Non-scripted Dominates Top 20 for the week ending March 2, 2008
FOX’s American Idol continues its dominance with all three weekly airings landing in the top three. CBS placed FOX placed seven shows in the top 20, FOX placed six shows, ABC had five and NBC had a paltry two.
Only eight of the top 20 shows were scripted, led by ABC’s LOST. That was one of my all time favorite episodes. Three scripted comedies made the list, a rerun of CBS’ Two and a Half Men and two installments of FOX’s Back to You which aired following AI on consecutive nights.
Is Oprah’s Big Give a big deal? To ABC it is – it was the fourth most watched program of the week, trailing only AI, but the best Idol had 28.6 million and Oprah had 15.7 million viewers. If you add up all three American Idol’s that’s like 82.4 million to 15.7 million.
Oprah is amazing. But she’s not AI amazing – don’t sweat it, we’re pretty sure Oprah is making lots more than Paula, though when I look at the ratings I think Paula probably deserves a raise (Simon and Randy too!). I’m guessing they get them, too.
Not on this list, TVbytheNumbers fan favorites Jericho (49th), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (46th) and Big Brother 9 (52nd in the best of the 3 airings). Indeed Jericho had only a scant 4,000 more viewers than Dexter (50th), not a great sign 
The Price is Right Primetime made the list at #20, and ABC newcomer, Here Come the Newlyweds was 19th
Top 20 Shows by viewers for the week ending 03/02/08:
| Rank | PROGRAMS | Net | HH RATING (LIVE+SD) | HH SHARE (LIVE+SD) | # OF PERSONS 2+ (LIVE+SD) (000) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY | FOX | 16.0 | 24 | 28,592 |
| 2 | AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY | FOX | 15.7 | 24 | 27,553 |
| 3 | AMERICAN IDOL THU SP-2/28(S) | FOX | 14.9 | 23 | 26,232 |
| 4 | OPRAH'S BIG GIVE | ABC | 9.5 | 15 | 15,680 |
| 5 | DEAL OR NO DEAL-MON | NBC | 9.2 | 14 | 15,425 |
| 6 | EXTREME MAKEOVER:HOME ED. | ABC | 8.4 | 13 | 14,874 |
| 7 | DON'T FORGET THE LYRICS | FOX | 8.4 | 13 | 14,395 |
| 8 | LOST | ABC | 7.7 | 12 | 12,893 |
| 9 | ABC PREMIERE EVENT-2/25(S) | ABC | 8.6 | 13 | 12,688 |
| 10 | SURVIVOR: MICRONESIA | CBS | 7.4 | 12 | 12,529 |
| 11 | 60 MINUTES | CBS | 8.1 | 13 | 12,336 |
| 12 | TWO AND A HALF MEN (R ) | CBS | 7.6 | 12 | 12,199 |
| 13 | BACK TO YOU SP-2/26 9:30P(S) | FOX | 7.4 | 11 | 12,154 |
| 14 | BACK TO YOU SP-2/27 9:30P(S) | FOX | 7.2 | 11 | 11,677 |
| 15 | CSI (R ) | CBS | 7.5 | 12 | 11,554 |
| 16 | LAW AND ORDER | NBC | 7.7 | 13 | 11,437 |
| 17 | NCIS (R ) | CBS | 7.3 | 11 | 11,082 |
| 18 | WITHOUT A TRACE (R ) | CBS | 7.0 | 12 | 10,453 |
| 19 | HERE COME THE NEWLYWEDS | ABC | 6.4 | 11 | 10,092 |
| 20 | PRICE IS RIGHT PRIMETIME | CBS | 6.2 | 11 | 9,492 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
CBS should stop jerking The Unit fans around and sell that good drama show to another major network who would appreciate the show seeing as “Big Brother” is doing so–o well in it's time slot, ranking 52nd. Les needs a swift kick in the pants for ignoring The Unit and airing trash before class.
CBS should stop jerking The Unit fans around and sell that good drama show to another major network who would appreciate the show seeing as “Big Brother” is doing so–o well in it’s time slot, ranking 52nd. Les needs a swift kick in the pants for ignoring The Unit and airing trash before class.
You can't add up the AI veiwers for 82.4 million. That's a fake number. Common sense tells us that the same veiwers are tuning in to see results and such.
Of course try telling your advertisers that and see if your revenue increases.
Great point Laura — I know probably only 30 million unique Idol viewers exist in a given week. It might be a little more than that, but nowhere near 82 million!
I think the advertisers know that too, but are in the game of buying up viewers (more accurately HH ratings ponts), so the crazy math winds up being more or less in play anyway.
Common sense isn't very common?
You can’t add up the AI veiwers for 82.4 million. That’s a fake number. Common sense tells us that the same veiwers are tuning in to see results and such.
Of course try telling your advertisers that and see if your revenue increases.
Great point Laura — I know probably only 30 million unique Idol viewers exist in a given week. It might be a little more than that, but nowhere near 82 million!
I think the advertisers know that too, but are in the game of buying up viewers (more accurately HH ratings ponts), so the crazy math winds up being more or less in play anyway.
Common sense isn’t very common?