| Scoreboard for Thurs. June 5, 2008 |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 9.49 | 9.08 | 8.75 | 5.03 | 1.74 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 3.7/11 | 3.3/10 | 2.3/7 | 2.1/6 | 0.6/2 |
Bill Gorman and I make our fair share of small wagers, though usually they are far, far into the future. But I bet him lunch that the NBA Finals would average less than 15 million viewers per game. I saw the preliminary morning household ratings and thought uh-oh! But like always, they were wrong. Numbers for live sporting events always change but during the primetime portion (and yes I know, the fourth quarter probably was peak viewing) ABC for the whole night averaged under 10 million viewers (including Jimmy Kimmel and pre-game coverage).
A good game between storied rivals didn’t produce stellar ratings.
Bill acknowledges that to get big numbers the series will have to go six or seven games, but it’s now looking like this game did under 12 million viewers even once the last hour or so gets added back in. But the series could well go six or seven games. When I have final numbers I’ll post them. For now, as far as ABC goes the half hourly data for the whole night is posted below. Either way, ABC wound up with the most viewers and the best 18-49 year old performance, but Lakers vs. Celtics significantly underperformed last Thursday when ABC ran with three hours of LOST (a repeat and the two hour finale).
In other news, So You Think You Can Dance is still very solid, and Last Comic Standing is still getting little interest from viewers. At 10pm there was a battle of new shows with CBS’ Swingtown easily beating NBC’s Fear Itself. Swingtown averaged over three million more viewers than Fear Itself (8.58mm to 5.23mm) and outperformed it in the demo as well (2.8/8 vs. 2.0/6). I’d say that CBS is pretty happy while NBC is pretty disappointed. But NBC might be so used to this that it may in fact be happy that it averaged over a 2.0 in the 18-49 demo for the night.
We’ll post the numbers for the whole NBA Final (including the non primetime portion) as soon as we can. Update: they have been posted. (13.38 million viewers and an 8.7 household rating).
Thursday night’s details:
| Time | Network | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | CSI (R ) | 8.23 | 1.9/4 |
| FOX | So You Think You Can Dance 8p-10p | 9.08 | 3.3/10 | |
| NBC | Last Comic Standing 8:00p-10:00p | 4.94 | 2.1/6 | |
| CW | Smallville (R ) | 1.70 | 0.6/2 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | CSI (R ) | 9.43 | 2.3/7 |
| CW | Supernatural (R ) | 1.77 | 0.6/2 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Swingtown | 8.58 | 2.8/8 |
| NBC | Fear Itself | 5.23 | 2.0/6 | |
| Half-hourly data for ABC | ||||
| 8:00 | ABC | Jimmy Kimmel Live Special | 8.22 | 2.9/10 |
| 8:30 | ABC | NBA Pregame (?) | 8.94 | 3.4/11 |
| 9:00 | ABC | NBA Finals: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics | 9.19 | 3.6/11 |
| 9:30 | ABC | NBA Finals: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics | 10.00 | 3.9/11 |
| 10:00 | ABC | NBA Finals: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics | 10.26 | 4.1/12 |
| 10:30 | ABC | NBA Finals: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics | 10.35 | 4.3/13 |
Nielsen Ratings Source: Nielsen Media Research. Full night’s results available via Marc Berman/Mediaweek.
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I agree. Maybe last year was a sign, the leauge top guy and “replacement” to Jordan (Lebron James) made it in the Finals and the NBA set all time ratings low for that series. Heck this time around, with all the hype and Kobe (much closer to Jordan) is in and the numbers appear to be pretty average at best.
We need 4th quarter numbers
Excellent beginning for Swingtown, and kudos to CBS for not giving into the prudes (yes, the same people who would watch brutal serial murders or vampires drinking blood), and aired something a little different.
I myself enjoyed the pilot, although I did find it too tame.
excuse me for believing in the sanctity of marriage and keeping my wedding vows sacred. And the show that you refer to about Vampires drinking blood, even the main character in Moonlight was loyal to his significant other. Random sex is definitely something that I would want my children to see on television. (note the sarcasm)
Swingtown was horrendous. People are prudes if they dont think dug use, wife swapping and group sex is entertainment? Not eveyone wants to watch soft core porn on network TV. A show like that belongs on pay cable if anywhere. Because of this show I finally learned how to program my TVs parental controls to keep the kids from watching that garbage if they happen to stumble across it. I grew up in the 70s and dont recally my suburban neighborhood being populated by sex crazed perverts. 8.5 million viewers isnt that great either. Dramas usually have the most viewers for the pilot then go downhill from there. Hopefully Sleeze-town will die a quick death.
nielsen can only account for television viewers. but one has to take into account that in this day and age, their are other (sometimes more accessible) media for watching television shows. from what i remember there were 160,000+ people streaming with me in one justin tv room alone during that game.
If anything blame the NBA them selfs, starting this series on a thrusday night is dumb founding, They must of been trying to build hye for game 2 on sunday.
I did not get to catch Fear Itself last week, but I did watch it on line and it was very good I thought. I made sure my DVR was set to tape the rest of them. Also its hard the Advertise a new show on a network that does not get the viewers to see what new shows are coming out. So you kind of lose out. and to boot there were sexy looking girls on Fear Itself too.
swingtown is disgusting, everyone should boycott