FOX, Not CBS, is the Most-Watched Network

3/2 Update: Now, the LA Times gets in on the action. Probably after they read it here first

If you spend any time watching CBS you’ll hear them celebrate the fact that CBS is the most watched network. It’s no longer true though. FOX is the most watched network in primetime and its lead is growing. Neither Bill Gorman or myself believe that 6-8 weeks of new scripted dramas and comedies coming from CBS down the road will allow it to overtake FOX either in total viewers, or ANY of the demographics.

FOX’s lead in total viewers keeps growing and there’s too much American Idol left. American Idol may have peaked, but it’s still the golden goose. FOX’s lead in overall viewers (currently less than a million viewers) will continue to grow and CBS will not be able to stop it. And Big Brother and Jericho (nothing against these shows or its fans, we love you all) aren’t helping.

But it’s the demographics where CBS is getting crushed. It’s getting whipped by more than a million viewers on average in the 18-49 and 18-34 demos, and FOX’s lead in the 25-54 demo is on a trajectory to be more than a million perhaps by as soon as next week.

CBS can certainly proclaim “The MOST watched network among people age 55 and over!”, but outside of that, Les Moonves and the crew at the Eye network have nothing to crow about.

Read the full story

Our Week to Week Ratings Momentum charts which broadcast primetime shows increased and decreased their ratings by the largest amounts. Of course, these increases and decreases can be caused by many factors, but they are interesting to examine. This feature will be of particular interest as a research tool for TVBigshot players looking for growth points.

Top 20 Shows For Ratings Increase from February 11-17 to February 18-24, 2008

Read the full story

Scoreboard for Weds. Feb. 27, 2008
Total Viewers (million)	23.60	9.73	7.30	6.55	2.94
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49	8.9/23	2.6/7	2.2/6	2.4/6	1.5/4

The combo of 90 minutes of American Idol and 30 minutes of anything else would crush anything that was on, but the something else was again Back to You, which performed almost exactly as well as it did last night.  Considering American Idol slipped by about a million viewers night versus night, that’s pretty good.

FOX easily won the most viewers and the most 18-49 year old viewers as well. NBC was again a distant second in both total viewers and the 18-49 demo.  CBS was third in viewers, but next to last in the 18-49 demo, only beating the CW (which CBS partially owns!).  Great to have the two worst networks in the demo. 

However poorly you may think the CBS crime dramas perform in reruns, these reruns best Big Brother by 50%.  Big Brother fared worse in the 8pm slot than it did in the 9pm slot but that makes sense.  At 8pm it has to compete with AI for the whole hour, at 9pm it doesn’t.  Wednesday night BB only averaged 5.56 million vs. 6.74 million at 9pm on Tuesday.  CBS doesn’t seem in a hurry to change this and has accepted that BB has lousy ratings, but doesn’t seem to care.  Another television mystery to me (though not as mysterious as ABC being in talks to renew According to Jim!).

At 9pm, outside of American Idol, things are fairly competitive between CBS (rerun of Criminal Minds), NBC (repurposed Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and ABC (Supernanny).  Good news for the Mouse.  Of those three shows, Supernanny is crushing in the 18-49 demo.

NBC won the 10pm hour with an original Law & Order.  Men in Trees was back on ABC, but not many seemed to care.  Trees was beaten (badly) by a rerun of CSI: NY (that still doesn’t excuse the Big Brother thing, Mr. Moonves).

I have to give props to my bald brother Jeff Zucker.  NBC is consistently the #2 network running up against American Idol.  And while it’s always a distant second, its lead over CBS, and ABC  on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is still commanding.

Over on the CW, America’s Next Top Model had about 60K more viewers than last week but is losing steam big-time versus last year when it had over five million viewers.

See the full night’s details:

Read the full story

Top 20 Cable Networks by Primetime Viewers, February 18-24, 2008:

Read the full story

…the least viewed Academy Awards ever. Though fewer eyeballs had never watched, the 80th Annual Academy Awards still took the top spot away from FOX and American Idol, but it certainly wound up being much closer than we thought. Especially since ABC was charging like 7x as much for an ad on the Oscars as Idol charges.

Idol took the second, third and fourth spots with the Oscar’s Red Carpet “pre game” taking the 5th Spot. The Barbara Walters Oscar-themed special was #11 on a viewers basis.

CBS had eight shows on the list. With five out of the eight being repeats CBS can once again lay claim to being king of the reruns. Its best effort for the week was Survivor: Micronesia at #8.

FOX had 5 shows — in addition to the three airings of AI, FOX placed Don’t Forget the Lyrics and the NASCAR Sprint Cup in the top 20.

ABC placed four shows — in addition to the Oscars and related shows, LOST came in at #7.

NBC placed three shows in the list. Deal or No Deal at #6 was not a surprise. But that My Dad is Better Than Your Dad could sneak in at #18 during the week the Oscars were on? That may be good news for NBC, but seems like bad news for broadcast television in general.

Top 20 shows by viewers for the week ending 02/24/08:

Read the full story

I’m not typically moved to comment on the daily goings on via the Hollywood newswire, but when I saw a Reuters story headlined “ABC in Talks for More Jim” that did in fact turn out to be a discussion about making MORE of the Jim Belushi sitcom, According to Jim, I was indeed baffled.

In last night’s overnights According to Jim averaged 4.63 million and a 1.4/3 in the 18-49 demo (where it tied with the CW’s One Tree Hill).  I’ll grant that it’s up against American Idol, but these are really lousy numbers for a broadcast network.  For the hour Big Brother averaged more than 2 million more viewers than Jim and a 2.6/6 in the demo. It’s not an apples to apples comparison because Jim went head-to-head against American Idol for all 30 minutes while Big Brother suffered that fate only from 9p-9:30p.  Still, the numbers for Jim stink.  I don’t understand what ABC is thinking. 

I get that it’s tough to compete with American Idol, but if NCIS can pull 11 million plus viewers with a rerun and The Biggest Loser can average over 8 million from 8p-10p, shouldn’t the Mouse be thinking about doing…something else?  If “hey, it beat the snot out of Quarterlife” is how programming decisions are going to be made…I want in on that!

Hopefully it’s some kind of fake news story that got circulated to the mainstream media I don’t think it’s even necessary for Bill to do a Renew or Cancel on According to Jim, but it looks like the wonks at ABC don’t care what we think (which is to their credit, no doubt).

The article attibutes Jim’s cash production in syndication as the reason for considering it, but what’s the opportunity cost of airing something that attracts less than 5 million viewers if you could find something that attracts 8 million?

13 million Spin Wheel of Fortune

Read the full story

621,000 Delay the Gratification of Watching Oprah

Read the full story