season. CBS will still have a tough time finding a hit for this timeslot.
Some posters suggest that CSI New York may move to Fridays at 10 pm so that a new show (like Hawaii 5-O) can occupy its timeslot. I agree.
Perhaps we spoke too soon about LtM's repeat strength.
And CSI:NY isn't really interesting, when it's almost guaranteed to land in one of the Sunday Hospice slots.
Wow… Mercy. Fine state of affairs. What about Trauma? Is it over already?
Those NY ratings are indeed creepy. Let me be a fanboy here and suggest that The Good Wife be moved to Sunday and NY to Friday (after Whisperer/Medium) since it's more than likely to get canceled in 2011.
Is there any chance that The Amazing Race and Boss will share a timeslot next year, say Sun@8? It would free up the 9PM slot for Wife and the 10PM slot for a new show.
It's such a shame that a great show like Mercy could have so bad numbers.
I don't know how indicative the Wednesday repeat numbers truly are… I'm a huge Big Bang fan and completely forgot about the 8:30 repeat until my DVR started recording it. Obviously that's the case with lots of the fans since the repeat scored half what it would on Monday. Wednesday 8 pm has not really bode well for anybody this season but I don't see why a quality show could not succeed there in the fall.
Man, you know a show's in trouble when people start to blame what NBC's airing against it. Next we'll hear how CSI: Vegas/The Mentalist can't are down because they compete with Vampire Diaries…
looks like my CBS schedule may have had something right, CSI:NY may very well be moved to Fridays at 10PM. That 2.2 isn't good on any network, but it's horrible on CBS.
CBS will still have a tough time finding a hit for this timeslot.
I suggest Mike & Molly for 8PM, Rules for 8:30. M&M would have to score at least a 3.0 after which Rules could be in the mid-2s and still be considered a “success.” And I mean, after Cybill, Grace under Fire, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, what are the chances that a Lorre-created sitcom is going to fail?
(Oops, I hope I didn't just jinx it! ;D)