| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 30.074 | 16.321 | 9.057 | 5.924 | 4.369 | 1.654 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 11.8/28 | 3.5/8 | 3.4/8 | 2.3/6 | 1.7/4 | 0.8/2 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 9.9/26 | 2.1/6 | 2.9/8 | 2.2/6 | 1.9/5 | 1.1/3 |
Of course, the return of American Idol on Tuesday dominated the night, but as Robert reported, it was down about 10% from its season premiere in 2008. Interestingly, the two other shows to go head to head with the Idol premiere both seasons, NCIS and Biggest Loser were both up year to year. By this time last season, the WGA strike was beginning to cause problems with the broadcast schedules, so even while Idol was drawing the spotlight CBS and ABC did better in the 18-49 demo than last season’s Idol premiere night, and NBC was down just a tick. The slight, and expected, Idol erosion plus rebound from the competition should make this spring far more competitive than last year.
Against the Idol assault CBS (NCIS, The Mentalist, Without a Trace) was up for the night vs. last week. Les Moonves is smiling this morning. NBC (Biggest Loser, Law & Order:SVU) was down about 20% in the demos for the night week over week. For ABC, Homeland Security USA was down about 15%, but Scrubs is in the ICU, down 30% in the 18-49 demo from last week. I wrote last week that it was too early for Scrubs fans to be hopeful for the future. Today, the future looks dim. The CW lineup (90210, Privileged) was hurt by Idol, down about 20% in the demos from last week
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (000s) | 18-49 Rating | 18-49 Share | 18-34 Rating | 18-34 Share |
| 8:00 | FOX | American Idol (season premiere) | 27.474 | 10.4 | 26 | 8.8 | 24 |
| CBS | NCIS | 18.483 | 3.8 | 9 | 2.2 | 6 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser | 7.966 | 2.9 | 7 | 2.6 | 7 | |
| ABC | Homeland Security USA | 6.040 | 1.9 | 5 | 1.4 | 4 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 4.698 | 1.8 | 5 | 2.0 | 6 | |
| CW | 90210 | 2.183 | 1.1 | 3 | 1.4 | 4 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | American Idol (season premiere) | 32.674 | 13.1 | 29 | 11.1 | 27 |
| CBS | The Mentalist | 18.090 | 3.8 | 9 | 2.3 | 6 | |
| NBC | Biggest Loser | 9.545 | 3.7 | 8 | 3.1 | 8 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 5.173 | 2.1 | 5 | 2.4 | 6 | |
| ABC | Scrubs | 4.480 | 2.2 | 5 | 2.5 | 6 | |
| CW | Privileged | 1.126 | 0.5 | 1 | 0.7 | 2 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Without a Trace | 12.391 | 2.9 | 7 | 1.7 | 5 |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU | 9.660 | 3.6 | 9 | 3.0 | 8 | |
| ABC | Primetime: What Would You Do? | 7.253 | 2.9 | 7 | 2.6 | 7 | |
| UNI | Aqui y Ahora | 3.236 | 1.3 | 3 | 1.4 | 4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. Timeslot demo winners are in bold.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 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.
OUCH 90210!!!
Wow, Scrubs lost 2,3 milion viewers, that can’t be good. Great numbers for CW, that’s what you get when your goal is a niche-network only teen girls watch
Wow @CBS. They didn’t even lose any of the demo. Scrubs on the other hand… I guess we won’t need to worry too much about a Braff-less Scrubs next season.
To be honest The CW drop-off isn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be and I’m somewhat amazed at the CBS numbers.
Scrubs viewer numbers are bad, but the fact it still managed a 2.2 in the demo is pretty good. Quite a few of ABC’s shows this fall couldn’t do that against much less competition.
hate to see those ratings for scrubs since I love the show so much but at least that means we wont see a season without the main characters.
I’m surprised that Primetime beat Without a Trace in the demo with the half of viewers.
Ouchy for Scrubs. Hopefully once Fringe fills the 9:00 hour it will do better. Same for Biggest Loser and the stupid Mental guy. Have I ever expressed how I despise CBS?
NBC held okay, not great, but the CW (especially Privileged) is looking more anemic than I’ve ever seen on a Tuesday.
wow, looking at last year Biggest Loser is doing way way better.
I predict the ratings for american idol will start to severely decline this season. I thought the premiere would drop more than 10 percent but I am still confident that by the middle of the show’s run this season people will be shocked by the relatively low numbers it draws. I can imagine it being beat by CBS.
The retention of Without a Trace of The Mentalist is awful.
David, we can all dream…
L&O SVU is down a whole Demo point from last year…oh well.
The Biggest Loser is only 10% up from last year.
UNI Fuego en la Sangre 5.173
ABC Scrubs 4.480
OH MY GOD!
Why did ABC take Scrubs?
xxx
Because it brings to ABC 1 million per episode in syndication.
cool, Up anything vs. last year for any show is cause for celebration.
My math is estimates here, by the way, but to illustrate a point: NCIS and Mentalist only lost about a million-ish each vs. Idol. Counting 8 and 9pm hours only, we saw total broadcast veiwers of 48 million-ish, on average, last week. This week, there are 67 million-ish viewers. So approximately 19 million more people tune to broadcast TV, in those two hours, for no other reason but Idol?
I wonder what cable ratings were like last night, in terms of total viewers in the 8 and 9pm hours?
