| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 16.59 | 13.94 | 11.05 | 6.73 | 2.78 | .58 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 4.4/11 | 5.3/13 | 3.9/9 | 3.1/7 | 1.1/3 | 0.2/0 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 3.2/8 | 4.8/13 | 2.9/8 | 3.8/10 | 1.2/3 | 0.2/1 |
10:00am PST: Updated with show data table below.
CBS won the night in total viewers, fueled by roughly 30 minutes of NFL football overrun and 60 Minutes worth of president elect Barack Obama. Due to the nature of the way overnight ratings are calculated (see definitions below) the numbers for CBS are subject to change, but it looks like CBS averaged 24.49 million viewers for 60 Minutes with Obama, and while there was a drop off from half hour to half hour (first half hour 25.11 million, second 23.866) it wasn’t huge. According to CBS, 60 Minutes was partying like it’s 1999.
NBC easily won both the 18-49 and 18-34 year old demos with a Sunday Night Football contest featuring the Dallas Cowboys (beating up on my Washington Redskins). The Redskins losing at home to the Cowboys is bad news for me, but having the Cowboys is always good news for the networks as they seem to command the highest national ratings. That nonsense about “America’s Team” may not be nonsense.
60 Minutes also dominated with 18-49 year olds, pulling a 6.4/16 (rating/share) between 7:30-8:30p. It also fared well with 18-34 year olds (4.7/13), though in the second half hour Bart Simpson narrowly defeated the president elect among 18-34 year olds (4.7/13 to 4.6/12). But The Simpsons still got spanked that half hour among 18-49 year olds (6.3/15 to 3.9/9), but considering it had around a third of the viewers (8.52 million), not too shabby.
What’s somewhat surprising to me here is to see ABC lagging to a fourth place finish for the night among 18-34 year olds. Sure, CBS isn’t going to have NFL overrun and Obama every Sunday night, but that still has to be a little disconcerting for the Mouse. It can savor that at least it was third among 18-49 year olds. And Desperate Housewives finished second among 18-49 year olds, but trailed both the football game and Family Guy among 18-34 year olds in the 9pm half hour (DH got a 4.6/11 to FG’s 5.4/13). And things aren’t all bad at ABC, DH with 16.55 million viewers was up vs. last week’s 15.71 in the overnights.
Seeing the half hourly data for the Sunday Night Football game is somewhat interesting. The 8:30pm half hour had the most viewers of the event (17.68 million) but the 10pm half hour the most 18-49 viewers (6.7/16) but the 10:30pm half hour the most 18-34 viewers of the contest (6.3/17).
Last Sunday’s overnight details are available if you want to compare.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 7:00 | CBS | NFL Football Overun | 25.34 | 7.7/21 | 6.3/20 |
| ABC | NASCAR Racing: Sprint Cup | 7.37 | 2.4/7 | 1.4/5 | |
| NBC | Football Night in America | 7.31 | 2.7/8 | 2.1/7 | |
| FOX | King of the Hill (R) | 3.83 | 1.5/4 | 1.6/5 | |
| CW | In Harms Way (R) | 0.71 | 0.2/1 | 0.3/1 | |
| 7:30 | CBS | 60 Minutes | 24.49 | 6.4/16 | 4.7/13 |
| FOX | The Simpsons (R) | 5.58 | 2.4/6 | 2.8/8 | |
| 8:00 | NBC | Football Night in America | 11.82 | 4.5/11 | 4.0/11 |
| ABC | Extreme Makeover: Home Edition | 10.21 | 3.4/8 | 2.5/6 | |
| FOX | The Simpsons | 8.52 | 3.9/9 | 4.7/13 | |
| CW | Valentine (R) | 0.55 | 0.2/0 | 0.2/1 | |
| 8:30 | NBC | Sunday Night Football 8:30-11p | 17.02 | 6.5/15 | 6.0/15 |
| CBS | The Amazing Race | 12.25 | 3.4/8 | 2.4/6 | |
| FOX | King of the Hill | 7.04 | 3.2/7 | 3.9/10 | |
| 9:00 | ABC | Desperate Housewives | 16.55 | 6.1/13 | 4.8/12 |
| FOX | Family Guy | 8.52 | 4.2/9 | 5.4/13 | |
| CW | Easy Money (R) | 0.48 | 0.1/0 | 0.1/0 | |
| 9:30 | CBS | Cold Case | 12.05 | 2.9/7 | 1.8/5 |
| FOX | American Dad | 6.78 | 3.2/7 | 4.2/10 | |
| 10:00 | ABC | Brothers & Sisters | 10.07 | 3.7/9 | 2.9/8 |
| 10:30 | CBS | The Unit | 9.80 | 2.5/6 | 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.
