The Obama-mercial was fairly highly rated across the three broadcast networks (CBS, Fox and NBC) in the early metered market numbers. Between the three networks it scored an impressive combined 17.8/29 (household rating/share).
Update: the Obama ad pulled 26.4 million between the three networks in the Nielsen fast national overnight data. NBC had 9.85 million with a 3.0/8 (rating/share) among 18-49 year olds. CBS was next with 8.65 million and an older skewing 2.3/6 among 18-49 year olds. Fox was third in total viewers for the Obama ad with 7.92 million, but fared better than CBS with younger viewers pulling a 2.8/8 among 18-49 year olds.
You can see the full overnight ratings report with viewer info and 18-49 demographic data here.
If ABC truly hoped that by being only scripted programming on broadcast for 8:00pm-8:30p, it would help out Pushing Daisies, that plan went awry. My guess is ABC was more likely just looking to burn off an episode. Daisies scored a 4.2/7, pretty much the identical rating it had a week ago up (4.2/6). The good news is things didn’t get worse. But, unless there was a major up tick of 18-49 viewers, not getting worse won’t help any.
The three and a half inning curiosity that wrapped up the World Series seems to have gotten the best ratings so far with a 13.1/20 in the overnights from 8:30p-10p. We’ll look for the full time-adjusted data with viewer numbers and demos from Fox later. Congrats again to the Philadelphia Phillies for defeating Tampa Bay three four games to one to win the series.
Gorman favorite, The New Adventures of Old Christine ran in Gary Unmarried’s slot at 8:30 and did pretty much what it did last week in the early metered market numbers at 8pm (5.0/8).
Fox looks to win the night on the strength of the World Series, with CBS in second due to strength with Criminal Minds (9.4/14).
Edit to add: Michael Wilbon favorite, Dirty Sexy Money (4.3/7) continued to pull low numbers with a 4.3/7 and the soon to be relocated to the Friday Night wasteland Lipstick Jungle also scored a 4.3/7.
We’ll have the full overnight report up later (usually by 12:30p EDT) so check back for the full (and for Pushing Daisies, probably gory) details. In the meanwhile you can read the full metered market report on Marc Berman’s site.
Metered Market Overnight Ratings: This is normally the first available ratings information, and is based on the electronic measurement service that Nielsen provides in 56 of the nation’s largest markets. In each market a sample of homes is selected to represent that individual market. Often, networks or syndicators provide metered market information as an early indicator of a program’s performance. In aggregate, the 56 metered markets represent 79,890,610 homes, or 70% of all U.S. TV households. Preliminary metered market data are available as early as 8:00AM (ET). Final metered market information, reflecting line-up changes, pre-emptions and runovers, are normally available by 3:30PM (ET).
I know you guys are baseball fans and it’s just a slip of the keyboard, but of course the Phillies won the Series FOUR games to one!
D’oh! Fixed.
Could it be possible for Lipstick jungle to do well in Friday night slot?
I mean theres no show like it for Friday nigth is there
RIP DP
Fin, I suppose anything is possible, but generally Friday is where shows are shipped off to before being canceled.
Rob, do you think ABC should have kept Women’s Murder Club on Fridays?
I do, god for a friday night show it did well; 8-7 millions is quite good and much better than supernanny; ABC must be kicking itself for loosing a first in its timeslot. Although supernanny must be much cheaper so i guess ABC might break even or get more money than before even with lower ratings
Paul, not really. WMC did horrible in the demos and the reality program ABC airs now does better and is cheaper to produce.
Any word what ABC might do to burn off the remaining eps? And will Fuller be allowed to film a series finale?
Oh, in the demos… well i didn’t think bout that
why do you have 18-34 with 18-49; whats the point apart from narrowing down the demographic
How should they end Pushing Daisies?
While making pies Ned accidentally touches Chuck and makes her dead again then Ned stricken with grief sticks his head in the pie oven to join her. Then Emerson walks in, looks at them and says “Oh crap, there goes my meal ticket!”. Then he sits down and eats a nice piece of pie and lights up a stogie – the Pie Hole explodes in a fireball. Turns out Ned wasnt completely dead after all (head in the oven shielded him from the blast) and as he has one last gasp he touches Emersons charred body, Emerson wakes from the dead. Then Ned dies for good as Emerson screams after looking at himself in the mirror “Oh holy crap! Ned !!! touch me again, you doofus!! Wake up!!!! Touch me again!! Ned? Ned?”
