| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 16.50 | 10.53 | 9.21 | 6.58 | 4.42 | 1.03 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 3.3/9 | 4.3/11 | 3.4/9 | 2.2/6 | 1.6/4 | 0.4/1 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 2.0/6 | 3.9/11 | 2.9/9 | 1.4/4 | 1.7/5 | 0.5/1 |
Updated December 3, 11:30PST with 18-34 show data below.
Dancing With the Stars absence was a friend to CBS, sending even more of the 50+ crowd CBS’ way, but some 18-49 year olds as well. CBS was the night’s leader in total viewers though Fox won both the 18-49 and 18-34 demos (and by fairly wide margins at that, see above). NCIS was slightly up vs. last week, but The Mentalist, which last week had to battle with the DWTS finale was up almost three million viewers to a series high 18.77 million viewers.
That’s the good news, the bad news — if any part of having a hit show can really be “bad” news was that with less than half as many viewers both the second hour of The Biggest Loser and Fringe trailed The Mentalist by only .1 among 18-49 year olds.
Fringe had less than 9 million viewers (8.69 million) and it lost ~600,000 viewers from the first half hour to the second (8.994 million to 8.380 million) but those who departed House for The Mentalist must have mostly been older because Fringe only dropped .1 in among 18-49 year olds from a 3.7 to a 3.6. The bigger competition in the demos during the 9:30pm half hour was The Biggest Loser which scored a 4.0/10 among 18-49 year olds and a 3.4/9 among 18-34 year olds (winning both demos for that half hour).
According to Jim was back and promptly lost almost three million viewers out of the Christmas classic Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. And if one half hour of According to Jim wasn’t enough, another 600,000 or so bolted during the second half hour. Sadly for our friends at Eli Stone, it lost still another half million plus and averaged under five million viewers and only a 1.6/4 in the demo. At least ATJ did a 2.0 or a better in both its half hours.
Last Tuesday’s overnight report is available to compare, though since there was no Dancing With the Stars finale this week, obviously things look a bit different. I’ll add in the 18-34 data later if I can.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | CBS | NCIS | 18.54 | 3.7/10 | 2.0/6 |
| FOX | House | 12.37 | 5.0/14 | 4.5/14 | |
| ABC | Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (R) | 8.98 | 3.1/8 | 1.9/6 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser: Families | 8.05 | 3.1/8 | 2.6/8 | |
| CW | 90210 (R) | 1.20 | 0.5/1 | 0.6/2 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | The Mentalist | 18.77 | 3.8/9 | 2.5/7 |
| NBC | Biggest Loser: Families | 9.27 | 3.7/9 | 3.2/9 | |
| FOX | Fringe | 8.69 | 3.7/9 | 3.2/9 | |
| ABC | According to Jim | 6.15 | 2.2/6 | 1.4/4 | |
| CW | Privileged (R) | 0.86 | 0.3/1 | ||
| 9:30 | ABC | According to Jim | 5.51 | 2.0/5 | 1.2/3 |
| 10:00 | CBS | Without a Trace | 12.20 | 2.5/7 | 1.7/5 |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU | 10.31 | 3.6/10 | 2.9/9 | |
| ABC | Eli Stone | 4.93 | 1.6/4 | 1.0/3 |
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.
IDK, obviously CBS would have hoped splurging on Simon Baker would get some younger viewers to tune in instead of simply keeping NCIS’s old viewers around, but in the end The Mentalist had more young people watching than the super-hyped, horribly lead-in dependant, probably dropping in the finals Fringe. It’s not as if the additional 50+ people are actively hurting CBS’s business. As supposed hit shows go, The Mentalist is still in the best shape out of those Tuesday 9pm shows.
SVU beat Heroes in the demo (and viewers). So with a new Office, the best Heroes can hope for is third this week.
Old people keeping NCIS, Mentalist, Trace on top.
Fringe seems to have found stability in the upper 8 million area. As long as it hold there and keep its key demo in the 3’s its safe. Though its sad that so many people find fat people losing weight entertaining.
