| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 15.462 | 11.743 | 7.838 | 4.333 | 3.957 | 3.674 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 6.0/15 | 3.8/10 | 3.6/9 | 2.0/5 | 1.6/4 | 1.5/4 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 6.5/18 | 2.3/6 | 3.9/11 | 1.9/5 | 1.7/5 | 1.4/4 |
ABC buried the competition on the first Thursday of the new season, particularly in the age demos, but the premiere of Grey’s Anatomy, the leader for the evening, was down over 2.5 million viewers from last season’s premiere.
The premiere of Survivor: Gabon took the viewership crown and the adults 18-49 demo from 8-9pm, but it was down almost 2.5 million viewers from the Survivor:China premiere last September. Ugly Betty’s premiere was down over a million viewers from last year’s premiere, but managed the adults 18-34 demo win for the hour. Even worse was the premiere of My Name is Earl, which lost 26% of it’s viewers compared to last season’s premiere.
Against real competition, Kitchen Nightmares just got crushed in both hours, shedding almost a third of its viewers and demo adults from last week. Compared to that carnage, Smallville’s loss of only 6% of its viewers and a tick in each demo seems positively heroic. Supernatural, on the other hand, lost 18% of its viewers and about a quarter of its demo adults from last week.
Although down from last year’s premiere, Grey’s Anatomy had no equal on the night, completely overwhelming the competition in both hours across the board.
In some rare positive news for the night, The Office premiere was on par with last year’s premiere and it put in some good demo numbers. Berman is reporting that it won both the 18-34 and 18-49 demos for men.
The premiere of the final season of ER was down over 2 million viewers from its premiere last year.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/ Share | 18-34 Rating/ Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | Survivor: Gabon (8-10p) (premiere) | 13.052 | 4.5/13 | 2.8/9 |
| ABC | Ugly Betty (premiere) | 9.775 | 3.3/9 | 3.5/11 | |
| NBC | My Name is Earl (premiere) | 6.398 | 2.7/8 | 2.6/8 | |
| FOX | Kitchen Nightmares | 4.177 | 1.9/5 | 1.9/6 | |
| CW | Smallville | 4.104 | 1.7/5 | 1.7/5 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 3.746 | 1.4/4 | 1.6/5 | |
| 9:00 | ABC | Grey’s Anatomy (9-11p) (premiere) | 18.296 | 7.2/17 | 7.8/20 |
| CBS | Survivor: Gabon (8-10p) (premiere) | 12.775 | 4.5/10 | 2.6/7 | |
| NBC | The Office (premiere) | 9.195 | 4.9/11 | 6.1/15 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 4.644 | 1.8/4 | 2.1/5 | |
| FOX | Kitchen Nightmares | 4.489 | 2.1/5 | 1.9/5 | |
| CW | Supernatural | 3.245 | 1.3/3 | 1.2/3 | |
| 10:00 | ABC | Grey’s Anatomy (9-11p) (premiere) | 18.315 | 7.6/19 | 8.1/21 |
| CBS | CSI (repeat) | 9.403 | 2.6/6 | 1.5/4 | |
| NBC | ER (premiere) | 7.921 | 3.3/8 | 3.0/8 | |
| UNI | La Rosa de Guadalupe | 3.480 | 1.4/4 | 1.5/4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. Timeslot demo winners in bold.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
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.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:26 am
FOX’s Kitchen Nightmares were both new…no hole in the wall this week…lol.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:27 am
No competition for Greys? what about The Office?
September 26th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Wopa, I meant “no equal”, but I agree my word choice wasn’t great. I will edit
September 26th, 2008 at 9:34 am
You’re having too much fun with your puns today.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Wow, you used a picture from the actual episode. I confess (blasphemy, I know) to watching a few minutes of Grey’s before my eyes glazed over and I moved on to this Sunday’s premieres of Dexter and Californication (saving Supernatural for later).
I am a little surprised Grey’s improved over its season finale (in viewers and in the demo) it will be interesting to see what kind of a bite a new CSI will put on those numbers. Also I wonder if the trend of super sized premieres and finales is really a great idea (two hours for Grey’s and Survivor, one hour for the Office, etc).
September 26th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I could say I was inspired by Jewel, but in fact I found that while Googling the phrase.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:45 am
NBC didnt do as bad as i thought it would..
ABC did well, i really hope that betty can stay on 9m! CBS was ok.
CW did really well!!
just incase anyone wanted to know.. here are the ratings for the main American shows that were on UKTV?