Yay for Desperate Housewives! It was a really good episode. It deserves the increase!
ABC is not worried, CBS doesnt have Obama every week. In the winter, with no football NBC will be DOA like always.
Desperate Housewives’s episode city on fire was huge,awesome and exciting.
I wonder if Andy Rooney kills any potential holdovers to “The Amazing Race.” Presumably, a lot of younger people are watching Obama, and would watch the race if it went straight into it. But instead you get old out-of-touch Andy Rooney on for 5 minutes and there comes the channel flipping.
Wow. The CW might as well broadcast dead air on Sunday nights.
Angie, presumably dead air doesn’t pay and MRC (Media Rights Capital, which programs –though likely not for long — the current Sunday shows) does. But from a pure ratings perspective, dead air would give it a run for its money, and I’m sure dead air on CBS would beat it.
more people watched the chargers/steelers football overrun than the future prez 1st interview….sweet.
dave, Sunday national NFL games, particularly the 4pm Eastern games are almost always the most viewed TV shows of the week during the NFL season routinely averaging 20+ million viewers. The US is an NFL nation.
Note that we don’t post the non-primetime sports show data any longer because we don’t get it until Fridays (and inconsistently at that), and by then the user traffic indicated that people just didn’t care.
simpsons was up vs. last week. even with the huge 60 minutes competish. and up .3 in the 18-34. was a great episode too. funny and a very sweet ending with homer and lisa. family guy was just terrible. i’m a big fan of the show… but they’ve been having a rough year creatively so far. anyone else see them? i was really blown away how unfunny FG was. maybe mcfarland is too busy prepping the spinoff.
and i think it’s definitely time for abc to bring in a new show after DH. brothers and sisters could do better and it’s been on long enough to fly the coop and stand on it’s own… or at least try to. but i don’t think abc has the balls to do move it.
Robert: if you must reference a “pop song” does it have to be from Prince?
(kidding)
Rick take Andy Rooney for who and what he is…an old curmudgeon! If anything interferes with TAR’s ratings its probably football or the home makeover show.
I see Desperate Houswives is getting Desperate itself – pulling an OLD TRAGEDY SITUATION from the “80’s evening time soap operas” to increase their viewership…
which means writers are running out of ideas for this stupid show that has girls under 17 watching (according to the ratings)
That’s a sign of desperation – like the old days, Tornados, Gun Massacres, Building cave ins on the entire cast – who makes it and who doesn’t???
who cares!!!!…
In this case -lets hope the writers don’t make it and this show and it’s scripts are BURNED as well.
R.G. you really have some anger and “other” issues going on. maybe you should lay off the tv for a while. get outside.
tom…LOL…No, not angry…just tired of C-R-A-P!
DH writers never ran out of ideas because they never had them at all
RG why so much hatred for DH? It is a soap opera, and the viewers who watch know that and love it. And to answer your question who cares? Well, I know you don’t, but the 16.55 million people who watched do.
I think DH is a lot more entertaining than most of the shows on tv. Clearly there are other shows that are more intellectually stimulating, but I doubt that was the writers point. While I’m not a big fan of the 80’s primetime soaps, DH is different because it doesn’t take itself so seriously. I think that DH has done for the primetime soap kind of what Scream did for the slasher films. There is a good element of humor and melodrama in that show, just as Scream incorporated humor with terror.
Man, The Simpsons keep surprising me. Even with a huge competition they are able to pull in that many vievers. I thought this would be the last season of The Simpsons, because the ratings of last season were terrible, but it looks great for the longest-running (and also best) series ever.
how anyone can critize DH 4 16.55 million viewers is beyond me because in te break down of viewers dh is in the top 5 as of now as it relates to scripted shows dh does very well besides when yr end primetime ratings comes out 60 minutes and NFL wont be counted so DH is doing very well at the time.
