President Obama's 9 minute speech on Osama bin Laden's death on CNN led all cable viewing for the week averaging over 9.9 million viewers. CNN's coverage from 11p-11:51p (before and after the speech) averaged 7.44 million. In normal programming, Pawn Stars edged out ESPN's coverage of the NFL draft (though combined with NFL Network's coverage, the draft had more viewers).
Top 25 Basic cable shows for the week ending May 1, 2011:
| Rank | Program | Network | Day | Time | Viewers (000) |
| 1 | PRES SPEECH B LADEN DEAD | CNN | Sun | 11:35P-11:44P | 9,905 |
| 2 | BN/BIN LADEN DEAD | CNN | Sun | 11:00P-11:51P | 7,440 |
| 3 | PAWN STARS | HIST | Mon | 10:30P-11:00P | 6,631 |
| 4 | Pawn Stars | HIST | Mon | 10:00P-10:30P | 6,362 |
| 5 | NFL DRAFT L | ESPN | Thu | 08:00P-11:49P | 6,003 |
| 6 | HORNETS/LAKERS | TNT | Tue | 10:46P-01:23A | 5,837 |
| 7 | BN/BIN LADEN DEAD | CNN | Sun | 12:00A-01:00A | 5,306 |
| 8 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:09P | 5,220 |
| 9 | SR/OBAMA -BIN LADEN DEATH | FOXN | Sun | 11:35P-11:45P | 5,193 |
| 10 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,178 |
| 11 | LAW & ORDER: CI (ORIG) | USA | Sun | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,102 |
| 12 | SR/BIN LADEN DEATH CVG | FOXN | Sun | 11:45P-12:00A | 4,775 |
| 13 | SR/BIN LADEN DEATH CVG | FOXN | Sun | 11:00P-11:35P | 4,651 |
| 14 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,379 |
| 15 | NUGGETS/THUNDER | TNT | Wed | 09:41P-12:32A | 4,266 |
| 16 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 4,260 |
| 17 | SPURS/GRIZZLIES | ESPN | Fri | 08:58P-11:50P | 4,220 |
| 18 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:00A-09:30A | 4,110 |
| 19 | PACERS/BULLS | TNT | Tue | 08:09P-10:46P | 4,061 |
| 20 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,056 |
| 21 | LAKERS/HORNETS | TNT | Thu | 08:09P-10:39P | 3,871 |
| 22 | IN PLAIN SIGHT | USA | Sun | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,867 |
| 23 | SWAMP PEOPLE | HIST | Thu | 09:00P-10:00P | 3,864 |
| 24 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Sun | 09:00A-09:30A | 3,748 |
| 25 | LAW & ORDER: SVU | USA | Sun | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,731 |
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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 we have created a special category (Overnight Cable TV Show Ratings) to group the data we typically post each weekday from @TravisYanan on Twitter. During the week Travis usually posts selected 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.
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Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2011 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All ratings above Live+SD (live viewing plus same day DVR viewing)
