| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 13.976 | 7.011 | 6.700 | 5.131 | 2.548 | 1.604 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 5.5/14 | 3.3/9 | 1.7/4 | 1.4/4 | 1.0/3 | 0.7/2 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 5.2/15 | 3.3/10 | 1.1/3 | 0.9/3 | 1.1/3 | 0.8/2 |
NBC is counting on Sunday Night Football to carry it through the Fall season, and last night it did just that helping NBC average a prime-time winning 13.98 million viewers, an adults 18-49 5.5 rating/ 14 share and an adults 18-34 5.2 rating / 15 share. We have only hourly numbers at this point for the game itself, which ranged from 15.24 to 17.70 million compared to the final Live+SD number from last season’s first regular season game of 18.2 million (but note, these fast affiliate overnight ratings are quite wonky, see below, for live events). It easily won every one of its hours.
Fox used a little NFL magic of its own to finish second with 7.01 million viewers, an 18-49 of 3.3/9 and an 18-34 of 3.3/10. Its NFL Football overrun plus The OT was just behind NBC in viewers from 7-8pm (9.39 million vs. 9.67), but way ahead in the demo ratings (18-49 of 4.2 vs 2.7 and 18-34 of 3.9 vs. 2.6).
The premiere of Fox’s Japanese-ish reality Hole in the Wall held The OT’s viewers and built its demo ratings nicely finishing with 7.04 million viewers an 18-49 3.5 rating and an 18-34 3.6 rating. That’s a great first outing and all eyes will be on next weeks results.
CBS’s Big Brother was up noticeably from last Sunday with 7.62 million viewers. CBS’s 60 Minutes likely benefited from a little football holdover with 9.67 million viewers. ABC’s America United: In Support of Our Troops finished well back in both of its hours.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/ Share | 18-34 Rating/ Share |
| 7:00 | FOX | NFL Football | 11.751 | 5.2/17 | 4.7/17 |
| CBS | 60 Minutes | 9.669 | 1.7/5 | 0.8/3 | |
| NBC | Football Night In America | 7.262 | 2.7/8 | 2.6/9 | |
| ABC | America’s Funniest Home Videos (repeat) | 5.841 | 1.5/5 | 1.0/3 | |
| UNI | Hora Pico | 1.805 | 0.7/2 | 0.7/2 | |
| CW | One Tree Hill (repeat) | 1.272 | 0.6/2 | 0.8/3 | |
| 7:30 | FOX | The OT | 7.036 | 3.2/10 | 3.0/10 |
| UNI | Familia P. Luche | 1.910 | 0.7/2 | 0.8/3 | |
| 8:00 | NBC | Sunday Night Football (Bears/Colts) | 15.242 | 5.9/15 | 5.6/16 |
| CBS | Big Brother 10 | 7.624 | 2.7/7 | 2.0/8 | |
| FOX | Hole In The Wall | 7.040 | 3.5/9 | 3.6/11 | |
| ABC | Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (repeat) | 5.909 | 1.6/4 | 1.0/3 | |
| UNI | Show de Los Suenos: Sangre de Mi Sangre | 2.508 | 1.0/3 | 1.1/3 | |
| CW | America’s Top Model (repeat) | 1.560 | 0.6/2 | 0.6/2 | |
| 8:30 | FOX | Simpsons (repeat) | 5.260 | 2.4/6 | 2.5/7 |
| 9:00 | NBC | Sunday Night Football (Bears/Colts) | 17.703 | 7.1/16 | 6.5/17 |
| FOX | Family Guy x2 (repeat) | 5.490 | 2.6/6 | 2.8/7 | |
| ABC | America United: In Support of Our Troops (9-11p) | 4.958 | 1.4/3 | 1.0/2 | |
| CBS | US Open Tennis (Eastern/Central) Cold Case (repeat) | 4.799 | 1.3/3 | 0.8/2 | |
| UNI | Show de Los Suenos: Sangre de Mi Sangre | 2.781 | 1.1/3 | 1.1/3 | |
| CW | America’s Top Model (repeat) | 1.962 | 0.9/2 | 0.9/2 | |
| 10:00 | NBC | Sunday Night Football (Bears/Colts) | 15.697 | 6.5/16 | 6.1/16 |
| CBS | US Open Tennis (Eastern/Central) Without a Trace (repeat) | 4.710 | 1.3/3 | 0.9/2 | |
| ABC | America United: In Support of Our Troops (9-11p) | 3.817 | 1.1/3 | 0.8/2 | |
| UNI | Show de Los Suenos: Sangre de Mi Sangre | 3.045 | 1.3/3 | 1.4/3 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. Source Marc Berman/Mediaweek.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Overnight Ratings: 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. While routinely used for “next day” immediate analysis, these fast affiliate ratings are by process inaccurate for programs that air live across a network since they represent affiliate time period performance. For example, last night’s 10-11pm affiliate #’s would reflect 10pm on the East Coast but also 10pm on the West Coast which for a live event would not represent the same broadcast or portion of the broadcast.
