| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 14.23 | 12.47 | 10.86 | 10.58 | 1.31 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 5.6/14 | 4.4/11 | 2.6/7 | 4.4/11 | 0.6/2 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 4.9/13 | 3.7/10 | 1.9/5 | 5.2/15 | 0.6/2 |
An impressive goal line stand in the fourth quarter led the Chicago Bears to victory over the Philadelphia Eagles and NFL Sunday Night Football led the night on NBC. The game averaged 15.94 million viewers between 8pm-11pm (the game actually starts at 8:15pm, but we don’t see 15 minute numbers so there is no way for us to break out just the game portion). The return of the ladies from Wisteria Lane led ABC to a second place finish as Desperate Housewives scored a whopping 18.44 million viewers between 9p-10 and rocked in the age demographics. Housewives was down a bit from last year’s premieres based on these numbers, but well ahead its pace at the close of last season. You can see last season’s Desperate Housewives ratings (and last year’s Sunday Night Football numbers as well).
The numbers for Extreme Makeover were definitely down from last year, although it did gain strength in its second hour, but the return of Brothers & Sisters at 10pm performed very solidly after Desperate Houswives holding two-thirds of the viewers and the demo numbers.
Fox’s animations were back and total viewers do not matter. Their strength in the demos, particularly the 18-34 demographics is phenomenal. And even shows like King of The Hill pull numbers among 18-34 year olds that should keep it around if it maintains them. Family Guy with about half the viewers of Desperate Housewives almost had as many 18-34 year olds, and it least in its premiere The Simpsons has some life in it still
Over on CBS this night showcases just how youth starved the eye network is. While Amazing Race and Cold Case pulled OK overall numbers, the demo numbers relative to the field were pretty sparse. Note there were about 15 minutes of Football overrun so the CBS schedule will all be a bit altered from these numbers (and a bit lower for the night overall).
The CW ran with repeats, but next week MRC (Media Rights Capital) takes over programming Sunday nights on the CW with the premieres of In Harm’s Way, Valentine, Inc. and Easy Money.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 7:00 | FOX | Football Overrun | 20.02 | 8.0/24 | 7.3/25 |
| CBS | 60 Minutes | 12.14 | 2.2/6 | 1.6/5 | |
| ABC | Extreme Makeover: Home Edition | 7.19 | 2.2/7 | 1.7/6 | |
| NBC | Football Night in America | 5.97 | 2.3/7 | 1.8/6 | |
| UNI | Sangre di Mi Sangre | 2.10 | 0.8/2 | 0.8/3 | |
| CW | One Tree Hill (R) | 1.37 | 0.6/2 | 0.7/2 | |
| 7:30 | FOX | The OT (Football post-game) | 11.04 | 4.5/13 | 4.4/15 |
| 8:00 | NBC | Pregame/Sunday Night Football | 14.86 | 5.7/14 | 5.3/15 |
| ABC | Extreme Makeover: Home Edition | 11.91 | 3.7/9 | 2.8/8 | |
| CBS | The Amazing Race | 10.29 | 3.2/7 | 2.5/7 | |
| FOX | The Simpsons | 9.30 | 4.4/12 | 5.2/15 | |
| UNI | Sangre di Mi Sangre | 2.55 | 1.0/2 | 1.0/3 | |
| CW | Privileged (R) | 1.22 | 0.6/1 | 0.6/2 | |
| 8:30 | FOX | King of the Hill | 7.04 | 3.3/8 | 4.0/11 |
| 9:00 | ABC | Desperate Housewives | 18.44 | 7.0/16 | 5.9/14 |
| NBC | Sunday Night Football | 16.44 | 6.5/14 | 5.9/15 | |
| CBS | Cold Case | 11.24 | 2.7/6 | 1.7/4 | |
| FOX | Family Guy | 9.20 | 4.5/10 | 5.6/14 | |
| UNI | Sangre di Mi Sangre | 3.14 | 1.2/3 | 1.3/3 | |
| CW | America’s Next Top Model (R) | 1.44 | 0.7/2 | 0.6/2 | |
| 9:30 | FOX | American Dad | 6.86 | 3.2/7 | 4.1/10 |
| 10:00 | NBC | Sunday Night Football | 15.02 | 6.3/15 | 6.5/17 |
| ABC | Brothers & Sisters | 12.35 | 4.8/12 | 4.2/11 | |
| CBS | The Unit | 9.75 | 2.6/7 | 1.8/5 | |
| UNI | Sangre di Mi Sangre | 2.85 | 1.2/3 | 1.2/3 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
TV Ratings data (C)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.
Well, football really took a hit from Desperate Housewives. Unless it was just a really boring game. Was it?
Wow! great numbers for DH! It is up about 1.6 million from the finale.
No, it was a great game to watch. I’m not sure that it was DH that really ate into the ratings though. The teams are the critical ratings draw and last week had the Dallas Cowboys which always do big numbers on national television.
King of the Hill was great last night. Glad to see it up from last years slump. Hopefully it will stay around a few more seasons.
The game last night was entertaining, always close down to the last minute so don’t blame DH on that.
So if it was a close game, with big draw teams, why else would it be down other than DH? Seems to me that the females in households reclaimed the TV last night.
