Comments on: Friday Nielsen Ratings: CBS Makes a Night out of It

By: cesarrr

cesarrr — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:01:33 +0000

tony s.
first of all, the US has a population of over 300 million (not 500!!!!)And with all the immigrants that ignore the anglo-mainstream culture (or people who don´t have english as their first language and/or illegal immigrants) I think is over 280,000,000 AMERICANS.

According to NIELSEN, people are watching more TV than ever, even with the competition from the internet and other media. So the viewership overall it’s not declining.

Cable viewership (especially the News) is INCREASING

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:30:22 +0000

WWE on MyNetwork Friday Night tied FOX for 18-49 at 8pm, and tied them for 3rd at 9pm.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:16:23 +0000

Thornton, None. I’m sure everyone involved in that show has long ago moved on.

By: Thornton

Thornton — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:50:23 +0000

Any chance CBS might consider ordering 13 more weeks of “Close to Home”? Another season or so of that show would open the door to syndication revenues.

By: clutz12001

clutz12001 — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:55:25 +0000

Do you think the down economy will correlate (spuriously or otherwise) to an increase in Friday night TV ratings overall? Less going out might mean more couch potato time . Not yet for NBC and ABC, but CBS might be an early indicator here. If so, Fox just may pull something off with their stay-at-home sci-fi block on Friday nights. People with less money to spend, who are looking for a cheap way to escape on Firday nights, just might give Dollhouse a chance. Not sure about TSCC though. That might be a tough show for viewers to pick up midstream.

By: Julia

Julia — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:45:06 +0000

tjd_chill, Numb3rs scored higher than last week’s 2.3, so I would assume this is more than the current average.

By: tjd_chill

tjd_chill — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:17:12 +0000

What does Numb3rs gross rating translate into in the 18-49 demo? On your Renew/Cancel index, they seem to be averaging about 2.8MM. Is this consistent for this week?

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:38:37 +0000

I read your post about Friday before this one, but I think this proves that Friday can actually draw viewers. I am not a fan of either Ghost Whisperer or Numbers (I refuse to put a 3 in place of the “e”), but 11 million on a Friday is damn good, hell that’s better than some series aired Monday-Thursday! What I find most interesting is that a repeat of NCIS drew 11.26 million viewers — a repeat! If CBS truly wanted a great anchor show for Friday imagine what new episodes of NCIS could draw? Could it draw it’s normal 17 million, probably not, but what could be hurt with trying it out. Since moving repeats of NCIS to Friday both Ghost Whisperer and Numbers have seen increases in viewership.

I’ve never bought into the idea that Fridays should be abandoned by the networks. The failure of series on Friday has as much to do with their poor quality than viewer apathy towards network television on that night. CBS has always had good success on Friday going back 20+ years with top ten series like The Dukes of Hazzard, Dallas, and Falcon Crest. JAG was a very successful Friday series, and The X-Files got its start on Fridays. Imagine what CBS could do if they put a series like CSI on Friday? CSI doesn’t draw 18 million people because it’s on Thursday; it draws 18 million people because it’s a great series. Put quality programming on Fridays and people will come.

By: DaisiesDeathKnell

DaisiesDeathKnell — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:24:25 +0000

Damn. I was hoping Numb3rs would continue to flounder commercially, then maybe Rob Morrow will come back to Northern Exposure.

By: Denise

Denise — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:37:53 +0000

I wish NBC had kept Las Vegas. My Friday nights are pretty boring TV wise and my DVR failed me in recording Ghost Whisperer.

By: Julia

Julia — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:58:38 +0000

Josh, as was explained, the problem in the US is audience fragmentation. Even on a Friday night when supposedly no one watches TV, and especially not young people, approximately 31% of 18-49 year olds were watching at 8pm. But only 8% were watching broadcast nets. And it was even worse at 9. 34% were watching TV, but only 7.5% the broadcast nets.

By: josh

josh — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:49:54 +0000

i know what the British guy means though (at the top) Anything below 5m viewers on our manin channels is seen as bad… but some US stff gets around that! and the US has like 5 times our population!