WOW, Eli Stone really does get beat up by the numbers. Don’t get me wrong, I like the show. It’s really bad when According to Jim pulls better numbers than your show. Poor Eli, I enjoyed it while it lasted.
No Joe, young people keeping them on top. More young people watched Mentalist than Fringe
You know why people watch The Mentalist? Because Simon Baker is sexy.
Wowiezowie, Biggest Loser took a nice jump in the demos and in viewers, in both hours. That 18-49 figure of 3.7/9 rating/share in the 9 pm hour is pretty huge, no pun intended, for such a program. Was last night the finale? Or did all the 18-49 viewers switch from DWTS to Biggest Loser, while the 50+ DWTS fans moved to the Mentalist? In any case, Fringe is down a tic and I’m bummed about that. It’s finally starting to move from “okay” to “really good,” and it’s ever-so-slightly decreasing in viewers and demos
.
I do hope Fringe is safe, because I cannot wait to see how it does when FOX asks it to stand on its own next season. So far it shows no signs of being able to hold down a night like House and Bones do for FOX.
Fringe is going to do awesome this winter with it being behind American Idol. I’m confident it’ll hit series highs. It’s a very popular show with 18-49’s and 18-49’s watch American Idol. I mean look how house became a huge hit and 24…they both got post-idol slots. I’m so glad that it has remained consistent in the ratings around 3.9 each week (this weeks was a little weaker but who cares, it was still a great episode)
im blown away by mentalist’s numbers… 4.0 in the 18-49 demo and what the heck, 19million viewers? god.. im really really blown away… because, its just another episodic crime show… in my opinion anyway. Im sad to see it beating Fringe in the demos, it was simply amazing last night.
Can someone tell me if chuck or the office will be be the post superbowl show?
Either way, non of them will pass 20 million.
Bob, given the possibility of errors in rounding to one digit past the decimal place, I’d say in the final analysis, Mentalist and Fringe are very close to equal in the 18-49 demo. 18-34 demos will show the real “youth” trends.
As for Eli Stone, when it’s a confirmed cancellation, why bother investing any more time watching it?
Julia,
SVU is by far the strongest NBC show outside Sunday Night Football. Taking into consideration the incompatible lead-in and the tough competition from CBS I certainly call this show a powerhouse. Oh, and let’s not forget the dismal marketing promotion it gets from the NBC honchos. Glad to see it do so well because it deserves it.
Joe Cool,
I should expect Fringe to shoot over 10 million viewers come January with Americal Idol as its lead in.
Programmers should never under-estimate how compatible shows can keep the viewers glued to their TV sets. CBS is by far the master programmer.
More young people watched Mentalist, just barely. But its the old people that made the big difference in the overall numbers.
Simon Baker? He is rather creepy looking. I keep expecting him to show up doing something weird on TMZ.com
The Office gets the post superbowl spot and The Office will probably get 25-30 million viewers. Its a very popular show and its hilarious
Fringe is a Very hyped show
JJ Abrams Said in one of his interview that he ” wanted to create The X-Files vibe of the 90’s ” but it doesn’t even come close to The X-Files
the leading lady Anna Torv… needs acting lessons
Fringe is now placed 3rd in it’s time slot behind Mentalist and Biggest loser and dropped points in 18-49 demo
still FOX Hype it as HIT ???
“As for Eli Stone, when it’s a confirmed cancellation, why bother investing any more time watching it?”
Um, because you like it?
Sure, not many people like Eli Stone, but why not watch the ones that are left if you liked the previous episodes?
I’ve never understood the idea of TV watching as an “investment”.
Yeah Simon Baker has been getting A LOT of press recently. I wonder how much his cover on the TV Guide that’s on stands right now (even I was tempted to buy that issue, and I’ve never bought a tv guide before)had to do with last night’s great ratings
. And the spread that he got in People’s Most Beautiful People sure didn’t hurt him any… Good for him. The show’s good and he’s very good in it.
