Nielsen Ratings Wed, Feb 13: Another Idol Moment

February 14th, 2008 by Robert Seidman  Email This

Scoreboard for Weds. Feb. 13, 2008
Total Viewers (million)	19.53	10.10	7.07	6.48	1.28
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49	7.9/21	2.7/7	2.0/5	2.5/6	0.6/1

FOX again easily dominates everything, this time with the tandem of American Idol and Moment of Truth.  Although when final numbers for Truth come out they’ll be adjusted downward because it also contains the last few minutes of American Idol that ran into the 9pm hour, FOX has a bona fide hit on its hands with Moment of Truth.

Woe is Big Brother! This is where it gets interesting and I think I’ll get the opportunity to start being very critical of CBS and an industry which in general, does not seem to want to turn on the dime.  The thing is, they all want to drive the fancy $150,000 sports cars, but in their day jobs?  They maneuver like they’re driving a ten wheeled truck. 

CBS has a summer hit with Big Brother.  It’s very clear, after only two airings, that it cannot possibly compete in any meaningful way against American Idol.  Indeed it could not compete with Deal or No Deal, or even the abysmal Wife Swap, which ABC will surely cancel.   The thing I am looking for is for CBS to pull Big Brother off the Tuesday and Wednesday night lineup immediately and stick it somewhere else where it has a chance.  Or pull it off the air immediately and taking a week to figure it out.

I am looking for CBS to make some kind of announcement about this before the next airing of Big Brother and if something like that doesn’t happen in the next couple of weeks I will be forced to believe that whatever it is CBS values, maximizing profits isn’t its top priority.   I can’t imagine Sumner Redstone being ok with that, but I guess we’ll see.

What would I do with the 8p-9p spot on Tuesdays and Wednesdays?  Reruns of Two and a Half Men, baby!  No doubt.

If you want some bright spots that aren’t at FOX, I suppose NBC can crow that Deal or No Deal at least gets WAY more viewers, even up against American Idol than…Jericho gets against a rerun of Law & Order: SVU and ABC can say that at least Supernanny isn’t a complete failure.  But if I was an exec at NBC or ABC, “We know we suck, and really, really suck compared to FOX, but, you know what? We could’ve sucked a little bit worse, and we didn’t!” wouldn’t exactly leave me brimming with esteem.

See the full night’s results:

Nielsen Ratings Source: Nielsen Media Research. Full night’s results available via Marc Berman/Mediaweek.