CBS Closes Viewer, 25-54 Gaps; Too Little, Too Late

While CBS took the weekly win for both viewers and adults 25-54, Fox’s season to date lead in all categories is entirely secure. For CBS it’s just too little, too late. With the May sweeps period ending a week from today on May 21, the champagne is likely already on ice at Fox.

The only season to date battle that looks interesting at this point is second place for adults 18-49. ABC holds a margin of only 40,000 over CBS and beat the Eye by a good margin this week, but surge in the last weeks could put CBS into #2 for the season. We’ll see. The second place race for adults 18-34 would seem to be close between ABC and NBC, but with NBC fading badly down the stretch, there’s no way they make it interesting.

The chart below shows Season to Date TV ratings through the week of May 11, 2008 (33rd week of the broadcast season).

Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.