Eli Stone? Siggggh.
Fringe is still doing well still. I don’t get why the Mentalist is a hit. It’s just like every other Procedural out there.
In the words of one of my favorite artists:
“Originality is a ghosttown. And it’s oh so hard to get to, and when your to, then people start to hate you…”
Nick, Fringe is a hit. One episode drops one tick. Whatever, and last night was the biggest loser finale. Fringe will do amazing in the post-idol spot in january
Clutz, the rounding errors we experience are an error in the reports we sometimes use when calculating the hourly number. The data itself, however doesn’t have rounding errors. The Mentalist and Fringe are close among 18-49 year olds, though Fringe is likely to go down a touch if there was a minute of House overrun (I can’t remember if there was or not).
Officially Eli’s cancellation has not been confirmed (it’s absence on the schedule is all the confirmation it likely needs, but that’s not the same as officially cancelling it.). I could be wrong, but I do not believe the general viewing population keeps tabs on that sort of stuff enough to know. More likely (but still pure speculation) is that networks run less on air promotion for such shows.
I agree with Shea — Fringe is going to go up once paired with AI. And actually, the show is getting more interesting as time goes along, although Olivia Dunham is rapidly devolving into a supporting, rather than leading, character. So, it’s good that Fringe is hitting its groove just as it’s about to get a new influx of viewers.
I also think NCIS is going to start doing better with younger viewers. It’s taking time but its 18-49 performance keeps improving as the series goes on. Having watched it this season, though, I can see why it has a bit of an “older skew.” I occasionally get the impression that Gibbs has this “I hate you young whipper snappers, back in my day we did things the right way!” attitude that turns off younger audiences and makes the 50+ crowd cheer.
I really don’t know ANYBODY that watches NCIS or the MENTALIST for that matter…
It’s all HOUSE around here though i don’t go out of my way to watch HOUSE seems how FOX will be moving it AGAIN this JANUARY.
I’m tired of chasing shows around the clock or the week…move it once – okay maybe twice – but house has been on TUES, WED’S AND NOW BACK TO MONDAYS THIS TV SEASON…I will catch syndicattion on that show when the time works for my schedule.
“I do hope Fringe is safe, because I cannot wait to see how it does when FOX asks it to stand on its own next season.”
I doubt that FOX will ever allow this.
House did run over one or two minutes, but nothing as severe as with the hostage episode.
If FOX really plans to put Fringe on Idol and House lifesupport indefinitely, while it has been “bring your own audience to work” day for Bones (which I don’t even watch, but can’t help being impressed by) since day one, then I will finally understand for the first time why crazy internet fans keep hating on that network.
I’m suprised The Mentalist is doing this good. I don’t know how many people realize how dark and demented Jane really is. The guy’s a pyscho, salivating at the chance to kill Red John.
Finge is lucky their getting American Idol as a lead in. The plot is becoming more convoluted, and seralized. The show could start to loose viewers fast, if the writers aren’t careful.
I think Terminator would be able to pull the same numbers as Fringe if it was following House.
I DVR both Fringe and the Mentalist. I enjoy both shows and I am pleased with their numbers. Last night was the first time that I watched the Mentalist right after DVRing. I dunno what it is about that show, but I am hooked. I am not a big SFI FI X Files Jericho Starbattle Guy but I enjoy Fringe and I think it will only get better.
Rachel,
Teminator should be standing on its on. Come on it’s TERMINATOR.
Fringe IS a hit for Fox. Fox isn’t CBS, NBC or ABC – its not ever going to have the monster numbers for its shows that those big 3 have, except for American Idol.
And this is the reason I’m so glad Fringe is NOT on CBS, it hasn’t pulled the nubers that network requires, so it would have been yanked by now. But on Fox, its a good fit.
And yes, House did have a minute over run, but Fringe still hung with the big boys in the demos, which is important.