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.
The average of the three hours is on par with the early numbers for last year’s opening game, so I’d say that’s quite great for NBC, especially after the low Thursday number.
Also, if that Demo number holds up for Hole in the Wall, it’ll make the Top 3 for the Demo for the whole week, behind only the two Football games. That’s a very good start. Now, to see if it can hold up on Thursdays…
Indeed impressive numbers for “Hole” CBS definitely promoted Big Brother a lot during the NFL games, and it seems to have worked. The VMA awards were on MTV last night,too, it will be interesting to see if anyone watched.
The actual game did not start until closer to 8:30. I, for one, was watching “Hole” before the game started.
doesn’t hole look like it belongs on cable?
None of the reporting I’ve seen mentions US Open on CBS at 9pm because of rainout Saturday. Doesn’t anyone reporting actually WATCH tv?
Brian, we watch TV, but we don’t watch ALL TV. In most cases, we (and others) can only report what Nielsen provides. For some nights, the fast affiliate shows noted aren’t the ones that were actually broadcast because of last minute schedule changes. It all ends up getting sorted out prior to the final ratings which for each week ending Sunday are available on Tuesday afternoon.
However, I will edit in US Open Tennis for the Eastern/Central time zones above.
I did see at least 15 minutes of the US Open Women’s final, so perhaps I come closer to watching *ALL* TV, but pretty much excluding sporting events and sometimes Mad Men, I’m all DVR all the time without paying much attention to network schedules.
Bill is right, though it’s not possible to watch ALL TV, and we use the Nielsen data with its labeling constructs. But the thing is with the early metered market and then fast affiliate data, the numbers for live sporting events are pretty horked anyway. Serena Williams aired on both costs, but it didn’t happen in primetime on the west coast.
As Bill notes, this is all sorted out by the time of the final numbers arrive. And just to clarify, final numbers are usually available later the next day. However, we get the spreadsheets with the full week’s worth of final numbers for broadcast primetime on Tuesdays.
Do you guys think you’ll get any HBO numbers from last night?
Julia, it’s possible we’ll see “True Blood” and “Entourage” numbers via press release, less likely (though certainly possible) that we’ll see the numbers in the weekly top 40 cable show rankings.
I think Entourage averaged 2.5 million last year, but season and series premieres usually do better so there’s hope.
My guess is the numbers will show up somewhere unless they were horrid and I will write about them if/when I see them…
Bob, I think “Hole” is in the tradition of ABC and FOX “borrowing” each other’s content. This follows “Wife Swap” and “Nanny” show’s and probably back to “The Swan”/original “Extreme Makeover”. FOX also shared its Karaoke game show with NBC, but ABC and FOX seem to go at it often.
I just watched episode 1 of “Hole” at Fox.com. If it lasts, I’m going to predict high DVR rates. A 20 minute show has about 5 minutes of content, if that.
Sorry guys…maybe I was a little snippy. Big Tennis fan.
See Overnights for US Open above rated at 1.3. And see,in another article elsewhere,it averaged 4.3 overall overnight. Assume the reason for difference is the numbers above don’t include 11-11:30 time period and also West and Central time zone viewership?
Thanks.