FRI
9:00pm Ugly betty 1.6m (lowest ever rating)
MON
9.00pm America’s Next Top Model – 0.3m (2%) (Season 9 premier)
10.00pm Lipstick Jungle – 0.2m (1%) (Premier)
TUE
9.00pm Hell’s Kitchen USA – 0.5m (3%)
9:00pm CSI: Miami 2.4m (11.3%)
WED
Axe Men 1.3m (5.8%)
Desperate Housewives 1.75m (10.8%) (lowest ever rating)
Medium 1.5m (13.8%)
THU
20:30 – Friends – 564,000 (2.30%) [+1: 186,000] (best ever rating)
21:00 – Ugly Betty – 424,000 (2.30%) [+1: 121,000] (first look)
21:00 – Bones – 584,000 (3.5%)
September 26th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I have yet to watch The Office (if Hulu got it up, I’ll watch it tonight), so last night was an It’s Always Sunny night for me. I watched the Dexter premiere weeks ago already, and am anxiously awaiting the second episode.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:21 am
GA did better than I expected, but it will likely start falling again once CSI starts.
What is Fox’s plan for Thursdays? Is it just KN or are they bringing back Hole in the Wall or some other show?
Survivor is down again this year. After 20 seasons, that’s not surprising, but CBS really needs to find a new hit reality show. Survivor is nearly played out and Amazing Race is not going to be pulling in 15-20 million viewers.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Re: Super sized premieres.
I think they seem to be working out for most of the nets. There is nothing that ABC could have put at 10pm that would have netted over 18 mil. And, unfortunately, nothing NBC could have put at 9:30 that would have netted over 9 mil. (Please, world, WATCH 30 ROCK!) Last season, I thought the one hour Office episodes were horrible quality wise (like I said, I haven’t watched the premiere to be able to comment on this one), but ratings wise, it makes sense to draw the better ratings out as long as you can.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I agree (at least in the case of NBC and ABC, not sure about CBS) that they have nothing to put on that would do as well, the question I have is whether the shorter premieres would perform better for the shorter duration.
Sure, the nets get an extra hour or half hour on the night that they couldn’t have done better with, but they lose that hour in another week. If there’s no impact to the two hour average by putting it all on one night versus breaking it up over two, it would be six of one half a dozen of the other. We know Grey’s did better than it’s two hour finale in May, but we know Greys and Survivor did worse than their one hour premieres a year ago. There is no way to know whether the expansion of time had any impact on the attrition…so I wonder
September 26th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Holly, no announcement I have seen by Fox about Thursdays. TVGuide.com still had Hole in the Wall scheduled for last night, I only saw the 2 Kitchen Nightmares when the ratings were out this AM. Hole in the Wall could be another stealth cancel.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:02 am
My program guide seems REALLY horked for next Thursday in general due to Vice Presidential debate, but I show a new Hole in the Wall from 8pm-9pm. (where “reality show vixens from ‘Flavor of Love’ compete against women from ‘Rock of Love’).
September 26th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I wonder if perhaps people were turned off by the last 5 minutes of Supernatural. “God has work for you, Dean.” It was a terrible, terrible ending. I’m not at all on board with what they’re doing to the show!
September 26th, 2008 at 11:11 am
ER ending none too soon. It really should have ended when Dr. Carter went off to Africa. They should end it by running the entire series in reverse ending with the opening scene from Season 1, Episode 1 in last hour; back when the show was excellent. Either that or have a snowstorm at the end where it turns out the who series took place inside a snow globe of an autistic child who puts it on a shelf next to his St. Elsewhere snow globe. Just then his dad comes in and gives him a Greys Anatomy snow globe.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Robert, normally I would agree about the longer show meaning less viewers, but in Grey’s case at least, they actually gained viewers in their second hour. I don’t know how many people just didn’t turn on their TVs at all because they knew it was going to be a long episode, but there doesn’t seem to be any hour to hour erosion, though it would be interesting to see the half hours.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:20 am
It’s great having those 18-34 numbers. I did not realize that Survivor skews so old now!
September 26th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Enjoy this week and next week “Grey”- – CSI returns Oct 9th!
September 26th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Rick, if my program guide is correct, Greys is bumped next week by VP debates
September 26th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Rick, Grey’s beat CSI nearly every week in the demo, I believe. Are you saying that’s going to be different this week?
September 26th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Does anyone know when pushing daisies season premeire is?
September 26th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Not thinking while typing. They beat CSI last season. And I was asking if that will be different this season not week.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Jackson, PD premieres on Wednesday. I’m preparing to mourn on Thursday.
:(:(
September 26th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I blame St. Louis’s CW11. They decided to change the times to air the primetime shows an hour later than every one else. The news comes on at 7PM now, who wants to watch the news when My Name Is Earl or Survivor is on? I was torn between Smallville and Grey’s Anatomy. I am sure some of the other nights, possibly the shows for the girls are all torn between a CW show and some other network. I forgot all about watching ER and CSI:, or I would have been flip flopping between three shows last night.
