Both the regular edition of Sunday Night Football and a special Thursday edition led NBC to the top two spots in the weekly viewing.
Please note the following: the Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick (#3) was only 9 minutes in duration and the FOX NFL Sunday Post-gun (#4) was only listed as a duration of four minutes.
NBC place 9 shows including all the football, Deal of No Deal, America’s Got Talent, America’s Toughest Jobs and Republican Convention coverage. Fox was next with six, followed by CBS with five. ABC had no shows in this week’s top 20 and even without the two very short duration football coverage listed above, ABC still wouldn’t have made it – the other two airings of CBS’ Big Brother would’ve slipped in. ABC’s best effort was on Friday with 20/20, which ranked 18th by household rating but only managed 6.75 million viewers.
Also of note, Fox did well in total viewers (for a Friday, anyway) with Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, but the show was not among the top 29 shows among 18-49 year olds (we only saw 29 shows worth of 18-49 data this week). Quite the reverse for Fox was the special preview of Hole in the Wall, which was 19th overall, but seventh among 18-49 year olds. The return of Bones also pulled solid numbers for Fox.
And though it’s not on this list, CW managed a feat I don’t think I’ve ever seen — and if I have it couldn’t have been more than a few times – it made a top twenty list! The series premiere of 90210 was seventeenth among 18-49 year olds.
Nielsen Top Twenty Shows by viewers for the week ending 09/07/08:
| Rank | Shows | Net | # Viewers (LIVE+SD) (000) | HH RATING (LIVE+SD) | HH SHARE (LIVE+SD) | # OF HOMES (LIVE+SD) (000) | 18-49 Rank |
| 1 | NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL | NBC | 18,351 | 11.2 | 18 | 12,842 | 1 |
| 2 | NBC NFL THURSDAY SPECIAL(S) | NBC | 13,531 | 8.6 | 15 | 9,882 | 3 |
| 3 | SUNDAY NIGHT NFL PRE-KICK | NBC | 13,337 | 8.1 | 14 | 9,273 | 4 |
| 4 | FOX NFL SUNDAY-PST GN-NAT | FOX | 12,907 | 8.1 | 15 | 9,317 | 2 |
| 5 | DEAL OR NO DEAL-MON | NBC | 10,964 | 6.8 | 11 | 7,778 | 16 |
| 6 | AMERICA’S GOT TALENT | NBC | 10,772 | 6.6 | 10 | 7,602 | 10 |
| 7 | AMERICA’S GOT TALENT-WED | NBC | 10,249 | 6.3 | 10 | 7,238 | 12 |
| 8 | 60 MINUTES (R) | CBS | 10,075 | 6.6 | 12 | 7,596 | |
| 9 | FOOTBALL NT AMERICA PT 3 | NBC | 10,026 | 6.2 | 11 | 7,077 | 6 |
| 10 | BONES | FOX | 9,739 | 6.0 | 9 | 6,877 | 9 |
| 11 | OT, THE | FOX | 8,991 | 5.8 | 10 | 6,615 | 5 |
| 12 | DECISION ‘08 REP CONV THU(S) | NBC | 8,663 | 5.5 | 9 | 6,341 | 8 |
| 13 | SMARTER THAN 5TH 9/5-9P(S) | FOX | 8,566 | 5.2 | 9 | 5,917 | |
| 14 | NCIS (R) | CBS | 8,168 | 5.4 | 9 | 6,188 | |
| 15 | TWO AND A HALF MEN-SPC(S) | CBS | 7,834 | 5.1 | 8 | 5,862 | 22 |
| 16 | HOUSE (R) | FOX | 7,753 | 4.9 | 8 | 5,659 | 11 |
| 17 | CSI (R) | CBS | 7,267 | 4.9 | 8 | 5,646 | |
| 18 | BIG BROTHER 10-SUN | CBS | 7,202 | 4.4 | 7 | 5,044 | 15 |
| 19 | HOLE IN WALL PVW1 9/7(S) | FOX | 7,154 | 4.1 | 7 | 4,650 | 7 |
| 20 | AMERICA’S TOUGHEST JOBS | NBC | 7,139 | 4.2 | 7 | 4,796 | 21 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
All numbers above based on live plus same day DVR viewing.
