TV Ratings Sunday: 'Desperate Housewives' Finale Wins Night, 'Once Upon a Time' Rises, 'Survivor' Has Its Lowest Rated Finale Ever, 'Harry's Law' Up

-

ABC won the night in adults 18-49 and  total viewers. 

On ABC, America's Funniest Videos declined to  a 1.6  adults 18-49 rating from last week's 2.0. The season finale of Once Upon A Time scored a 3.2 adults 18-49 rating, up  7% from last week's 3.0 . The two hour series finale of  Desperate Housewives garnered a 3.2 adults 18-49 rating, up 19%  from a 2.7 for last week's hour long episode and up from a  3.1 for last year's season finale.

On CBS, the two house Survivor finale earned a 2.8 rating among adults 18-49, compared to a 2.7 for last week's finale of The Amazing Race and down 30% from last spring's Survivor finale for the show's lowest rated finale ever. At 10pm, The Survivor reunion scored a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating up from the 1.2 NYC 22 earned in the time period last week and down 29% from last spring's Survivor reunion for the series lowest rated reunion ever. At 7PM, 60 Minutes got a season low 1.2  down from last week's 1.6.

On Fox, The Cleveland Show earned a 1.3 rating among adults 18-49, down 7% from last week's 1.4.  The Simpsons got a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating down 14% from last week's 2.2. Bob's Burgers scored a 1.8 in adults 18-49, even with last week. Family Guy garnered  a 2.3 among adults 18-49, down 15%  from its  2.7  last week.b The season finale of  American Dad got a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating down 13% from last week's 2.3.

On NBC, Dateline earned a 0.8 adults 18-49 rating up from last week's 0.7. Harry's Law scored a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating, up 25% from last week's 0.8.  Celebrity Apprentice earned a 1.8 among adults 18-49, down from last week's 1.9 and tying its series low.

Broadcast primetime ratings for Sunday, May 13, 2012:

-
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2012 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 baseball 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. 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.