By: Alde

Alde — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:15:11 +0000

I don’t know, John.

From article:

“The off-network sale essentially closes the door on the possibility of the show continuing with new episodes on CBS or another network.”

No way to misinterpret this. However, as previously noted, there hasn’t been an official information regarding Swingtown yet nor has there really been any news other than the link I gave. As I wrote above somewhere, it *might* be OK to assume that the future of the show isn’t set in stone yet. That being said, the future doesn’t really seem nothing other than bleak.

By: ABCFanatic

ABCFanatic — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:28:34 +0000

CBS owns friday!

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 06:27:15 +0000

I remember when Providence on NBC used to get around 15 million viewers per epsiode in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. I wish there was better programing on Fridays. Especially for young moms who stay at home. I do like the Starter Wife on USA.

By: John T. Folden

John T. Folden — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:58:56 +0000

Alde, I think you are misinterpreting the wording of that article.

The facts are these:
a) Bravo bought the 13, already produced episodes.
b) Bravo did not buy the series rights, simply a straight acquisition of existing product
c) CBS has not made a decision
d) the fact CBS chose to sell off the rerun rights of the first season doesn’t bode well for a pick up elsewhere.

There’s nothing there that states CBS can’t make more episodes because of this deal, otherwise they wouldn’t point out that CBS hasn’t made a decision yet.

However, I can add that CBS has wiped the Swingtown related content from their press site. If they intended to bring the series back, I doubt they would do this.

By: Julia

Julia — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:14:26 +0000

Tony, why would they want to move NCIS there permanently when it is their second highest rated scripted show in first runs? This would drop it to the bottom half. They get the best of both worlds here. Great first run numbers, and then second showings that win the timeslot and the night. They are getting more bang for their buck this way.

By: Alde

Alde — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:42:00 +0000

And here’s the link, I knew I wasn’t dreaming this…

http://www.tvrage.com/Swingtown/news/?read_news=4742

It really is unfortunately because it was easily one of my favorite shows over the summer… obviously.

By: Alde

Alde — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:36:32 +0000

Umm, I’m afraid you’re wrong, Tracy. I read an article month ago or so which was saying that Bravo bought the rights for showing the re-runs at the end of this year or next, can’t recall. Basically the argument was that
once the purchase is done, CBS can’t do more episodes and Bravo just won’t.

Though, yeah. Nothing is officially set in stone yet.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:47:36 +0000

Marco, “Swingtown” has not been canceled. No official word from CBS yet. Chances are if/when it would come back is in the Summer. Producer Mike Kelley has said he’d rather leave it that way. Summer seems to be the only time of year for different programming.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:38:30 +0000

If an NCIS repeat is doing this well on a Friday night, maybe they should move the show to this day permanently. I’m sure the thought has popped into the CBS execs’ head.

By: Julia

Julia — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:17:47 +0000

byeu, CBS can certainly be satisfied because they don’t have to put out any money to produce this show and it still gets much better ratings, including in the demo, than previous shows they put there.

The ad rates go by slot. They can get better ad rates Friday at 9 with repeats of NCIS than they could with new episodes of Moonlight or The Ex-List.

By: byeu

byeu — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:12:50 +0000

Maybe CBS is finally waking up and taking their “lemons,” in terms of their audience age, and making “lemonade.” Of course, NCIS has been a steady show and has now gronw its audience over six seasons, so CBS is taking a proven show and putting it in its trouble spot, and its working. However, does CBS have to take a lower ad rate for reruns since they don’t bring in as many viewers generally, or can they still get a good rate if they show still gets good numbers? I am sure that CBS certainly prefers that 11 million number over the lower ones, but even at that number, that’s about six million less than NCIS gets with a new show. Can CBS be satisfied with the good numbers, or are they going to have to find a new show of some kind soon to take that spot, even when an old one is doing so well?

By: John T. Folden

John T. Folden — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:09:26 +0000

I think this shows that Fridays are not dead, at least for CBS – they were just choosing the wrong line up.

By: Johnthemon

Johnthemon — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:59:09 +0000

wow, Crusoe’s doing worse than I ever expected. Friday’s are an absolute dead zone.