September 26th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Supernatural held up pretty well considering the competition. Last night’s episode was great. I love the direction the show is taking.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I thought the season premiere of My Name is Earl was very funny last night especially the second one with Earl’s mom cheating on his dad with a guy named Clark Clark that’s hilarious to me kinda sucks that the ratings were down compared to last season’s premiere but I think that has to do with the way season 3 of Earl went which most fans including myself agree wasn’t one of their better seasons which is why there was much hype over Earl going back to his list this season but they were both very funny episodes last night and I hope the ratings go back to normal as far as My Name is Earl goes……..I also watched Smallville and I like how Clark is slowly moving towards becoming Superman I mean now he is working at the Daily Planet soon he will be wearing his glasses I have a feeling Smallville will end with Clark in his Superman costume but that’s just a guess
September 26th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Julia,
Grey’s will still beat CSI in the demo, but Grey’s will probably take a hit when it is competing against a new episode of CSI. Overall, CSI will win in viewers and possibly close the gap a bit more in the demo. Of course, that depends on whether Grey’s continues the drop it was seeing last year and how the CSI audience reacts to loosing Warrick and Grissom.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I miss the edit function…
September 26th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Holly, I hear you. Unfortunately there are always trade offs — it made sense for us to revert back to the built in Wordpress comments, but there are downsides like the one you mention. For now there is no way anyone but Bill and I can edit comments. I’d hoped that there was some path by which we could register accounts and limit access — which there is, but unfortunately that path *also* doesn’t allow you to edit comments. :-/
September 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Holly, Wordpress recently purchased IntenseDebate a competitor of Disqus (who created our previous comment system that allowed edits).
I would expect many changes to the Wordpress comment system in the future, although what and when we don’t know.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Fox President Kevin Reilly is doing a bang up job just like he did at NBC. Amazing how these guys “fail upward”. Reilly led NBC to a consistent 4th place finish and he ain’t doin’ any better over at FOX…where do they recruit these network president’s from..the Bush/Cheney White House?
Please Mr. Reilly..next season give me another sitcom with Jerry O’Connell…last year it was ABC’s Carpoolers and now Fox’s Do Not Disturb.
As for NBC’s Ben Silverman…”Knightrider” bombed this week? Gee I’m shocked..next time you re-make a show..how ’bout “Leave It To Beaver”.
Since most Americans are broke and have to stay home…overall ratings should be way up….problem is look at the new garbage they gave us. And there’s more to come…
September 26th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Nice to see Betty almost getting 10 million… It will probably sink to 8.5-9 million next week. I’m as surprised as everybody else that the Grey’s premiere did better than the finale. I’m guessing it will sink to 15-16 million when CSI starts up again.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
TueTruthHurts –
I agree. Fox hasn’t been doing as good a job these days. I think 24 is going to be a catastrophe this year. It’s a show that appeals to Republicans and they cast Janeane Garofalo as the President?? Dollhouse just looks bad. Those comedies were atrocious. Prison Break is bad. And they took my favorite show this fall and fed it to the ratings wolves.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Robert and Bill, I do understand and I’m not really complaining. I just have that thought when I realize that my post was oddly worded or something was misspelled. You guys do a great job with the site and the remodel looks great. I’m OK loosing some functions even if I occassionally miss them.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
While edit is nice, I’m not a fan of Disqus. The load time for comments on any blog that uses Disqus goes up by a lot. So I prefer looking like an uneducated idiot at times than having edit.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I’m pleasently surprised that Smallville and Supernatural held up, and while the numbers were down for Supernatural I’m pretty sure (if wikipedia is to be believed) it is still the second highest total audience figures the show has had since it moved to The CW, and the highest rated episode against a first run Grey’s Anatomy & Office. My Name is Earl’s numbers though were a less pleasent surprise, I too really enjoyed last nights episodes after the medicore stories of last year. Hopefully people may come back to it over the next couple of weeks.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
yo… the truth hurts… your point about jerry o connell is lame. if the same logic was applied to jon cryer… loser sitcom after next… then cbs wouldn’t have put him in 2 and 1/2 men. i’m not a jerry fan but i do know it takes the right project, the right actor, the right timing, the right time slot, the right audience… it’s amazing anything does well.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Bigger drop off than I expected for Supernatural but those numbers are still better than almost every episode of last season, so hopefully they hold up.
CSI premieres next week though, I think, so that can’t be good.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Grey’s rock solid against the ER, Sruvivor and the office premieres…Good for Grey’s
September 27th, 2008 at 10:43 am
The delayed season and poor overall network quality has caused these scheduling changes to catch me off guard. Surely Grey’s will be against CSI again at nine central? Survivor just premiers on Thursday, or up against Betty at eight central? Who cares. New CSI’s will edge out Grey’s, I believe, consistently. 18-49 to Grey’s, more than likely. Scrubs I guess is off NBC, Earl down around 30%, Office and 30 Rock probably pulled down as well. ( Office has weakened quality-wise since year one, and is a poor leadin for 30 Rock. ) So NBC’s no-laugh-track comedies will be hard-pressed to beatthe two long-running hits on ABC and NBC in any category, except maybe 18-34.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 am
Why only put up that age bracket? Does the rest of America count?
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 am
UnderCoverGuy, Right or wrong, the advertisers look primarily at the demo numbers. Overall viewers do matter, but viewers in those demo brackets matter more.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Pfft, Supernatural is much better than My Name is Earl, as well as Grey’s Anatomy.