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Nielsen Ratings Thursday July 31: Big Brother Likes Thursdays, Flashpoint a Hit…With Older People

Posted on 01 August 2008 by Robert Seidman

Scoreboard CBS FOX NBC ABC CW
Total Viewers (million) 7.34 7.15 4.63 4.29 1.63
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 2.0/6 2.3/7 1.7/6 1.3/4 0.6/2

Another night of mixed leadership where CBS was the most-watched broadcast network while FOX’s combination of Don’t Forget the Lyrics and So You Think You Can Dance took the 18-49 year old demographic.

I’m not as sold as some of my number crunching brethren on Flashpoint. The good news: in its second Thursday airing it increased (compared to last week’s overnight report) the number of viewers from its first Thursday airing by 1.1 million or ~16%. The bad news, it didn’t increase its 18-49 demo rating much. From a 1.7/5 to a 1.8/6.

Big Brother 10 had the highest demo performance of the night for CBS with a 2.3/8 (rating/share). As predicted by one of our commenters (TVaholic) the bump for Big Brother by swapping with Greatest American Dog and moving to Thursdays was good news for CBS. Brother, had averaged a 2.0 in the demo on Wednesdays so that’s a nice increase (15% above average).

I’m not quite sold on Flashpoint yet ratings-wise. Sure, it won its time slot, both in total viewers and the demo, and sure it was up more than a million viewers total, but does CBS really need another show that fares well with older people and not so well in the demo?

I mean think about it, we can call NBC’s Last Comic Standing tired and old — because it is. But with 2.64 million fewer viewers between 8p-10p than Flashpoint had at 10pm, LCS had a 1.9/7 in the demo. So with about 35% fewer total viewers, LCS was better in the 18-49 demo than Flashpoint.

Full details:

Time Net Show Viewers (Millons) 18-49 Rating/Share
8:00 CBS Big Brother 10 6.45 2.3/8
NBC Last Comic Standing (8p-10p) 5.00 1.9/7
ABC Ugly Betty (R) 3.75 1.1/4
CW Smallville (R) 1.71 0.7/2
FOX Don’t Forget the Lyrics 5.85 1.7/6
9:00 CBS CSI (R) 7.94 1.8/5
ABC Grey’s Anatomy (R) 3.59 1.2/4
CW Supernatural (R) 1.55 0.6/2
FOX So You Think You Can Dance 8.46 2.8/9
10:00 ABC Hopkins 5.53 1.7/5
CBS Flashpoint 7.64 1.8/6
NBC Fear Itself 3.87 1.3/4

Nielsen Ratings Source: Nielsen Media Research. Source Marc Berman/Mediaweek.

Definitions:

Overnights: Local metered-market ratings service of Nielsen Station Index (NSI) in which household ratings and shares are provided to clients the morning following the day or evening of telecast.

Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.

Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)

LIVE+SD: The number that watched a program either while it was broadcast OR watched via DVR on the same day [through 3AM the next day] the program was broadcast.

For more information see Numbers 101.

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2 Responses to “Nielsen Ratings Thursday July 31: Big Brother Likes Thursdays, Flashpoint a Hit…With Older People”

  1. TVaholic says:

    Flshpoint may be a “Hit With older People”, but dont over look that it was tied for the 3rd highest Demo rating for the night, and won its time period in both Viewers & Demo.

  2. TVa, fourth highest, not third and on the broadcast networks, but the *only* first run, scripted program of the four. I don't know if I view that as a positive. I don't see it as negative either. I see it as neutral. Neither particularly good or particularly bad. From a ratings perspective I'm not high on shows like that. I'd also be very curious to see Burn Notice's demo which unfortunately, I will not likely see.


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