| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 12.83 | 8.23 | 6.01 | 5.88 | 4.23 | 3.48 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 3.5/10 | 2.6/7 | 1.8/5 | 2.0/5 | 1.5/4 | 1.7/4 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 2.1/6 | 2.2/6 | 1.4/4 | 1.8/5 | 1.5/5 | 2.0/6 |
What, you thought the headline was going to be “Pushing Daisies DOOMED?” We already knew that and the headline of “CBS Wins, Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Life and Knight Rider Lose” is too long for our home page to handle elegantly so…yay Tyra Banks!
CBS won the most viewers for the night, as well as the 18-49 year old demographic, and Fox took the 18-34 demographic on the strength of Bones (and a rerun of House).
The writing is scrawled across the wall for Pushing Daisies. And it’s scrawled in big letters. PD averaged less than 5 million viewers (4.86) and further, it lost viewers from one half hour to the next (5.21 million to 4.51 million). Dirty Sexy Money’s numbers weren’t as bad as Pushing Daisies when it came to total viewers, it at least crossed the five million viewers mark, but it did just as badly among 18-49 year olds as Pushing Daisies did, and Daisies did better among 18-34 year olds. Private Practice is the lone ABC Wednesday entry that can claim even moderate ratings success.
Normally the writing on the wall (we think) should be fairly easy to read. But then there’s NBC. We’re sure they have a wall, and we’re sure there’s writing on it, but you must be under the influence of hallucinogenics to comprehend what they have written on it. I don’t think ABC is on hallucinogenics like that though, but fans of PD and DSM can hope ABC will take a page out of NBC’s book and give full season orders to the shows as NBC did with Knight Rider and Life.
Please note, this is not commentary on the quality of any show mentioned — only the numbers for the shows.
The CBS comedy block is gaining some strength at 8pm, and as ever, Criminal Minds led the way at 9pm. And both Criminal Minds and CSI: NY were up significantly versus last week when there was stiffer competition from the CMA Awards on ABC.
Tyra Banks has some legs on her literally, and as a ratings metaphor. Last night’s finale of America’s Next Top Model pulled in almost 5 million (4.8 million) and scored a hefty 4.3 rating among women 18-34. It was the night’s top show with women 18-34 and for all 18-34 year old viewing. According to the CW it was the best ANTM ratings performance since last December. Stylista got a little bump up as a result, but had well under half as many viewers as ANTM.
If you want to compare with last week’s overnight, here it is (but last week the CMAs ran on ABC)
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | FOX | Bones | 10.73 | 3.1/9 | 2.6/8 |
| CBS | The New Adventures of Old Christine | 8.09 | 2.5/7 | 1.4/5 | |
| NBC | Knight Rider | 5.12 | 1.5/4 | 1.4/4 | |
| ABC | Pushing Daisies | 4.86 | 1.8/5 | 1.8/6 | |
| CW | America’s Next Top Model | 4.80 | 2.3/6 | 2.8/8 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 4.69 | 1.7/4 | 1.8/5 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | Gary Unmarried | 8.14 | 2.7/7 | 1.7/5 |
| 9:00 | CBS | Criminal Minds | 16.38 | 4.3/11 | 2.7/7 |
| ABC | Private Practice | 7.14 | 2.4/6 | 2.2/6 | |
| FOX | House (R) | 5.73 | 2.2/5 | 1.8/5 | |
| NBC | Life | 5.32 | 1.7/4 | 1.4/4 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 4.62 | 1.6/4 | 1.8/5 | |
| CW | Stylista | 2.16 | 1.0/3 | 1.2/6 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI: NY | 14.00 | 3.8/10 | 2.2/7 |
| NBC | Law & Order | 7.58 | 2.2/6 | 1.4/4 | |
| ABC | Dirty Sexy Money | 5.63 | 1.8/5 | 1.4/4 | |
| UNI | Don Francisco Presenta | 3.38 | 1.2/3 | 1.2/4 |
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.
damnit. bye daisies, you will be missed more than firefly!
Why all the ratings are so low ?? Was it a special day in United States ?
yeah!!!!!!!!! gary unmarried hit 8 million!!!!!!!!!! such a funny show!
All the good shows get canceled! They should have a network for the people who enjoy the cult type shows. I mean Moonlight last year, probably Pushing Daisies and Eli Stone this year. And that’s jut to name a few. But most of the truly original, creative shows get canceled. Why do people mostly just want to watch the same old procedural and reality shows?
All ABC shows hit series lows last night, including ‘Private Practice.’ Still, I think ‘Eli Stone’ is the worst performing show on the network. Its 39% retention rate out of DWTS is beyond hideous.
When CW and Univision are nearly matching ABC in TOTAL VIEWERS at 8pm, then you know there’s a problem.
