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Updated Sunday Ratings: Best Numbers for The Simpsons Since January 2004

Posted on 03 November 2008 by Robert Seidman

Scoreboard NBC ABC CBS FOX Uni CW
Total Viewers (million) 12.04 11.27 11.19 10.74 3.56 .75
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 4.5/11 3.9/9 2.6/6 4.9/12 1.5/4 0.2/0
Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 4.0/11 3.0/8 1.6/4 5.7/15 1.5/4 0.2/1

I’ll get the 18-34 and Univision information added in a bit, but wanted to go ahead and get something posted. Now added.

Update: I should’ve added this blurb from Fox regarding last night’s The Simpson numbers. My focus on being as fast as possible often gets the best of me:

On Sunday FOX’s annual Treehouse of Horror episode of THE SIMPSONS impressed with a 6.2/15 among Adults 18-49. This is THE SIMPSONS highest-rated episode in almost five years among Adults 18-49 (since 1/11/04, excluding the post-Super Bowl telecast on 2/6/05) and in Total Viewers (since 2/22/04, also excluding the post-SB telecast.) THE SIMPSONS won its half hour among Adults 18-49, Total Viewers, Adults 18-34/25-54, Teens and virtually all key demos. THE SIMPSONS is projected to be the highest rated program of the night among Adults 18-49, outperforming NBC’s Sunday Night Football.

I’m still not sure what to make of 60 Minutes doing so well without any football overrun. I’m sticking with the Daylights Savings Time theory. A Sunday night of mixed leadership with football-fueled NBC number one in total viewers but fourth place (in viewers) Fox number one among 18-49 year olds with its animated lineup. The Simpsons scored over a 6.0 in the 18-49 demo, something I had not seen in a long while.

CBS did fine in total viewers, but Sunday nights without football overrun showcase the older skewing nature of the network. But, despite this showcasing, through last week CBS has been the number one network among 18-49 year olds so far this season. Amazing Race hit its season low numbers though when it came to household rating.

The Sunday Night Football contest between the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots scored 14.22 million, even though the Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning contest envisioned when it was put on the schedule turned out to be Matt Cassel vs. Peyton Manning. The game performed significantly better than the Seattle Seahawks vs. Tampa Bay Bucaneers matchup two weeks ago.

While Desperate Housewives isn’t what it used to be, it still is strong for ABC, especially in the 18-49 demo and it improved slightly versus last week’s numbers, both in total viewers and the demo.

Full details:

Net Show Viewers (Millons) 18-49 Rating/Share 18-34 Rating/Share
FOX Football Overrun Giants/ Cowboys 15.68 6.1/16 5.7/18
CBS 60 Minutes 14.37 2.7/7 1.7/5
ABC NASCAR Overrun 8.72 2.7/7 1.6/5
NBC Football Night in America 6.84 2.5/7 1.9/6
UNI Hora Pico 2.81 1.2/3 1.3/4
CW In Harms Way 0.84 .2/1 0.3/1
FOX The OT 10.52 4.3/11 4.1/12
ABC America’s Funniest Home Videos 6.95 2.2/6 1.7/5
FOX The Simpsons 12.48 6.2/15 7..3/20
ABC Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 11.69 3.8/9 2.9/7
NBC Football Night in America 11.54 4.1/10 3.4/9
CBS The Amazing Race 9.76 2.8/7 1.8/5
UNI Show de los Seunos 3.85 1.6/4 1.5/4
CW Valentine 0.77 0.2/1 0.2/1
NBC Sunday Night Football 14.22 5.3/13
FOX King of the Hill 8.60 4.3/10 5.2/14
ABC Desperate Housewives 15.83 5.8/13 4.8/11
CBS Cold Case 11.64 2.6/6 1.5/4
FOX Family Guy 9.97 5.0/11 6.4/16
UNI Show de los Seunos 4.01 1.7/4 1.7/4
CW Easy Money 0.65 0.2/0 0.2/0
FOX American Dad 7.20 3.7/8 4.8/12
ABC Brothers & Sisters 9.72 3.4/9 2.6/7
CBS The Unit 8.97 2.3/6 1.5/4
UNI Show de los Seunos 3.58 1.5/4 1.6/4

Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Definitions:

Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.

