| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 10.50 | 5.88 | 5.07 | 4.10 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 4.1/13 | 1.2/4 | 1.8/6 | 1.1/3 |
Even if it’s a blowout, a marquee NCAA football match-up can pull decent ratings on a Saturday night. ABC won the night with the 35-3 beat down that number one USC put on number five Ohio State. Ohio State won’t be number five for long. I’m not really a huge USC fan, but the Buckeyes at Ohio State make such a fantastical deal out of referring to itself as THE Ohio State University that I never, ever mind seeing it get crushed like the little Big Ten bug it is.
It wasn’t really that fun of a game to watch after the first quarter though, so if the numbers hold up — 10.5 million viewers and 4.1/13 (rating/share) among 18-49 year olds, those are most respectable numbers given how lopsided the game was even before halftime. Keep in mind the numbers are likely to change because of the way fast affiliate rankings measure live events.
Outside of football, Chuck may be #1 in our site’s fan’s hearts, but a repeat was last in the ratings at 8pm. CBS finished second to ABC in overall viewers with a repeat of NCIS and two installments of 48 Hours Mystery. Fox’s time-honored combo of Cops and America’s Most Wanted scored a distant second place among 18-49 year olds. NBC was last on all counts for the night.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | ABC | USC vs. Ohio State NCAA Football 8p-11p | 10.50 | 4.1/13 |
| CBS | NCIS (R ) | 6.08 | 1.4/4 | |
| FOX | Cops | 4.77 | 1.8/6 | |
| NBC | Chuck (R) | 2.53 | 0.8/3 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | 48 Hours Mystery | 5.39 | 1.1/3 |
| FOX | America’s Most Wanted | 5.36 | 1.9/6 | |
| NBC | Law & Order: CI (two repeats 9p-11p) | 4.89 | 1.2/4 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | 48 Hours Mystery | 6.16 | 1.4/4 |
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.
Everyone wins when Oh How I Hate loses.
Are you suggesting that the blowout is what kept people tuned in?
If I watched any games on TV yesterday, that would be the only reason I would watch this one. Take a bit of the edge off of ND beating Michigan.
Hi Mr Seidman, I had a question. When will the new DVR numbers arrive?
Tony, Bill posts the broadcast live plus seven day DVR numbers for the broadcast networks on Mondays (provided that they’re available from Nielsen), but this data lags behind signficantly as it takes Nielsen time to put together the DVR data. Nielsen is working on the lag, but what will be posted tomorrow will be the numbers for the week of August 26-31. Numbers for September 8-14 will not be available until two weeks from tomorrow.
Julia — ah, “Big Blue” fan. I can see where seeing Ohio St. get smacked down would take a little of the edge off of the seven fumbles…
Thanks for the info!
I have to say I find it hilarious that Google has placed an ad for Ohio State ringtones next to this story about the Buckeyes getting their asses blown out of the Coliseum before a nationwide audience!
Yep, you can’t beat the precise targeting of the Google!
Great post on what constitutes a hit, by the way.
Haha, I’m with you Mikey. Google, while extremely valuable to us on the search engine traffic side is not so valuable on the advertising/publishing side. We can’t, for example, track how many people clicked the Ohio State ringtone ad to console themselves. So for all we know, despite the irony, it may have been one of the most-clicked ads yesterday.
Thanks for the kind words re: the “hit show” post.
What do you think the odds are that Chuck is going to regain its audience when it returns to Mon nights in a couple of weeks? It is on against stiff competition. I personally think it is going to be the odd man out.
Mike, hard to say. DWTS is the biggest competition but it’s more likely Chuck is really competing for viewers with TSCC and the CBS comedies, and of course, Gossip Girl
It will be interesting to see the numbers and the DVR numbers for all these shows.
Great numbers for ABC here. As for Chuck on Mondays, I think it has a tough time ahead of it. I’m more interested in 24 however and what kind of number it can expect to pull in after such a long time off the air. I’m a big fan of the show, but given the length of time it’s been off air, I kind of forgot about it until I picked up season 5 on DVD Saturday. Does anyone have any thoughts on how strong 24 will perform on it’s return?
How did Mad TV and Talkshow with Spike Frester do?
Unfortunately the only data we get for overnight reporting is for shows airing during primetime. These Fox shows air after primetime, so we don’t see them. It’s possible that we might see some discussion of either or both if NBC puts out a press release about Saturday Night Live which discusses the competition. If they do, we’ll post it… It’s also possible that since it was the premiere of Talk Show with Spike Feresten that Fox itself would issue some kind of release, but as of this writing I haven’t seen any numbers floating around.
Coco Chanel got 5.2 million viewers from 8 to 11 pm on Lifetime
Thanks Andrea — I just posted the press release (has some more data on demos and encores) here:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/09/15/lifetimes-coco-chanel-sews-up-52-million-viewers/5115