I really dont see why more people dont watch Life (other than its been moved 3 times already) because to me its such an enjoyable show. I’m realy glad Bones is doing such great numbers as I always get the impression the FOX hates the show. Private Practice is also doing ok but I would expect it to get a bump when it gets paired with Grey’s Anatomy. I think DSM, PD, STylista should get canceled and replaced by something better. I dont know about Knight RIder though haven’t watched and I read its undergoing some creative tweeking so time should tell.
What should I mail to UNI to save “Don Francisco Presenta” ?
I don’t believe the total viewers metrics matters in the least in this case, but when the CW is beating you outright in the 18-49 demographic by 28%, there is no spoonful of sugar to make that medicine go down.
Alex, I agree about Life.
To answer your question, probably because it’s on NBC and people don’t watch NBC (except on Thursdays).
Can anyone who watched ANTM last nigh, were there any previews for Supernatural? With GG, OTH, 90210 & Privleged not getting past 3 million, it makes me a little worried for SPN.
Is it safe to call gary unmarried a modest hit. I think it is. Correct me if i’m wrong but it has grown since its premiere and is encroaching on a 3.0 in the demo. I’d be surprised if this show doesn’t make it to the 100 episode syndication threshold.
It’s sad that Fox never moved T:SCC to Wednesdays at 9 pm. Sarah would have pulled in better numbers than House re-runs.
Amber,
I blabbed this same answer to a similar question in another post: People are creatures of habit. Apparently millions upon millions of people like to keep to a safe, comfortable daily routine – to keep it comfortable, I guess these people stick to the same shows, or styles of shows, that they’ve enjoyed in years past.
It wasn’t its own network, but Bravo used to have special runs of “Brilliant but Cancelled” series. They would rerun all the critically acclaimed but failed shows. I don’t know if they still do that.
With the continued fractionation of the TV viewing audience, there are some opportunities for “niche” shows such as PD and Eli. DirecTV’s the 101 is keeping “Friday Night Lights” alive. Universal HD airs “Jericho,” plus a few other shortly-lived series. Bravo used to do “Brilliant but Cancelled” features, I don’t know if they still do that or not. Niche markets may become profitable enough someday to support new series too. I hope so!
Robert, I have a theory… What if the NBC wall is like the garage wall in Terminator? And an NBC executive from the future came back in time and wrote all this cryptic crap on the wall and they know it’s important but have no idea what it all means, so they spend each week investigating the wall and comparing it to the numbers but have no idea if they’re making the future better or worse.
Of course, at the end of this season when House and 24 are dominating on Mondays, Idol is dominating everywhere else, and NBC is left with sunk or sinking shows, they may come to realize that the NBC executive time traveler was actually from FOX.
RE: “Niche markets may become profitable enough someday to support new series too. I hope so!”, clutz12001.
That’s what the web is for.
clutz, if it’s not the “viewers are too stupid,” it’s the “viewers are lemmings,” argument. There has never been anything to prove either one. In fact some “weird,” “sci fi,” and “critically acclaimed,” shows have been massive successes.
Sometimes good shows get bad time slots. Sometimes good shows don’t get promoted. Sometimes good serials are aired out of order and killed before they start. With PUSHING DAISIES you can’t say any of that. The only real competition for PUSHING DAISIES is BONES. However for much of the season KNIGHT RIDER was beating it. PUSHING DAISIES also was extremely well promoted.
There are probably real reasons that viewers started tuning out to PUSHING DAISIES. ABC has viewer panels to tell them why. I’m rather sure there isn’t anything that can be done to save PUSHING DAISIES from a fan or production stand point.
I wonder if ANTM was on ABC what kind of numbers it would have ?
“damnit. bye daisies, you will be missed more than firefly!”
No, it surely won’t.
Bones is always overlooked, its ratings and demo numbers have been great this year yet its garnered very little respect. Its always got the tag of ’solid’ but i think its gone beyond that to a ratings winner and popular show. As a long time bones fans seeing the numbers its been getting this year is something to celebrate given fox’s obvious backburnering of the show and lack of promotion.
As for Pushing Daises its dead and buried, the numbers its pulling in just aren’t good enough.
Smallville usually gets the viewers what America’s Next Top Model gets.
Nick C,
I may have oversimplified my opinion here. I don’t think all viewers are stupid. I don’t think all viewers are lemmings. I do think humans, in general, are creatures of habit. Once in a while, the “buzz” about a unique new show can propel it to “hit” status (Like LOST, or even DWTS). Once in a while, a unique show is given time to develop; if it develops well, it will build an audience (Seinfeld comes to mind there). There’s the the whole “everybody watches this, so I have to watch it” angle that cannot be denied. When something really is worth watching, that angle actually works well to turn a show into a hit.