FOX should add an extra hour on Sundays or NBC should move Heroes to Sundays @ 10 in midseason for retaining the 18-34 demo.
American Dad still has a lower rating than King Of THe Hill again, and FOX still is cancelling King instead of American Dad.
And, RJ, once again, there are other factors involved besides ratings. Commenting on it every week is not going to change that.
I actually watched the 7pm episode of ‘King of the Hill’ last night for the first time in a few years. I was surprised by how funny it was, so I guess I can understand why RJ is upset about it…especially considering how lame ‘American Dad’ actually is.
To Tom:
I actually thought last night’s FG was one of the better episodes of the season so far.
Another very average performance by The Unit, despite this being the most hyped episode of the season since the premier. It’s such a great show, I just don’t understand why more people don’t watch it. Should I be getting seriously worried about it’s future yet?
JT, i won’t say that American Dad is lame, i just thnk King Of THe Hill is better than American Dad, and King of THe Hill has the better ratings.
Julia, What other factors are they for it to be cancelled, and i don’t post it EVERY WEEK!!!
I don’t have inside information like that, but it could be that FOX needs to keep Seth MacFarlane happy, so they aren’t going to dump American Dad. Or American Dad could have much better DVD sales. Or King of the Hill long ago reached enough episodes for syndication, so keeping American Dad around will be more profitable in the long run. Or maybe King of the Hill producers just couldn’t come to an agreement with FOX.
Possible reasons:
American Dad is close to the magic 100 for syndication.
American Dad might get more revenue from iTunes, Hulu, Fox.com, etc, though thats always a small reason.
I think AD should be cancelled over KOTH. AD’s ratings have been on a decline, while KOTH’s have remained steady this far into its runs the past few years, even going up. AD is declining like a regular show does; if it wasn’t animated, wouldn’t a 3-4 year run be seen as giving it its chance?
I think it far more likely that on the animation side, Fox decided to throw the big bucks at Seth McFarlane and given the demo numbers for Family Guy, that’s a smart move. Fox has the Cleveland Show coming, needed a slot for it, and didn’t feel like in the trade off of cost/value, KoTH was the way to go. All of that seems reasonable to me. Whether somebody else is willing to pay big $$ for KOTH, and whether that changes Fox’s mind remains to be seen, but from a purely business perspective, it make sense to me.
I don’t know that it’s fair to compare KOTH and AD ratings because AD has to go up against DH, and KOTH doesn’t. Last night, AD had the better ratings overall (tied in 18-49, AD beat KOTH among 18-34) even if KOTH had slightly more viewers. When the (speculated) cost issues for one show vs. the other are factored in, plus Fox betting on McFarlane, Fox’s decision-making seems sane enough.
Julia, I thnk FOX has a contract to keep with Seth to keep macking episodes of the 2 animated series til 2012, and i thnk they are doing american dad so seth won’t refuse to stop macking family guy, one of the #1 shows.
RObert, i know King Of The HIll is airing in local markets across the country, and on FX, and i thnk it’s supose to be starting on Adult Swim in January of 2009, i thnk i heard. So maybe, like you said, there keepind American Dad so it can go into Snyc vaule, and American Dad racks in more DVD money.
Look at that 18-49 rating for “King of the Hill” and how many shows would just kill to get that rating. Why on earth is FOX stopping production?
Rob R, because they think The Cleveland Show will do as well or better, and they’re already paying Seth M. anyway and don’t want to spend more money on Judge and crew?
Michael think its always tough when they move a “staple” show like the unit (tuesdays @ 9) to a different day and time. Personally would like to see Without a trace back at 10. However would think the unit can carry its own especially after the mentalist being the top rated new show of the season.
Michael, I am an avid fan of The Unit. The fact that it’s doing “just average” is a miracle since CBS doesn’t even advertise the show. The last 2 episodes “Into Hell Parts 1&2″ have been great but no advertising from CBS not even during the football games last Sunday but saw a lot of advertising for Cold Case and next week’s lineup—-still no Unit advertising.
King of the Hill stinks