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.)

Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.

For more information see Numbers 101.

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49 Responses to “Updated Sunday Ratings: Best Numbers for The Simpsons Since January 2004”

  1. Mike G. says:

    Great numbers for the Simpsons. Amazing how many viewers King of the Hill sheds,

  2. D says:

    So DH should come in over 16 million in finales, right? It posted 15.63 last week and ended up at 15.95.

  3. D, no idea. I’m not sure how the NASCAR overrun played out and whether everything was back on track at 7:30.

    Mike, Fox animations all do well in the demos, especially 18-34. King of the Hill was beaten in that demo for the night only by The Simpsons and Family Guy.

  4. the128boy says:

    The demos for CBS are almost funny. Sunday is so old-skewing for them. They must be happy with viewers numbers, though. Brothers and Sisters does an increasingly poor job of holding it’s housewives lead-in. I wonder if abc is pondering a springtime move. It would not surprise me to see it happen.

  5. Julia says:

    Well, the CW shows held up in repeats at just about the exact same levels as originals. Not that that says very much, but still.

  6. Brothers and Sisters is a terrific program that has shed around 3 million viewers from last season. Almost every show has shown erosion year over year!

  7. Julia, it perhaps says that CWs shows will not drop below that threshold no matter what they air.

  8. Kyle says:

    Um, okay so KOTH has better viewers and demo than American Dad, yet it was canceled? WTF?

  9. Bill Gorman says:

    I’m with the Daylight Savings Time end explanation of the 60 Minutes boost too. I checked to see if CBS might have had a good football game that pushed almost to 7pm Eastern, but I think Miami/Denver was the only late CBS game and I can’t believe that did big numbers.

  10. Bill Gorman says:

    Kyle, KOTH will still air new episodes until reportedly sometime during the 2009-10 season. Our guess is that factors other than simple show economics lead to Fox’s decision.

  11. DaisiesDeathKnell says:

    I love how the Race is now surrounded by shows that do much worse in the key demographic. It’s also in a timeslot that helps it draw in far more viewers than it would on any other night. Glad CBS took a chance last fall to bring it back for TAR12 and it looks like this pony will be able to run alongside dinosaurs such as Survivor & American Idol for at least a little while longer.

  12. Rhuw Morgan says:

    I’m pretty sure Valentine was a new episode last night, I hadn’t seen it before anyway.

  13. Bill Gorman says:

    Rhuw, thanks for the heads up. Our info definitely said repeat, but that’s the kind of error that has happened before with our data.

  14. dave says:

    the article says the simpons got a 6.0 in the i guess new “18-48″ demo lol.

  15. haha Dave, just an honest typo. I wouldn’t deliberately try to short Bill and myself out of that last year in the demo.

  16. Rhuw, thanks — I took the (R) status out. Wiki, and the show web sites themselves seem to indicate that all three were new last night. Plus, with Easy Money and Valentine’s production ceased with new episodes remaining, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have burned them up.

  17. Mandy says:

    valentine was a repeat of episode 2

  18. and putting the (R) status back in… I guess the reason not to burn the couple of new episodes up is it give them more time for “what’s to come”

  19. tom says:

    just read an interview with seth mcfarland and in it he says american dad beats the simpsons regularly… is that true? joking? a misquote? i don’t remember seeing american dad doing better but is it winning in some demo?

  20. Tom, Mcfarland’s FAMILY GUY regularly beats The Simpsons in the 18-34 and 18-49 demos (not last night though). As for American Dad, there might be *some* demo it beats the Simpsons regularly in, but i’m not familiar with it.

  21. tom says:

    thanks. i think fg is helped by the later slot… but it also has stronger competition.

    he was definitely not talking about family guy… he clearly is talking about american dad.