Then the Cenobites come in and Pinhead says “Come with us Mr. Emerson Cod” the screen fades to black.
Fin, those are the demographics advertisers seem to care the most about for broadcast primetime television (particularly the 18-49). It’s advertising that drives the business, so what advertisers want matters.
Why did ABC renew Dirty Sexy Money it wasn’t doing good last season; so why unless it had good demos which i don’t think it did. ABC and some of the other networks are to blame for renewing obviously low-rated shows for their own failure. the 2008-2009 season will see a huge cancellation list; thats just for the main 5. NBC should revamp its schedule.
ABC is really in the crapper. DWTS will run six days a week!
Proberly there best ace in the whole; better hope no-one gets bored of it and then it failing which is a risk when you over air shows
Private Practice should get a better lead in!
It´s a great show and the episode of yesterday was great!
For the record, some weak performing shows were renewed last season because
1) The strike killed off any chance of mid-season hits arriving.
2) This fall’s lineup is weaker than last year’s (which was weaker than the year before). Basically, the proposed new series crop was so poor all around that the network heads had to pick up a lot of old shows and hope they’d do alright instead of go with an unproven series that they were sure would fail.
As for Pushing Daisies, I guess we can now hope for two things.
1) That all 13 episodes of Season 2 are produced and that the season finale will work as a suitable series finale.
2) That ABC will fill the time slot with shows that will only perform worse a la when FOX canceled Undeclared only to have less viewers after That 70’s Show from that point onward.
This may not be true but I did hear that PD had decent DVD sales which would be reason enough to let it produce its 13. Though I am getting less and less hopeful that it will air those, especially during sweeps.
(On iPhone in dr’s office bec he’s running late, so no pic, but I’m the Julia with the avatar not the other one.)
TVbytheNumbers 3G!
I’m not sure if the DVD sales thing rings true though, but I don’t know what is decent. Relative to say, Supernatural, it didn’t seem to do well but that’s based on limited data. It was only on the top 30 chart for one week, so I only could see one week of info:
http://the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/weekly/2008/20080921.php
They don’t really have a choice but to finish producing the season. For one thing, they can recoup some of the money it will cost to finish these episodes by sending out a DVD soon that has a complete second season with a suitable ending rather than being abruptly cut off. Secondly, there are foreign (and the potential cable) markets where the show might be doing alright enough to continue airing. Since they’ve already committed and produced at least 4-5 more episodes that haven’t aired, they might as well finish the batch.
Also, I think it’s a coin toss as to whether or not they pull this show for sweeps. I really don’t think ABC has anything else to air in its place, so they might as well go with this. Reruns of Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives are the only things that MIGHT be able to post better numbers.
i like pushing daisies but this yr its a little boring. its just the same thing week in week out. ned and chuck love each other they cant touch they solve a case. the only good ep was the pilot. so will the network all 13 eps for sure??
Reports are they’ve already shot 12.
Hey Robert, I know you dont have a final numbers yet but what would you estimate a 17.8 overnight rating would transfer to in total viewers?
Well, if they’ve already shot 12, it’s a done deal. The last episode will certainly be completed and reworked in order to give this thing an ending. I’m sure Fuller made it tie up some loose ends in case the show were to be canceled just as Wonderfalls’s final episode was a perfect bookend. Hopefully, they haven’t shot anything of the series finale yet which means Fuller & Co. can flesh out a script that says everything they need to before committing to filming. Also, perhaps the ending will even be extended if ABC doesn’t plan to finish airing the show anywhere.
