The three and a half inning curiosity to conclude game five of the World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Philadelphia Phillies led Fox to the top of the charts. It was last week’s top-ranked program, both in total viewers and 18-49 year old viewers. Congrats again to the Phillies. The ratings have led some sports pundits to suggest that all baseball games should be three innings. I think more accurately what it means, as some of the pundits have suggested is that these games start too late. If you’re on the east coast and have a fairly normal sleeping pattern, you have no hope of ever seeing the last few inning of most games that start at 8:30pm.
I know the start times are driven by the desire to be in primetime, but I can’t help but think Fox would be better off in the end if it started these games at 7p or 7:30p eastern time. Sure, people on the west coast will have problem catching the beginning of the game, but at least everyone in the country wouldn’t struggle as much to catch the end of the game. Moving right along…
CBS placed the most shows in the overall top twenty with eight, but five out of eight of them did not land in the 18-49 demographic top twenty-five. I think the New York Times writing about CBS’ season lead in the 18-49 demo through last week might have been the equivalent of the “Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx“. We’ll see. ABC and Fox tied with five shows each in the list, and NBC could muster but two shows – Sunday Night Football and its pregame. The peacocks fared a bit better in the 18-49 top twenty, where NBC placed five shows.
The extremely rare occurrence: a Saturday airing making the weekly top twenty. ABC’s Saturday Night Football college matchup between then number one Texas and then number seven Texas Tech was the week’s seventeenth most watched program. Texas Tech won in dramatic fashion in a great game, it was definitely the highlight of my own TV viewing week, so it’s great to see it make the list.
It is sort of amazing to me that NCIS can draw soooo many viewers and still not wind up in the 18-49 top twenty-five. I could opine on this, but it would only get me into trouble. So on to the list…
Nielsen Top Twenty Shows by viewers for the week ending 11/02/08:
| Rank | Shows | R=Repeat S=Special P=Premiere | Net | # Viewers (LIVE+SD) (000) | HH RATING (LIVE+SD) | HH SHARE (LIVE+SD) | 18-49 Rank |
| 1 | FOX WRLD SERIES GM5 CONCL(S) | S | FOX | 19,844 | 11.9 | 18 | 1 |
| 2 | CSI | CBS | 19,098 | 11.7 | 18 | 9 | |
| 3 | DANCING WITH THE STARS | ABC | 18,876 | 12.0 | 18 | 13 | |
| 4 | DANCING W/STARS RESULTS | ABC | 17,445 | 11.0 | 16 | 18 | |
| 5 | NCIS | CBS | 17,258 | 10.8 | 16 | ||
| 6 | NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL | NBC | 16,741 | 10.6 | 16 | 2 | |
| 7 | MENTALIST, THE | CBS | 16,073 | 10.1 | 15 | 20 | |
| 8 | DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES | ABC | 15,933 | 10.1 | 15 | 4 | |
| 9 | GREY’S ANATOMY-THU 9PM | ABC | 15,319 | 10.0 | 15 | 5 | |
| 10 | 60 MINUTES | CBS | 14,322 | 9.1 | 14 | ||
| 11 | CRIMINAL MINDS | CBS | 13,966 | 8.9 | 13 | ||
| 12 | CSI: NY | CBS | 13,754 | 8.9 | 15 | ||
| 13 | HOUSE | FOX | 13,498 | 8.0 | 12 | 6 | |
| 14 | FOX WORLD SERIES GAME 5(S) | S | FOX | 13,237 | 8.2 | 12 | 17 |
| 15 | SURVIVOR: GABON | CBS | 13,015 | 7.7 | 13 | 16 | |
| 16 | SIMPSONS | FOX | 12,397 | 6.8 | 10 | 3 | |
| 17 | SAT NIGHT FOOTBALL | ABC | 12,204 | 7.5 | 14 | ||
| 18 | WITHOUT A TRACE | CBS | 12,192 | 8.1 | 13 | ||
| 19 | FOX WRLD SRS GM5 CONCLPRE(S) | S | FOX | 12,080 | 7.3 | 12 | 23 |
| 20 | SUNDAY NIGHT NFL PRE-KICK | NBC | 12,025 | 7.7 | 12 | 14 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
All numbers above based on live plus same day DVR viewing.
I don’t understand why the final three inning of the baseball game should be seperated from the rest of the game. I think the entire game or program should receive a cumlative rating. Even for a one hour show I believe Neilsen measures the quarter hours so I guess one could even look for the most watched segment in a show but that seems overdone.
David, that’s a Nielsen rule — they don’t combine airings that span multiple nights. From Nielsen’s perspective it was two separate airings, even though it was only one MLB game with one box score…
Oh CSI. You’re always up there, even in your 9th season. Interesting that NCIS has seemed to skyrocket in total viewer rankings from last season against House which keeps dropping too… though it did slightly better than last week – dropped in the 18-49 demo though.
Thanks for all the numbers though!
Why does ABC treat ‘Greys Anatomy’ like their #1 priority when ‘Desperate Housewives’ has always been a higher rated show (except in the 06-07 season), ‘Desperate Housewives’ has shown it has longevity while most of their other shows have practically sunk in the ratings. It’s the real powerhouse on that roaster.
Sam, by the measure ABC cares about most (adults 18-49 viewership), Grey’s *is* their #1 show.
Their Season to Date 18-49 average viewership is:
Grey’s: 8.278 million
Housewives: 7.949 million
But that difference is so small that my guess is that ABC loves both of them the same.
Here’s a good idea for CBS Friday at 9, put 48 Hours Mystery which does pretty good on Saturday, put it on Friday at 9. If repeats of NCIS is put there this show is going to burn out fast. USA has it at least two times daily.
Sam,
Another reason ABC might put so much emphasis on Grey’s is because of the night it airs. Thursday is a very lucrative night in terms of advertising, because all of the movie studios want to push their new movies the day before they open. Thus, bringing in a new viewer to Grey’s might actually be more valuable than bringing one to Desperate Housewives.
How are the new episodes of Family Guy doing? Sunday nights on FOX.
Stephany, FG is doing well, if not in total numbers, at least among 18-49 year olds. Last week it was #7 on the list of 18-49 shows and we’re pretty sure that’s the more important list:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/category/top-broadcast-by-age