Monday House Continues to Move Up
American Idol continues to hold the top two spots in the season to date race for both adults 18-49 and total viewers. Continuing the recent trend though, both the Tuesday and Wednesday airings lost both season to date viewers and adults 18-49 compared to their averages last week.
Desperate Housewives yet again saw both its season to date averages slip a bit, but maintained the #3 spot for 18-49 and the #6 spot for total viewers.
Season To Date Top Primetime Shows though May 18, 2008
| Adults 18-49 STD Rank | Programs | Network | STD Adults 18-49 Live+SD (000) | STD Viewers Live+SD (000) | Viewers STD Rank | % of viewers between 18-49 |
| 1 | AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY | FOX | 14,009 | 27,685 | 1 | 50.6% |
| 2 | AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY | FOX | 13,282 | 26,323 | 2 | 50.5% |
| 3 | DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES | ABC | 8,468 | 17,270 | 6 | 49.0% |
| 4 | HOUSE -TUE | FOX | 8,405 | 16,208 | 8 | 51.9% |
| 5 | NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL | NBC | 8,291 | 15,862 | 10 | 52.3% |
| 6 | MOMENT OF TRUTH | FOX | 7,797 | 14,172 | 13 | 55.0% |
| 7 | GREY’S ANATOMY | ABC | 7,483 | 14,358 | 11 | 52.1% |
| 8 | HEROES | NBC | 6,958 | 11,575 | 60.1% | |
| 9 | DANCING W/THE STARS-MON | ABC | 6,922 | 21,150 | 3 | 32.7% |
| 10 | HELL’S KITCHEN | FOX | 6,748 | 11,273 | 59.9% | |
| 11 | LOST | ABC | 6,389 | 11,688 | 54.7% | |
| 12 | HOUSE-MON | FOX | 6,359 | 12,830 | 18 | 49.6% |
| 13 | DANCING W/STARS RESULT-TU | ABC | 6,200 | 19,163 | 5 | 32.4% |
| 14 | DANCING WITH THE STARS | ABC | 6,153 | 19,165 | 4 | 32.1% |
| 15 | SURVIVOR: CHINA | CBS | 6,083 | 14,280 | 12 | 42.6% |
| 16 | CSI | CBS | 5,917 | 16,036 | 9 | 36.9% |
| 17 | TWO AND A HALF MEN | CBS | 5,917 | 13,016 | 15 | 45.5% |
| 18 | EXTREME MAKEOVER:HOME ED. | ABC | 5,886 | 12,862 | 17 | 45.8% |
| 19 | THE OT | FOX | 5,727 | 10,788 | 53.1% | |
| 20 | SUNDAY NIGHT NFL PRE-KICK | NBC | 5,551 | 10,991 | 50.5% |
The Monday airings of House continued to move up the chart, from #15 to #12 for adults 18-49 and #18 for average viewers.
CSI and Two and A Half Men both moved past Extreme Makeover:Home Edition into the #16 & #17 spots for adults 18-49 respectively.
Our chart shows the top 20 shows ranked on a season to date (STD) basis for adults 18-49 as well as those shows season to date average viewership numbers and rank.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
does this include reruns or only new episodes?
Tom, sadly there is no easy answer to your question. In the case of reality shows and sports, definitely not. In the case of other shows, sometimes and sometimes not. It gets down to whether the networks marked the airing as “special”. When they are designated “special” (as every repeat of Grey's Anatomy that ran on a Friday was marked, for example, but not every repeat on a Thursday) Nielsen does not count the data in the seasonal averages for the shows.
I'm 100% sure that some reruns of Grey's and CSI, for example, are in the numbers above. Which ones and when would be a tremendous amount of work for us to track, so we don't and just report what Nielsen reports
Based soley on “new episodes” CSI is only behind American Idol and Dancing with the Stars in total viewers. The “Show Data” info on the right side of the website shows it's new episode average viewership is ahead of Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy in total viewers average.