Update: the full data with viewer and age demographics is now available here.
The early ratings results via the metered markets probably won’t be much different relatively from the fast affiliate numbers that come later – both will be skewed and different from the final numbers. CBS had about a 45 minute overrun with football which will make even the fast affiliate numbers a bit off from the final numbers.
NBC dominated the night with the Sunday Night Football matchup where the Pittsburgh Steelers downed the Browns of Cleveland in a low-scoring affair 10-6. The game netted a 10.5/17 (household rating/share) in the early metered market numbers from 8p-11p, and NBC had an 8.5/14 for the night between 7p-11p. CBS was seconds with the NFL overrun, 60 Minutes, a Big Brother clip show and repeats of Cold Case and CSI Miami.
ABC was third with a lineup entirely made up of repeats and Fox was fourth with repeats of The Simpsons and an encore of the premiere of Fringe — if the numbers hold up, Fringe had a respectable (for a repeat) 4.1/6 between 8p-10p. I’m not sure if last night’s Fringe had more commercials than the “remote free” premiere. Berman has it listed as airing from 8pm-10pm, but even with the draw of tacking on the first four minutes of the next episode as a teaser, on Tuesday the Fringe aired for only one hour and thirty-five minutes. Either way, Fringe looks to have picked up a few more viewers, but regardless the real test will be how it performs with House as its lead-in. Update: Fringe still did run with limited commercials, but there were some “extras” last night besides just the first act of the second episode. See comments below.
CW ran with repeats, and Berman notes that if Privileged fails on Tuesdays, it might work on Sundays. The only problem with that is that CW sold off the airtime for Sunday nights to Media Rights Capital who will program the Sunday night lineup for the CW starting Sunday, October 5.
Robert, here in Philadelphia last night the CW aired a MLB game(Phillies vs. Brewers), everyone I know had it on. Does that affect the ratings? It was a last minute thing to air the game, the guide had the repeats scheduled.
I believe FOX had a football overrun, which may account for the difference in time for Fringe. My friend watched the encore, and I think it was with limited commercial interruption.
Johnny, it does affect the final ratings — but not the overnight ratings which measure how many people were watching the affiliate station regardless of what the content was. Hope that makes sense. Fun time to be a Phillies fan…
Fringe ran two hours because it also included showing a preview of the movie “The Day The Earth Stood Still” to open the time block plus previewing the first act of the second episode and a trailer for “24″’s November preview.
Julia & Ann…thanks.
The hollywood reporter says Fringe had 5.9 million viewers.
Paul, hmmm I show it having 5.9 million in its BEST half hour (9p-9:30). I have it averaging 5.6985 million between 8p-10p, but that’s still not bad for a repeat. Of course we can’t meausre how many people watched it both Tuesday *and* Sunday. *Moreover* it had pretty respectable numbers among 18-49 year olds, even in repeats it outperformed everything besides Sunday Night Football and Big Brother in the demo (though a repeat of Extreme Makeover tied it in the demo at 8pm). And the Fringe repeat was behind only NFL (and Big Brother in the 8pm hour) among 18-34 year olds.
I’m pretty sure either way that this Tuesday it will perform better than it did in its premiere…