    AP: “American Dad!” has always been the stepchild of “Family Guy” in terms of viewers and critics.
    MacFarlane: It’s had a struggle. “American Dad!” has had a struggle. But now it’s regularly beating “The Simpsons.”

    just seems odd to me.

  22. why not provide the link?

  23. R.J. says:

    I’m Impresed with the FOX animated show ratings. But i think FOX should be doing better than 4th place for the hole night. With King Of The Hill hiting 8 million, i have questons why fox even cancelled it in the first place. It’s not one of my favorite fox sunday show, but it’s good. FG did better than i tought it would. AD i’m also impresed with.

    Can anyone explan the rating sare for me?

  24. Ike says:

    Robert, sorry to be a grammar fanatic, but you misspelled Daylight Saving Time as “Daylight’s Savings Time.” Bizarrely, it is actually spelled Daylight Saving Time (just re-check that Wikipedia link and you’ll see what I mean), not Savings, and certainly not Daylights or Daylight’s. Also, you spelled The Simpsons as “The Simpson’s.” What belongs to a Simpson in that sentence? (I wonder where all of the modern era’s rampant apostrophe abuse originates.)

    Anyway, if I remember correctly, 60 Minutes usually gets a boost after the end of Daylight Saving Time. I’m not sure about other 8 p.m. programs. In the case of Chuck, I sure hope so, but we’ll have to wait a week to find out.

  25. Ike, never comment on this blog again.

    Thank you.

  26. Anthony says:

    Damn The Simpsons has some strong pulling power.

    Certainly keeps bringing in audiences

  27. Sam says:

    Ike, anyone who quotes Wikipedia and tells others to check that as a point of verifying facts is automatically discredited in every way, shape, or form. Really, can’t we do better than those standards for research? like I don’t know… navy.mil, energy.gov, LA Times, Baltimore Sun, microsoft.com. All those are much better sources for verifying your point and it took no longer than 10 seconds to find. For someone so anal about others’ detail mistakes, you sure have some pretty poor standards yourself.

  28. cesarrr says:

    I hate THE SIMPSONS, think it’s a dumb show, I can’t believe it’s still on the air. FAMILY GUY is 10,000 times better, and it never gets old. I’m so glad that it regularly beats the simpsons in total viewers and the demos.

    Here in Argentina, and most of Latin America, The Simpsons airs in the afternoons, along with cartoons , as if it was a children’s show. I think that’s funny.

  29. Sam, in fairness, I trust Wiki quite often and Ike was right about my mistakes, but wrong to assume that just because I am not always (or even usually) careful to edit my work here that I don’t know the difference between a possessive a contraction and a typo. Especially since he isn’t paying for the product he needs to keep his inner grammar Nazi to himself.

    I know there are many people who have a bug up their butts about certain things — and for some it’s apostrophes. These errors bug many people (hi Julia!) but most have the decency to overlook it. My pet peeve is “Your” vs. “You’re” but it’s only a peeve for me when someone says “Your a moron” or “your an idiot”. ;)

    As for Daylight Saving Time, I learned something. I really did always think it was Daylight Savings Time

  30. Johnthemon says:

    good for the Simpsons! American Dad also did quite well tonight, and Family Guy. Go FOX!

  31. Dennis says:

    Congrats to the Simpsons, I’m kinda glad that people still wanna see the show that I grew up with…

  32. Tom, damned if you do…our spam filter caught the link. Sorry about that, it has been freed.

    I read the article. I have no idea what he is talking about. Perhaps it regularly beats the Simpsons when the Simpsons is a rerun and American Dad isn’t (I’m not even sure if that’s true). But I couldn’t find any airing where Dad beat The Simpsons, though it has been *close* in the demos at least a couple of times

  33. tom says:

    it’s sort of interesting how fox loves macfarland and has given him dad and the new spinoff but matt g had to fight tooth and nail to get 4 seasons out of futurama. his reward was a bad timeslot and preemptions. if futurama had been given the post simpsons slot like dad has with family guy then futurama would have been huge and not relied on cartoon network reruns to revive itself.