Again, we MAY end up seeing all 13 episodes on television simply because ABC has nothing else in the can. For example, they didn’t have any half-hour shows at the moment, hence why they didn’t want to air the Obama special without having an 8:30 lead out. Again, they can either continue to accept the 2.0 (or so) 18-49 rating and air the completed episodes of PD through December or replace them with a rerun. But again, I’m not sure ABC really has any reruns that can muster up 6 million viewers, not to mention that re-runs aren’t as valuable for advertisers. As long as they aren’t losing money by airing PD and are able to walk away unscathed each week (if not adding to ABC’s pool of cash), they’ll probably grin & bear it, airing all eight of the remaining episodes in a row through the end of December.
i saw some numbers from the fast affiliates. It did 26.4 million on those three networks. I’m not sure if it ran somewhere on cable at the same time, so the cumulative totals may be even higher if it did.
Pushing Daisies ratings sadden me, time to fillate my gun barrel!
And the reason WHY I think ABC isn’t losing much money or any at the moment by airing Daisies is that they would’ve already pulled the show if that were the case. We all know that networks are forced to pay advertisers the difference when a show underperforms the ratings that the network guessed it would achieve, so if ABC was taking a substantial loss by airing new episodes of Pushing Daisies, it would’ve been removed from the schedule. Considering that it’s earned practically the same 2.0 in the key demographic every week and that the viewership has been relatively steady, it hasn’t reached the point yet to be worth pulling. It’s either losing a small amount of money and ABC thinks they’ll lose more by airing a rerun in its place, or its coming out barely profitable.
I think it was on MSNBC and Univision as well, Robert.
Julia’s correct, plus BET and TV One.
According to Marc Berman, PD went up 970,000 viewers and 0.3 in the demo.
I think that may actually be enough to get four more airings in December, but certainly not for the two Wednesdays in November sweeps where it isn’t already pre-empted. ABC might leave well enough alone for December before totally revamping the night in January.
It probably pulled close to two million on Univision and another million or so via the cable outlets. Reaching 30 million people overall for $4 million definitely wasn’t a bad purchase for Mr. Obama…that’s like 15 cents per person. Overall, I could see him netting about 75 million votes in this election with a turnout of around 150 million Americans which would mean he actually didn’t spend much more per vote than is usual for a major candidate. Third party candidates usually are hit the hardest although Ralph Nader will spend about $4 million this election and I think he has the potential to get a million votes this time so that’s not too bad either and could end up being less than Mr. Obama even. Frankly, Obama overspent in a lot of categories but he definitely wanted to play it safe by ensuring victory. Frankly, if I were in his shoes, I would’ve looked at the polls and donated nearly all of the remaining campaign money to the DNC, if that’s legal.
Of course ABC wants to kill Pushing Daisies, and I think the show is screwed anyways.
ABC rather have more soap operas, plus PD this season has been a mess. Several story lines from last season were just randomly dropped, and the whole feel and flow of the show is so bad even I stopped watching it.
PD episode13 is currently in production.
How did Obama’s infomercial compare with last week? I.e., did the infomercial get better ratings than the programs that ordinarily air on Wednesdays at 8?
The infomercial had to have earned more viewers than is usual for the timeslot. We know this because Pushing Daisies had nearly a million MORE viewers yet the rating was basically the same. In other words, Daisies gained but the gain was downplayed by increased competition from Obama. So, Obama both attracted people to his program that normally wouldn’t be watching network television at that time while he also sent nearly a million people running to PD.
Lila, can you elaborate as to WHERE in production the 13th episode of PD is? Is it being written or re-written? Have any scenes been shot?
BTW, for me, I think PD’s death knell was truly the Emmys snub for Best Comedy Series. Had it been one of the nominees, it would’ve had an absolutely fine shot at winning since 30 Rock had already won previously and the rest of the field was relatively weak. Voter would have been apt to give it credit because it had been screwed over by the strike and because it was ratings challenged which certainly gave a push to Arrested Development/30 Rock/Mad Men when the ceremony rolled around. Had PD been nominated, it could’ve won the award which would’ve certainly brought a few million more flocking to the season premiere along with excess advertising since ABC saw what happened to The Office after it won the award and its ratings climbed throughout the third season and into the start of the fourth.
Regardless, Obama will still lose: See “Blacks against Obama” video below
http://www.audacityofhypocrisy.com/2008/10/28/see-this-video-before-you-vote-on-nov-4th/
i cant belive this i meen Obama, i think he should be president (btw sry that this isnt about the ABC w/e) but i think we still should give a black person a chance to be president