The 2009-10 broadcast primetime season is in the books, and above are the final ratings averages for the season.
Fox's win for adults 18-49 was its sixth in a row, and CBS' win for average viewership was for the seventh time in the last eight years.
While the press and the networks round the ratings to one digit past the decimal point for reporting (and usually PR boasting) purposes, for the final chart, I decided to show three digits (which is the level of detail you'd see if I was showing viewer numbers instead.
For a variety of reason's I'm not including my usual adjustments for non-annual events like the Winter Olympics which boosted NBC, but you can still see those in my post through week 35, which was all but 3 days of the season.
Note that the chart includes RATINGS not VIEWERSHIP as was typical in our weekly network ratings posts prior to July, 2009.
Fox finished marginally ahead of last season in all but adults 25-54 where they were marginally behind.
While CBS was effectively flat in viewership, adults 18-49 and adults 25-54, they can thank the Super Bowl. Without the Super Bowl, their losses in the adult demo groups would be in the same range as ABC's.
Without the Winter Olympics, NBC would have done somewhat worse vs. last season than the chart indicates, and in all cases their season's declines would have been worse than ABC's.
No special exceptions for ABC, the numbers speak for themselves.
As with the final primetime ratings averages above, I performed the comparisons with last season using the maximum level of ratings detail I received instead of just one digit past the decimal point so the changes above may vary slightly from the ones in my post through week 35.
For a variety of reason's I'm not including my usual adjustments for non-annual events like the Winter Olympics that boosted NBC, but you can still see those in my post through week 35, which was all but 3 days of the season.
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.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Fix these numbers. They do not make sense.
How?
It looks like NBC is not doing so bad after all, at least not any worse than ABC, except in the percent change in viewers 18-34.
Thats because of The Olympics. Without the Olympics, NBCs average is a 2.1.
rob60990 is correct, for several reasons I declined to include my usual adjustments that would show the ratings minus the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl, but you can see them in the week 35 post linked above.
wow, ABC really took a beating.
Retentionistas might say ABC retained 92-96% of their audience from last year.
To be honest given the fact NBC aired The Jay Leno Show (for 5 1/2 months) I would have expected worse ratings, but its seems the winter Olympics helped. I wonder whether the network will be up next year, its got potential strong shows but no Olympics.. it will be interesting
The ongoing exodus of viewers from broadcast TV means that budgets for broadcast programming are likely to get smaller, and that the networks probably will be increasingly less likely to take risks or to support programs that don't immediately find an audience. All of this points to more and more cheap, disposable programming that relies in instant gratification in order to succeed, which will only continue to drive away a certain portion of the viewing audience. A slippery slope, as the saying goes… As much as I'm a lifelong TV junkie, I found it harder this year than ever before to find programs I was really excited about. And of course, when you find them, you wonder how long these programs are going to be on the air, based on their immediate ratings performance. My favorite discoveries of the last few years have been on cable, not broadcast, and I'm guessing that this trend will continue, and perhaps accelerate, over time.
Viewers have been leaving broadcast in droves for years now, yet the budgets keep getting bigger and there are fewer “unscripted” shows this year than last. Why would that change now?
Holly makes a good point. Through the 25+ years of primetime audience shift from broadcast to ad supported cable, the broadcast TV business model has stayed surprisingly static.
In most years, the broadcast networks have been able to raise their advertising rates to compensate (or more) for audience losses, although that has reportedly gotten more difficult in the past several years with the recession (and the bankruptcy of the US car manufacturers).
Wow, in A18-34 #'s 2-4 are practically all tied.
I really disagree about scripted vs unscripted shows. There are more unscripted(reality) shows and specials than ever before. All one has to do is look at the ratings chart to see that. AI, DWTS, Biggest Loser, Undercover Boss, So you think you can dance, America's Got talent, I could go on and on. Scripted shows are a dying breed.
I find it sad that even with The Olympics, NBC could still only manage to come in last place . With the billions that they spent on the Olympics, they should have been atleast been able to beat ABC for third place.
“I really disagree about scripted vs unscripted shows. There are more unscripted(reality) shows and specials than ever before. All one has to do is look at the ratings chart to see that. AI, DWTS, Biggest Loser, Undercover Boss, So you think you can dance, America's Got talent, I could go on and on. Scripted shows are a dying breed.”
You're really wrong about the *number* of unscripted vs. scripted shows over time. Holly has posted numbers before demonstrating that while the type of unscripted shows has changed, their number has not.
I'm sure if she sees this, she will post them again.
I think the numbers speak for themselves regardless of whether it was Olympics, Super Bowl, Leno, scripted or unscripted. It's how many eyeballs were drawn to the screen this season and its the 18-49 ratings that drive ad revenue which is what this is all about anyway.
There are more “unscripted” shows, but they are not taking the place of regular scripted series, they're mostly taking the place of repeats (particularly during winter hiatus and summer) movies-of-the-week (up to 9 hours on NBC, 8 on CBS at one point), variety programs, and news (5 hours of Dateline NBC).
*Copied from an earlier post.*
Really, the number of scripted hours isn't much less than 30-40 years ago. CBS has been steady at 14-18 scripted hours for the last 40 years, even after loosing Saturday, they've started the fall with 16 scripted hours for the last 4 years. NBC has varied wildly since the 60s, going as low as 7 scripted shows in 1980 and this years Leno debacle and as high as 18 in the late 80s. It stayed around 14-15 (even with losing Sat.) through most of the 90s and 00s until football took 4 hours, then it dropped to 11. Next season it will go back up 11. ABC has fared the worst. Through most of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, ABC hung around 15 hours of scripted content. It hit bottom in 2000 with the Millionaire overuse at only 7 but since then has averaged 10-11. Next year they have 12.
When you consider the growth in original scripted programming on cable, even with the small losses on broadcast, there are more scripted shows on TV now than ever.
Note: I only used the original plans for the fall, simply because tracking replacement shows and midseason shows is next to impossible before the 00s. And I haven't done FOX yet.
Went by so quick. :'(
Bill/Robert: Won't you be doing the full ranking of the Top 18-49 / Total Viewers of the season? Or at least an analysis about it? I know I can find the list elsewhere but I would love to hear your thoughts/analysis and also the thoughts of the commenters of this site. I think TVBTN would not be complete without a full ranking of the series this season post. Just sayin'
Since Tom appears to be the same person as tommywood1, he must not be very good at reading the responses to his posts…or he has a bad memory. The first time I posted the numbers for the trend of scripted shows, it was in response to tommywood1 arguing that I was wrong when I said scripted shows weren't dying…..It's like dejavu all over again!