Chicago and Philly are not huge draw teams when it comes to national ratings. But it was a very good game.
btw, the numbers did drop between 8:30-9 and 9-9:30 for SNF, from 16.8 million to 15.98 million, but then went back up to 16.89 million between 9:30p-10pm. DH was pretty steady at 18.14 million in the first half hour growing to 18.74 million the second.
this weeks game was down about 2 mil from last weeks.
considering last week was cowboys/packers and not up against a new dh and a good-leadined fox comedy block, id say football is doing just fine.
Fox toons eats into football more than DH, i bet. Cowboys are probbally the best draw in the nfl, look at fox over run for the late game, an 8.0 in the demo. This weeks games saving grace was that it was a good game so viewers did not turn away.
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.
Does this mean that if I recorded a program at 10 PM Sunday, I have to watch the recorded program before 3 AM Monday morning? Or does it mean I can watch it from 3 AM Monday morning until 3 Am Tues AM?
Thanks
3AM monday morning to count in *these* numbers. But if you watch within seven days you would be counted in the LIVE+7 numbers (at least if you were a Nielsen family)
Ah, I misread what you said about the Cowboys.
Well now that’s just nuts! The show is on at 10, I recorded it, came home at 12 AM and I have to watch it before 3 Am to be counted in the overnight. Phooey. But thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated.
It seems the best thing NBC did recently was to buy the football rights. They are competitive on Sundays and helped to dampen ratings for Desperate Housewives.
The Simpsons and the other Fox toons stole lots of viewers from DH and football. They also had a great demo. Sunday is just the best day in the TV-week
Any idea how True Blood episode 4 did, and Dexter episode 1? Thanks.
Rob, we don’t get overnight numbers for cable and i have yet to see the numbers you want published anywhere else.
Apparently I’m determined to be a trouble-maker today, but…
How come Univision is included in the show-by-show breakdown, but not the network averages?
when I created both the network averages and the show-by-show data I didn’t initially have Univision or the 18-34 info. I went back and added the 18-34 data, then the Univision shows but I did not update the network averages table…
Without seeing the DH premier ( why bother when it will be syndicated as long as TV sets exist?) I think I called it: Jumping ahead in rtime was a bold move comoparable to the first season’s studied, Shirley Jackson like moodiness. I think for DH to beat football is a feather in the cap of ABC. I also think axing hideous Cashmere Mafia, while NBC limps along with its PG-13 version, was a good move. I repeat: DH has wide appeal. Eva Longoria is the biggest female star since the days of Dallas and Dynasty.
I DVR just about everything. I recorded 4 shows last night and so far have watched one. That was DEXTER on showtime. It was great by the way. The other 3 shows I recorded were Entourage, Brothers and Sisters and True Blood! I don’t buy the ratings system in its current form as many people are DVRing and watching many days later! I know I am!
DVR viewing IS tracked and reported. Bill and Robert post a lovely chart showing the 20 shows with the most people watching on DVR and the 20 shows that increase the most with DVR viewing included. Nearly 50% of that DVR viewing occurs on the same day the show airs and is included in the numbers we get here.
dvr viewing after the 7 days isn’t counted. some watch after 7 days. they bulk up and watch. i watched the entire last season of 2/12 men over the summer. i still have 5 losts to watch.
it’s understandable that some people will watch DVR’d shows on their own terms which would sometimes be beyond seven days. Studies show the vast majority of DVR viewing happens within 7 with most of it the first few days, but even if that wasn’t the case I don’t think it would make any sense for Nielsen to measure viewing that took place weeks or months after the fact. Too much work for no value.
tom, You are right, the reported data is only for the first 7 days after an episode airs. However, that will include the overwhelming majority of DVR viewing. This article http://www.marketingvox.com/dvr-use-not-having-huge-impact-on-ratings-035598/ is from last year, but it shows that about 90% of the tracked DVR viewing occurs in the first three days. Yes, some people do save up several episodes of shows and watch them all at once, but based on the evidence we’ve seen, those viewers will make up less than 5% of the overall DVR audience. Also, ratings reporting is about advertising, not just how many people watch the show, and I’m not sure advertisers are going to care much about the people who watch all their DVRed shows in the summer. Since the commercials that are least likely to be skipped are movie promos, timing does matter. A movie studio is willing to pay to make sure people see their promo the weeks leading up to the release but are not interested in someone watching it two months after the movie’s out of the theater.
So, this is my first time posting on these boards.
Does anyone know why Desperate Housewives is such a high rated show?
I also think that Fox’s comedy block desrves higher total viewer scores, good in the demos though.
The weird thing is that Fox’s best animated show (in my humble opinion) American Dad! is the lowest rated.
I realize there’s no reason to say this but the CW is just doing awful.
The Simpsons Did terrible tonight, plus, it was the 20th season premire. But on the other hand, Family guy did great at almost 10 million viewers. The Low ratings where probaly caused by football on the West Coast. If it aired on the west coast, it would of done mutch better.
uh. how did the Simpsons do terribly, as Family Guy did great?
The Simpsons averaged 0.1 million viewers more, and 1% higher in the 18-49 share. Also 2% higher in the 18-34 share.
Family Guy was a little higher in the ratings, so it probably wins. But that’s a long way from the Simpsons being terrible and Family Guy great. It’s more like The Simpsons good, Family Guy great.
Good for Desperate housewives…good comeback
the simpsons had the smallest drop from last season of all the fox shows, it had the highest viewers…. and in an earlier timeslot. on what ratings planet does that make simpsons terrible? that is quite an odd statement to make.
Good to see Brithers & Sisters doing well and better then some older shows. I presict a year from now it will be one of the best shows on TV.