I read where They would like Fringe to be a “tent pole show” next year, so lets hope it gets ome new veiwer influx from AI in the spring. But Looking at Bone’s sagging ratings lately, I would have to say it’s tent pole has been a little flacid lately. And I quit watching Bones because the characters have been invaded by pod people and the writers started smoking crack sometime during S3.
Fringe’s numbers are still very strong, and after the cliffhanger and freaking BRILLIANT episode last night, I’d wager that the numbers will be up again come Jan 20.
Bill and Robert, please understand I didn’t mean to say you make errors in rounding. I’m just saying that 3.7/9 and 3.8/9 are very close numbers – 9 shre on both and all. I need to go back to the “fun with numbers” posts and review how to calculate to see the actual difference.
As for TV viewing as an “investment” – my time is a valuable investment, wherever I spend it. When it comes to Eli Stone, which I LOVED at first, I won’t stay up for it. I am DVR’ing it, but I’ll be one of those Live+7 people advertisers don’t care about. I no longer make the effort to catch the appointed timeslot viewing.
Shea: “last night was the biggest loser finale.” Thanks for confirming my suspicions on the reason why BL got such a big ratings jump – Finale of DWTS last week may have driven people to catch the finale of another contest this week. I guess it’s wait-and-see time to see how ratings stabilize with all the schedule changes in January.
“Fringe IS a hit for Fox. Fox isn’t CBS, NBC or ABC – its not ever going to have the monster numbers for its shows that those big 3 have, except for American Idol.”
Mel,
House was a monster hit, and still is in the demo. ‘24′ has had that status before as well, so has Prison Break (season 1 & 2), and X-Files.
Fringe would be a hit for FOX, if it could do those numbers starting a night off on its own.
I am not saying as a first year show it shouldn’t have lead-in support, or that it’s not doing about okay. It certainly is in no danger of cancellation. All I am saying is, it’s not a hit by any stretch of the imagination. It might become one after Idol, but considering its retention rate out of House, that’s far from a safe bet.
According to Jim? Seriously, who does ABC think it’s kidding? Perhaps, if it were on the same network, it could combine with ‘Til Death to form a “Shoot Me Now!” hour. Will these shows ever die?
Andrea,
I know that, and I wish it would. But unfortunately that isn’t happening right now. I was just saying that despite Fringe being declared a “hit,” I don’t think it’d be able to do all too well if it didn’t have Fox’s biggest show leading into it.
By the way, what show lead into Terminator last season? I can’t even remember.
Pathetic how people would rather a show about fat people being thin than an actual show that is far more interesting than these idiots on the biggest loser.
Rachel, it was Prison Break for the most part, but they did try The Moment of Truth, which unsurprisingly led to the lowest rated episode of the season.
Wow, I just checked out Berman’s site for the first time in awhile, and now I remember why I quit going. How anyone could think this moron has any credibility is beyond me. Apparently for Marc, leadin retention must be the the most important thing in the world behind the numbers! He calls Fringe “overrated”, as if anyone cares for his two cents (you should always stay objective with the numbers). Seriously, it’s third and behind the first and second place shows by one tenth of a ratings point in the demo. Oh, and when commenting on its “low” leadin retention, he mentions that its retention comes from The Biggest Loser. He needs to get a clue. I wish someone would slap him silly upside the head and bring him to the real world.
Wow, that was a bit of a rant, but I had to get that off my chest!
Vader, thanks. I thought Prison Break was the lead-in, but I couldn’t remember for sure. If people are complaining that TSCC is leading to lower ratings for PB this season (which honestly doesn’t make any sense. I don’t see having a lead-in could really do damage to a show as opposed to having no lead-in), then why not switch the two around? PB leads into TSCC. I think that could benefit both. Well, I don’t know, and it won’t matter anyway since there’s only a couple episodes left until the break and schedule change.
So does anybody think The Mentalist could creep up to 20 million for a show? Some stellar numbers there and beating NCIS!! It really is the hit of the season, but CBS should keep it where it is. Networks in America seem to have a knack for moving successful shows to other nights and ruining their ratings momentum.