Still, by and large, procedurals and formulaic sitcoms are format that most easily fit in habit creatures’ routines. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all; I’m saying it’s a perfectly normal thing. Not all of us are normal, and it’s nice to have options to suit us weirdos too. Like South Park
.
Eli Stone revolves around lawyers, DSM around family and Daisies around amateur detectives solving one murder per week. Just because they are inhabited by people almost as ridiculus and unbelievable doesn’t make them a reinvention of television.
House isn’t your average hospital drama, Numbers puts a new spin on crime procedurals (as did CSI before it became the very definition of crime procedurals) and Lost isn’t about any of the above mentioned things, yet those shows still enjoy success.
The people only watch the same old is such a tired argument.
WOW, Christine and Garry did good for once. WOW! I’m suprised, Maybe garry should get the full season instead of Worst Week
dave:
I think it is a little bit early to say Gary Unmarried will make it to 100 episodes, when it hasn’t even aired 10 yet!
It is exciting to see Old Christine back to the previous numbers it was hitting. I think CBS has a solid hour with Old Christine and Gary. Hopefully, we will be seeing them together again next year!
Ladiesman, Smallville doesnt get those viewers on average. The ratings this year have been low, with its recent episode taking in 3.4 million or something close to that in the finals. Smallville started off with mid 4 millions but then dropped. I expect a ratings up pick with Chloes wedding thou, the last episode to hit 5 million mark was the start of season 7.
R.J, Gary did get the full season. Worst Week only got picked up for an additional 3 episodes.
idizzle, Just because an arguement is tired, doesn’t mean it’s invalid. “Law and Order” and CSI are examples of why “same old” DOES work. Each hit series spawned at least 2 additional incarnations of the same basic format, and both became hits.
Numb3rs is an interesting point. It’s got a unique element (mathematics) balanced with a very traditional element (family).
Back to the topic of the thread, I can’t say PD or DSM interested me from the start. I suspect Eli will be done this year too, unless ABC wants to make one last attempt at becoming the latest network to achieve a “far-from-overnight success story.” That’s a really big risk to take on Eli Stone, which is already starting to lose its creative direction, IMHO.
OMG knight rider beat PD. im really shocked 4.86 million? i will say PD hasnt been good this yr maybe it deserves the axe.
Wow… 4.86 viewers? That’s a real pity for PD. It did do better than KR in the demos though, so that’s a plus for it. Still though, I never thought it’d go under the 5 million mark.
It never ceases to amaze me how little hype there is surrounding Bones and how it always pulls down good ratings no matter where FOX sticks it. Its not gonna blow any minds and get 15 or 20 million viewers but the 10 million or so it is getting is probably top 5 for FOX each week.
Medium kind of gets a similar treatment and hopefully it will start getting respect this season when they bring it back. Every year NBC seems to want to leave it til January/Feb, and every year the ratings new shows pull aren’t even close to what they can bank on from Medium.
Gleebo, Medium seems sure to get more airings this year with all the trouble NBC is having and My Own Worst Enemy getting nuked. I think I read somewhere they did order extra episodes of Medium, but I might have that wrong.
Gleebo, I think NBC is smart to hold Medium back. They have something they know they can rely on waiting in the wings for when their fall line up sucks. I’m not sure why fans in general seem to get upset when their show is renewed for mid season. It’s still coming back, and the network is going to give it to you straight through with pretty much no hiatuses.
Robbie?? Smallville is averaging 4.15 million this year? Were’d you get your info from?
Justin, i tough WW got picked up yesterday because of it’s high ratings on Monday? I did know about the aditonal 3 episodes.
I aready knew that Gary got a Full season. I thnk that might effect WW a little. I thnk what CBS should do is finish off with these 16 episodes, then put on Rules Of Ingagement, then bring WW back in the Fall of 2009. It would be a show just for fall, like how Rules Of Ingagement has only been on for Mid-Season.
Justin, i tough WW got picked up yesterday because of it’s high ratings on Monday? I did know about the aditonal 3 episodes.
I aready knew that Gary got a Full season. I thnk that might effect WW a little. I thnk what CBS should do is finish off with these 16 episodes, then put on Rules Of Ingagement, then bring WW back in the Fall of 2009. It would be a show just for fall, like how Rules Of Ingagement has only been on for Mid-Season so people won’t get sick of WW!
BONES is a solid show and FOX does a good job promoting it. I think that this season has shown it’s a network leader. I know the talk with producers on the show was extremely positive which is why it wasn’t sent to Friday (like it was planned, then again isn’t it always?)
Clutz, sorry but I’d have to say that since more shows get “axed,” than get picked up in first run programing that very little is “safe,” and sure some programs are when they are a spin off. However I think CSI and L&O have done a much better job with a spin off than almost any show in the past (right up there with the Jeffersons).