  34. Gleebo says:

    Holy crap! Where did all those Simpsons viewers come from?

    9/28 – 9.30 mil
    10/5 – 7.431 mil
    10/19 – 8.090 mil
    11/2 – 12.48 mil

    That’s one hell of a jump from the season average so far! And after being pre-empted last week for the World Series, usually this hurts shows, but not the Simpsons. I wonder if a lot of people didn’t realize the show had even started a new season yet and thought that THOH IX was the Season premiere like they have done with some seasons (12-16 all started the season in November with a Tree House of Horrors ep).

  35. JT says:

    I think “Family Guy” is horrible. While I agree “The Simpsons” is horrible as well (did anyone here actually watch that episode…worst Treehouse episode ever!), at least it used to be good. Family Guy has never been good in my humble opinion. By the way, I now only watch the Treehouse episodes of the Simpsons, but this may have been the last year.

  36. Gleebo here are my guesses:

    1. All airings other than last night aired during daylight saving time. Last night, standard time.

    2. Fox promoted the hell out of the episode the last two weeks, at least during all the sports I watched (NFL and World series)

    3. The annual “Treehouse of Horror” episodes are very popular

  37. tom says:

    calm down jt. luckily many people disagree with you. i liked treehouse 19 very much. opening was great. transformers cute but short. loved the great pumpkin. the mad men thing was good. i’m sure i’ll love it more next year. treehouses and simpsons always get better with time… sort of like wine. like you whining about how bad it and fg is.

  38. Andrea says:

    Hey guys,

    I just read in the New York Times an article that said CBS was leading the other networks in the key demo (18-49). Is this true?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/business/media/03ratings.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=cbs%20ratings&st=cse&oref=slogin

  39. Andrea says:

    Hey guys,

    I posted a link in my last thread. Possible it was eaten by the spam filter?

  40. Andrea, yes, it was eaten by the spam filter, sorry. I’ve freed it. It’s true (linked to that NYT story last night) and Bill publishes (Thursdays) the weekly season-to-date network comparisons:

    http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/10/29/cbs-fox-split-season-to-date-leads-after-5-weeks/7146

  41. Andrea says:

    Thanks!

  42. ABCFanatic says:

    DH rocks the ratings while B/S and TAR are hitting its seasons low hope it rises

  43. Rhuw Morgan says:

    Valentine was a Repeat at 6pm of Episode 2 with the arrival of Ari, but at 8pm it was a brand new episode with the guy from Greek in it as a personal trainer who used to go out with Kate. Maybe Mandy watched the earlier episode?

  44. Stephen says:

    Some say it was a new episode of Valentine and others claim it was a repeat, maybe different in certain places? Easy Money seems to have been a repeat everywhere.

  45. Gleebo says:

    That’d be crazy if ABC picked up King of the Hill. Most people rank it far under the Simpsons and Family Guy but that show has been a damn warhorse for the network. I wonder how many combined timeslot changes they made between KotH and Malcolm in the Middle over the years…yet both still kept trudging along with acceptable but modest ratings.

    Along with them picking up Scrubs you gotta wonder how much cheaper it is for a network to just pick up an established series from another network. Is it possible that spending time and money on huge ad campaigns to launch a new series and film a pilot far more of a financial drain than just picking up a show with a pre existing fan base?

  46. ABCFanatic says:

    why would ABC pick up King of the Hills

    ABC picked up Scrubs because Scrubs is part of ABC studios

    I don’t think King of the Hills is part of ABC studios

  47. DaisiesDeathKnell says:

    The King Of The Hill pickup from ABC is very, very unlikely. It’s only rumored and it would only have the potential of happening if Judge’s new series, The Goode Family, proves successful on ABC. It probably won’t. It and Scrubs will post decent numbers but the Goode Family will need GREAT numbers if ABC wants to air it next fall afters Scrubs finishes. So, really, a King Of The Hill pickup from ABC hinges on far too many factors.


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