WOW, Hey Robert. Psst. Check out the CW ratings. Do we want to talk about how well JERICHO looks in a rerun compared to those reruns? Dawn is in some serious trouble.
Psst Nick – you still haven’t recovered from Veronica Mars being cancelled?
BTW, had you been reading this site for the long run, you’d know I always have questioned Dawn’s strategy and execution. I don’t really question the goal of trying to build the niche with 18-34 — and not even 18-34 females necessarily, but reruns are actually a big, big problem there. *Of course* reruns of shows that are targeted at both genders will do better than shows only aimed at one.
Whether that was factored in and they said “screw it” or the realization is an “oops” I have no idea, but leaning towards oops!
Robert, canceling VERONICA MARS made sense because if you aren’t going to promote something why keep it and its low ratings around? The problem is that since then the replacements have not done as well as that show. Meanwhile DVD sales of VM are leading towards DTV movies (that is the rumor anyway). I’m in no way suggesting VM was a great show, but it was definitely a show that deserved better treatment. Dawn has just proven she doesn’t know what she has or what she should pick up.
I was just pointing out that JERICHO which was first good ratings for the situation is now looking good compared to both 90210 and PRIVILEGED last night. That is crazy but not unexpected.
Compare last nights to Thursday Night. Reruns on Thanksgiving by Smallville & Supernatural did better! What would happen if the CW promoted that Thursday Night line up like they do GOSSIP GIRL or 90210?
Hell what am I saying, we’ll never know!
Veronica Mars, though I didnt watch it much, was a good show and better than most of what CW has on now. It had a steady audience for all its 3 years. It wasnt a runaway hit, but on CW, it was solid.
Its too early to see a trend for Jericho with only 1 episode. The history of Jericho is that it steadily bleeds viewers until it bottoms out. If ratings somehow went up to 2-3 million, there might be some hope for it. Odds of that are Slim and None and Slim left town on the 7am train to Whoville. And just because it did better than what was there doesnt mean CW will keep it around. It depends on what the arrangement with CBS Paramount is and what the advertisers are paying. In any case its not enough to justify any new episodes.
There is a rumor in Jericho circles that a failed deal with Comcast involved lowering Jerichos cost from nearly $3 million per episode to $1.4 million and that still wasnt low enough (probably wanted under $1 million). That kind of budget cutting would produce a hollowed out crappy version of Jericho as the $3 million for each episode of Season 2 was noticably lacking in quality and the rating went down 25% from Season 1’s finale. To cut another 66% would gut the show – most of the cast would be gone, effects would be all cheesy CGI and the writing would be even worse than Season 2. Quality cost $$$$. Of course the Comcast deal is unconfirmed and could just be a rumor not based in fact.
Joe Cool, I doubt lowering the budget would hurt the writing, and I doubt season two’s episodes were $3mil each. Season one’s episodes costing that much sounds a lot more plausible.
And Veronica Mars *was* a great show. And probably cost under $1mil an episode. At least initially.
Jericho had a pretty big cast and severe budget cuts might have lead to a The Practice season 8 type situation, when suddenly more than half the main cast was let go. That most certainly did lead to a horribly sub-par 8th season.
Damned arthritis/unclean clicker, is it time to go opioid/wireless? I notice the eight central 18-49 is a horserace. A reality show if done right can still compete in that demo. Maybe NBC, the most finicky about reality shows historically, should surprise themselves and do more of those, because aside from procedurals, dramas ( like Swingshift, which I bet had sponsors salivating ) seem screwed. The Sex in the City clones and Twilite Zone knockoffs have a sketchy record, indeed. Private Practice in spite of its pedigree is almost sure to last two seasons more at the very best. Just read an EW in the dr’s office from last October claiming hard times cause crime shows to be more popular. I think the author had a pat answer, since anomolous ( noncrime ) dramas have always been a dicey proposition. More likely a significant number of TV viewers are just low-level paranoids ( or maybe would-be killers/ detectives ) in good times or bad. Probably it will take a billion diollar govt study to figure it out.