Nick C in my eyes fox is terrible at promoting bones, it gets very little adverts and advert airtime compared to say house and fringe, which are fox’s top 3 scripted shows right now.
Sammy01, IF you are right (fans of every show think their show is underpromoted, sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong)–Fringe gets a lot of promotion because it’s a new show (and new shows always get extra promotion). House gets a lot because 1) it’s their number one show (kind of like CSI gets more ads on CBS than any other show) and 2) it’s down significantly from last year. Bones is doing great right now, so the extra promotion isn’t needed as much. I’m sure you’ll see extra ads when it moves and, since it will be on the next day, it will probably get quite a few ads during the Wednesday Idol.
I really hope ‘Life’ survives and picks up. Interesting how it stays consistent around 5 million views for the past few weeks. Perhaps a few more episodes into the season and it will pick up, providing NBC keeps the program in the same timeslot!
The CW on the other hand, probably really should have picked up Moonlight. It really could use a program with 7-8 million viewers per episode. (Sorry, I don’t mean for this to turn into another Moonlight conversation!) What if the CW were to screen programs from other countries like Canada and the UK…hey just a thought…
Rick, as has been said many many many many times, those 7-8 million viewers would not make it over to a different network, and Moonlight would be just another low rated CW show.
Today was a horrible day for ABC, and Private Practice was really good. I am 100% sire ot will get a huge boost when it moves to after Grey’s. Frankly, don’t know why it wasn’t there in the 1st place.
I hope ABC can bounce back with a good Wednesday night, something worth watching. Other than that, very bleak night..
Maybe “Gary Unmarried” should get the “Worst Week” time slot after “Worst Week” runs out of joke. Did somebody here actually comment that “Worst Week” has “high ratings?” Because that’s certainly funnier than anything ON “Worst Week.”
Maybe if they’re really feeling generous, Nina Tassler and Nancy Tellem will actually let you see all 16 episodes of “Worst Week.” My money’s on you seeing around 13, and the others will go join those additional episodes of “Center of the Universe,” “Out of Practice,” “The Ellen Show,” “Bette” and “Welcome to New York” CBS picked up and must be saving for the next sweeps period.
For anyone upset that “Knight Rider” got the back 9, you can rest easy knowing that this week’s episode was the last of 2008. It’s on hiatus until 2009. It’s also probably going to be getting a new time slot to crash. (Pun not intended.) I recommended Sundays 8:00/7:00 — the original’s time slot. Of course, I also recommended not making the show in the first place.
It looks like a fairly new development that Criminal Minds smashed Private Practice in 18-49 demo. PP couldn’t even clear 2.5 million. Christine, which is a possible cancellation, beat PP in that demo. I don’t fully buy the significance of the 18-49 demo, but if one does, and since ABC PR trumpets it as a way to ” prove ” they are really beating Fox and CBS, this has to be a bad number for PP and Disney. Will this be its last season? Or will the decimation of ABC’s other new shows ( one or two yers old ) mean it will survive for a while? I guess now that ABC has lost shows considered promising already, that will be the next mouse … shoe … to drop.
Im not talking about season average, im just pointing out how ANTM always gets higher ratings than smallville. The last smallville episode got 3.5 million in the finals or something like that, the over nights are always in the 4 million mark but they drop int he finals. I get my info from THIS site.
Robbie, I don’t know that it’s faire to say the shows usually drop in the finals, but certainly when NFL games are airing on the CW affiliates they do. But it’s one of those things that isn’t reallu fair comparison. The NFL numbers get stripped out, but CW lost its BIGGEST market (New York) last Thursday where the shows didn’t air at the normal times and because of the way Nielsen measures, when the shows aired over the weekend in New York, those numbers don’t get counted in the Thursday totals
Julia, that makes sense I guess. Although I get the idea that even if half the viewers of that program went to the CW, that would be a very successful show for the CW. Maybe they can send all their canceled shows down to the CW!
I’m just trying to brainstorm ways they can save the struggling network. Maybe another relaunch. Maybe they should turn it into an all sports network! (Jokes, jokes…)
One other note on ‘Life’, I read somewhere that they had huge DVR numbers. But I don’t see anything about that on the DVR section of this site. Can anyone confirm?
Life doesn’t have “huge” DVR numbers, it’s one of a zillion shows now (I exaggerate, but it’s one of more than 50 shows) that have more than a million DVR viewers. It wasn’t in the most recent DVR top 20 because it didn’t air for that week — that was the week of transition from Friday to Wednesday and they didn’t air it on Halloween, airing Lipstick Jungle instead. But the prior week it had almost 1.3 million DVR viewers. By no means huge, but not nothing either:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/11/10/greys-anatomy-again-has-most-dvr-viewers-office-has-greatest-dvr-increase/7867