As usual, American Idol took the top two spots on this list followed by Dancing with the Stars and CSI. CBS had the most shows on the list with 9, followed by ABC with 6, FOX with 4 and NBC with but one show, but at least they didn’t get shut out of the top 20 as they did last week.
This week where available I included the 18-49 ranking (I will still do a separate top 20 ranking as well). We only see the top 25 or so demographic shows on a weekly basis and of the top 20 most viewed shows overall, 18 of them ranked in the top 18-49 rankings. The only two shows on this list that didn’t make it were CBS’ 60 Minutes and the Country Music Awards. Hell’s Kitchen and LOST outperformed their overall rankings nicely when it came to the 18-49 demo.
It’s fairly easy to spot some of the reasons that even though CBS has the most shows on this list (and will rank first in total viewers), it will trail both FOX and ABC when it comes to the 18-49 demo.
More people watched House together than CBS’ Without a Trace. Note that Trace was on in more homes than House by 600,000 plus, yet House had almost 700,000 more total viewers.
Shows in the 18-49 top twenty that didn’t make this list: the Britney Spears fueled How I Met Your Mother (#17 in the 18-49 demo, #26 in total viewers), Bones (#19 in the 18-49 demo, 25th in total viewers), Rules of Engagement (#13 in the demo, #21 in total viewers), ER (#20 in the demo, #32 in total viewers) and The Office which was 11th in the 18-49 demo while being the #34 most viewed show overall.
Keep in mind that except where otherwise noted in our tables we rank by total viewers and not household rating.
Soon it will be the ugly summer season with lots of repeats. At least we still have the two hour season finale of LOST to look forward too on 5/29.
Nielsen Top Twenty Shows by viewers for the week ending 05/18/08:
| Rank | PROGRAMS | Net | HH RATING (LIVE+SD) | HH SHARE (LIVE+SD) | # OF HOMES (LIVE+SD) (000) | # Viewers (LIVE+SD) (000) | 18-49 Rank |
| 1 | AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY | FOX | 14.6 | 22 | 16,504 | 24,863 | 1 |
| 2 | AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY | FOX | 14.4 | 23 | 16,210 | 24,772 | 2 |
| 3 | DANCING WITH THE STARS | ABC | 11.9 | 18 | 13,470 | 18,469 | 10 |
| 4 | CSI | CBS | 11.2 | 17 | 12,676 | 18,063 | 9 |
| 5 | DANCING W/STARS RESULTS | ABC | 11.1 | 17 | 12,523 | 16,987 | 12 |
| 6 | DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES | ABC | 10.7 | 17 | 12,104 | 16,837 | 3 |
| 7 | GREY’S ANATOMY-THU 9PM | ABC | 10.5 | 16 | 11,799 | 15,546 | 4 |
| 8 | HOUSE-MON 9P | FOX | 9.1 | 13 | 10,222 | 15,022 | 5 |
| 9 | NCIS | CBS | 9.5 | 15 | 10,667 | 14,879 | 26 |
| 10 | WITHOUT A TRACE | CBS | 9.6 | 16 | 10,832 | 14,537 | 18 |
| 11 | CSI: MIAMI | CBS | 9.1 | 15 | 10,276 | 13,923 | 14 |
| 12 | TWO AND A HALF MEN | CBS | 8.5 | 13 | 9,569 | 13,824 | 7 |
| 13 | CRIMINAL MINDS | CBS | 8.3 | 13 | 9,371 | 12,876 | 24 |
| 14 | CSI: NY | CBS | 7.7 | 12 | 8,637 | 11,858 | 22 |
| 15 | ACM AWARDS(S) | CBS | 7.3 | 12 | 8,281 | 11,731 | |
| 16 | LAW AND ORDER:SVU | NBC | 7.6 | 13 | 8,617 | 11,496 | 16 |
| 17 | HELL’S KITCHEN | NBC | 6.5 | 10 | 7,310 | 11,308 | 6 |
| 18 | EXTREME MAKEOVER:HOME ED. | ABC | 7.0 | 12 | 7,886 | 11,217 | 15 |
| 19 | LOST | ABC | 6.9 | 12 | 7,776 | 10,962 | 8 |
| 20 | 60 MINUTES | CBS | 7.1 | 13 | 8,058 | 10,790 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved
