Last night wound up being a live TV night. I watched the end of the run of the New Orleans Hornets. They’ll never admit it publicly, but I’m sure David Stern and the NBA execs are praying that the Lakers beat the Spurs in the conference finals. While sentimentalists who are as old as me are rooting for the Celtics from the east, I’m not sure it matters ratings-wise much who gets in from the eastern conference as long as the Lakers make it in the west. Boston or Detroit, if they’re facing off against San Antonio, it’s a ratings disaster. The Celtics aren’t quite like the Red Sox when it comes to having a nation!
Speaking of the Red Sox, the most heartwarming thing to cross my TV screen yesterday was seeing Boston southpaw Jon Lester throw a no-no. To come back from cancer and throw a no-hitter all by the tender age of 24 is a really uplifting story. Wow. Then I watched last week’s part one of the two part House season finale and decided to watch part II as it aired at 9pm. I had about 15 minutes in between so I caught Jason Taylor doing his thing on Dancing with the Stars. The man can definitely dance a little bit.
Then, I swear I’m not making this up – I was channel surfing and landed on the last 10 minutes of the Gossip Girl season finale. Seems the ending was one of those deals where although every single romantic relationship anyone was involved in had already gone or was in the process of going south, everyone was still optimistic heading into their summer vacations. Much more of a happy ending then House wound up being.
No spoilers and it’s not like I ever head into a House season finale thinking there’s going to be a happy ending, but this one was particularly harsh. A great two episodes though, including Cuddy dressed up as a stripper and doing a dance for House (only in his sub conscious, but somewhat surprisingly to me, she totally pulled it off!).
CBS wound up winning the last Monday night of May Sweeps both in total viewers and the 18-49 demo. FOX was second in the 18-49 demo and third overall and ABC was the reverse.. I removed the leaderboard table. I got the original numbers directly via Marc Berman’s site, but his numbers for the totals are wrong. I have FOX coming in first in total viewers and in the 18-49 demo.
It turns out I caught parts of the most-viewed show (Dancing with the Stars) the highest rated 18-49 show (House) and the best Gossip Girl ratings in a good long while, and its best performance on a Monday night. CBS scored with its comedies and CSI: Miami, though the The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother both underperformed in their season finales. Mother will surely be looking to make Britney Spears a regular next year.
Monday Night’s Details:
| Time | Network | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | ABC | Dancing With The Stars | 18.84 | 4.3/12 |
| CBS | Big Bang Theory | 7.36 | 2.7/8 | |
| NBC | American Gladiators (8:p-9:30) | 4 | 1.6/4 | |
| FOX | Bones | 10.15 | 3.3/10 | |
| CW | Gossip Girl | 2.97 | 1.4/4 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | How I Met Your Mother | 7.92 | 3.2/9 |
| 9:00 | CBS | Two and a Half Men | 14.81 | 4.8/12 |
| CW | One Tree Hill | 3.15 | 1.5/4 | |
| FOX | House | 16.16 | 5.7/14 | |
| ABC | The Bachelorette | 9.69 | 3.1/8 | |
| 9:30 | CBS | Rules of Engagement | 12.25 | 4.3/10 |
| NBC | Dateline | 4.57 | 1.6/4 | |
| 10:00 | ABC | The Bachelorette | 7.84 | 3.0/8 |
| NBC | Dateline | 4.92 | 1.8/5 | |
| CBS | CSI: Miami | 16.07 | 4.4/12 |
Nielsen Ratings Source: Nielsen Media Research. Full night’s results available via Marc Berman/Mediaweek.
| Paid Advertisement |
|---|
| Looking to purchase a new DVD player or one of the many new LCD TVs available? Check out this online shopping site and browse all of our electronics and televisions today! |
You can give How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory a pass last night. They had no chance of competting with DWTS and Bones finales garnering over 30 million viewers. Neither one of them even had a chance to compete. There were simply no viewers left after the other two took a whopping 30 million viewers.
The 9:00 CBS sitcoms did well, because no DWTS and no Samantha Who in the time slot.
Summer vacations is not a substitute!
With the competition, HIMYM will do even better with DVR viewers (and they already do great).
HOUSE = GOD
This is how Zap2It.com lists the networks for the night (according to HH; top three has viewer totals)
-FOX 8.1/12 (led with viewers 13.16 million)
-CBS 7.8/12 (second with viewers 12.42 million)
-ABC 8.2/13 (third with viewers 12.16 million)
-NBC 3.3/5
-CW 2.1/3
Demo wise:
-Fox 4.5
-CBS 4.0
-ABC 3.4
-NBC 1.8
-CW 1.5
variety wrote that dancing will end up with 19.4 million and a 4.4. the numbers compared to last year are fairly even… and probably higher when dvr comes in… but the demo is much lower. 5.1 last year to 4.4 this year. again… dvr might add a little but they seem to be losing some of the younger audience. they need to have a 30 and under season. that would be fun and bring in some younger viewers.
what about one tree hill? it was a great finale!
hope gossip girl ratings pick up next season