Two Monday Night Football matchups to kickoff the season last week (9/8) led ESPN to the top two spots. The Minnesota Vikings vs. Green Bay Packers game took top honors with 12.50 million viewers leading the Denver Broncos vs. Oakland Raiders game with 9.67 million viewers by a comfortable margin. TNT’s The Closer, with 7.44 million viewers was the highest rated scripted show on cable last week. The Lifetime original movie, Coco Chanel took the fourth spot with 5.226 million viewers.
A commemoration of September 11, 2001, 102 Minutes That Changed America led History channel to the fifth spot with 5.153 million viewers. Monk and Burn Notice both made the top 10 for USA Network and Psych with over 4 million viewers was #19.
Raising the Bar fell far from its premiere, but still managed almost 5 million viewers and seventh place for the week.
Interviews with Barack Obama and afterglow proved very strong for Fox News Channel and The O’Reilly Factor, with O’Reilly taking the 10, 14, 15, and 17 spots. Almost SpongBob-esque. Speaking of which, SpongeBob’s best showing was at #16 and the yellow and porous one also grabbed the #20 spot. The “mid-season” finale of The Secret Life of an American Teenager took the eleventh spot on the list with 4.5 million viewers.
Not in the top twenty but among the data we received (Nielsen limits us to lists of 20) were nine more airings of SpongeBob, Bravo’s Project Runway (#22, 3.864 million), three airings of House on USA, Back at the Barnyard on Nick (#29, 3.396 million), four airings of FNC’s Hannity & Colmes, and a special on FNC called The Cost of Freedom with 3.216 million viewers. MTV’s The Hill’s was #40 with 2.969 million viewers on Monday 9/8.
I know that many of you are interested in other shows like Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy – I haven’t seen any numbers yet but will post them here if/when I do, so check back later…
Update 1: My sources tell me this past Sunday’s episode of Mad Men, episode eight out of thirteen for season two was on in 1.4 million homes and watched by almost 1.9 million (1.870) viewers based on preliminary overnight data. That’s pretty strong after some early season drop offs.
Update 2: The second installment of HBO’s True Blood on Sunday night drew 1.8 million, up almost 25% from its premiere the previous week. Also, looks like HBO made the right call with cancelling Inside the NFL. Its debut on Showtime last Wednesday drew but 171,000 in its initial airing.
Full Top 20 Cable Results for the week ending 09/14/2008:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY(S) | Live+SD HH Rating | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L (VIKINGS/PACKERS) | ESPN | MONDAY | 7.9 | 12,501 |
| 2 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L (BRONCOS/RAIDERS) | ESPN | MONDAY | 6.2 | 9,665 |
| 3 | CLOSER, THE | TNT | MONDAY | 4.9 | 7,440 |
| 4 | SATURDAY MOVIE III (COCO CHANEL) | LIF | SATURDAY | 3.8 | 5,226 |
| 5 | 102 MINUTES THAT CHANGED AMERICA | HIST | THURSDAY | 3.3 | 5,153 |
| 6 | MONK | USA | FRIDAY | 3.1 | 5,020 |
| 7 | RAISING THE BAR | TNT | MONDAY | 3.5 | 4,978 |
| 8 | BURN NOTICE | USA | THURSDAY | 3.1 | 4,768 |
| 9 | HANNAH MONTANA | DSNY | SUNDAY | 3.1 | 4,606 |
| 10 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | MONDAY | 3.1 | 4,572 |
| 11 | SECRET LIFE/AMERICAN TEEN | FAM | TUESDAY | 2.6 | 4,537 |
| 12 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT (WWE RAW) | USA | MONDAY | 2.6 | 4,441 |
| 13 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT (WWE RAW) | USA | MONDAY | 2.6 | 4,413 |
| 14 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 2.9 | 4,303 |
| 15 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | WEDNESDAY | 2.9 | 4,228 |
| 16 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | SATURDAY | 2.8 | 4,173 |
| 17 | THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXNC | FRIDAY | 2.8 | 4,151 |
| 18 | ARMY WIVES | LIF | SUNDAY | 3.0 | 4,126 |
| 19 | PSYCH | USA | FRIDAY | 2.4 | 4,023 |
| 20 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | SATURDAY | 2.4 | 3,997 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
The summer finale of Psych was a great episode. I hope the viewers and rating pick up in the spring so any talk of cancellation can be quieted.
“I hope the viewers and rating pick up in the spring so any talk of cancellation can be quieted.”
WTF you’re talking about? psych has great ratings, keeps great amount of viewers after monk, espcially in 18-49.
psych and burn notice are sure renewals, only monk is on the verge, they dont know if shalhoub’d do an 8th season.
lol, “talk of cancellation”, pardon my french.
I’m w/getgo, I think on a ratings basis Psych is doing just fine. There was a lot going on this week but over 4 million is still great for psych. There’s been a lot going on the last few weeks with convention/election coverage and the return of NFL. A few weeks ago Psych was ranked #9 with less than 4 million — I wouldn’t get too hung up on the rankings.
Do you think Fairly oddParents are doin well ratings wise?
Jose, We see the top 40 cable shows each week. Fairly Odd Parents (or its movie offshoots) have appeared occasionally. Pretty much any show that appears in that list is a big cable hit.
Thanks Bill, what I was actually wondering was how Fairly OddParents does compared with the rest of Nickeloden’s shows, once again thanks to anyone that can help.
Jose, Spongebob rules Nickelodeon ratings (and cable ratings in general some weeks), nothing else comes close. You can browse past weeks by clicking the “Cable Top 20″ link in the nav bar at the top.
Thanks Bill once again for the quick reply, one more question, does nielson ratings release ratings for specific channels?
Jose, all the data is available for purchase, but Nielsen doesn’t make anything like that available to the non-paying public…
Jose, if what you meant was overall ratings for specific broadcast and cable networks (not local channels) we have those. Note the items in our center column on the main page with cable and broadcast network weekly ratings. You can click on the “More Ratings” link in the nav bar to see all our scheduled network ratings post categories.