CBS is airing an all new ‘The Mentalist’ this sunday after football. Why? Not that I’m complaining, I’m a fan of the show. But, it just seemded kind of an odd thing to do, when they have all their other sunday night scripted programs they could air instead.
I’m always surprised to hear how much ABC makes off of Scrubs syndication. While I know the DVD sales are pretty good, I remember in the first season it was in syndication it was not faring too well. At least it was not on the local FOX affiliate.
clutz, sadly we don’t see the kind of aggregate nightly results from cable networks that we do from broadcast networks, but I think it’s very likely that the vast majority of those viewers came from cable networks and that Idol causes signficant pain in cable-land.
Thecolours: perhaps they think The Mentalist would be an even bigger hit if they promote it to more people and with the competition of airing on an Idol night, it would benefit. I doubt CBS feels the same about its Sunday shows. Also I think there is some posturing before “Lie to Me” premieres on Fox next week.
Having seen both, Lie to Me is the better show, and I hope it does well, though I highly doubt it will beat The Mentalist in viewers. But it should decimate it in the demos, at least for the first couple of weeks.
Bill, you don’t have to guess — you can reverse engineer it via the share data. In the aggregate for the networks we report (including Uni) the Monday night 9pm share among 18-49 viewers was 43%, last night it was 57%. There are some potential rounding issues because of the way we receive the share info, so the numbers might be off by a share point or two, but it still adds up to “pain in cable land”.
lie to me to a decent and overtly simple enough show to do about a 4 or 5 in the demo with the idol lead in.
though, lets remember that lost airs at the same time, but they arent adding any new viewers at this point.
Robert: I thought I saw Tuesday night programming had alot of the Presidential Inauguration coverage, could that be a reason why The Mentalist is on Sunday night this week?
AI premiered last night? Oops. Missed it. Not that I care. I enjoyed watching Scrubs and Leverage (courtesy of the wonderful technology of the DVR).
Doesn’t really surprise me that CBS is trying the Mentalist on Sundays. If it does 16 mil+ which I fully expect it will, it’ll dominate the night in terms of viewers and show ABC that if CBS wanted to, they could win Sunday’s as well.
I have this feeling that Lie to Me will run out of tricks sooner, rather than later. Isn’t the whole premise is about dectecting lies though non-verbal facial ticks? Well, there are only so many reliable, and detectable ticks on the human face. You can list them on a index card. Is that really enough to keep a show fresh and intersting for multiple seasons? I haven’t seen the show yet, so I hope they’re relying on more than just facial ticks as their gimmick.
American Idol unsurprisingly did big numbers but look at how well NCIS and The Mentalist did against it. Wasn’t NCIS getting 15 million against AI last year?
Jimmy, I don’t think CBS is considering actually moving Mentalist to Sunday. This is a one-off to take advantage of the lead in from the game.
Thecolours, it really is just the facial ticks, but there’s more to the show. It’s not just saying if this guy is lying or not. It’s then trying to figure out what he’s lying about and who actually did whatever crime was committed. It’ll get old fast, like every procedural, but there’s a science to it, and it’s less gimmicky than The Mentalist.
Doug, I think Robert’s theory is still correct. If the inauguration coverage was the reason, CBS would just keep the episode in its pocket and air it next week, rather than changing the night. They’re hoping the huge numbers it gets from the AFC Championship leadin will stick with the show for the rest of the season.
Um…32 million is down?? This is still the jauggernaut (AI) but though i don’t watch NCIS or The Mentalist – hats off to them for holding those numbers…
I’m impressed that between Fox & CBS; nearly 50 million people were watching network TV…I still don’t know ANYTONE who watches those CBS tv shows ???
CW as usually is on the verge of total collapse. Now wonder print TV Guide dropped it.
The largely brainless TV masses soak up more American I-DULL. NCIS and Mentalist held up very well. So much for people claiming American Idol killed their shows – I think Jericho fans used to claim that (probably still do, at least the ones who are still left). NCIS is doing better than last year.
Scrubs really got hammered. Probably the last season for that one. Running out of gas fast.
Julia: I am not dreaming. We both know that american idol is not going to hold up forever. Lets see how the show is doing in about 6 weeks.
It’ll be down from this, like it is every season, but CBS will not be beating it.
David, no show holds up forever (except perhaps 60 Minutes which will outlive us all), but Idol is going to be around for a very long time.
I’m glad about NCIS because Idol at the beginning is just a dumbed down show. Just want America likes, instead of using their brains.
@Name Required (a.k.a. Soylent 4.0) – funny how you get your “Jericho” digs in. Sure, there are fans still left. We’ll last as long as your obsession with us lasts
. It’s amusing how you insult AI fans too. “largely brainless TV masses” – so you know the average AI viewer’s IQ versus your own, eh? Believe it or not, there are geniuses who watch AI, once in a while, just for the fun of it 
To get back to the more direct thread – it is indeed impressive that CBS is holding up so well vs. AI’s premiere this time around. I can see how AI spells pain for cable TV too! However, with such a fragmented audience, no one partciluar cable net is likely to be the worst off. Except maybe Nickelodeon, as AI is known to be “family entertainment?”
David— Look at those American Idol numbers again. Look at the 18-34 demo. That is STAGGERING. This is not the sign of a show in any meaningful decline. Maybe when Simon Cowell leaves, but you will not see any competing show top Idol in its time slot this entire year. I guarantee it.
AI always does well at the beginning because people like to see trainwrecks like William Hung get rejected. It’ll slowly lose viewers as the weeks progress (until the finale). I wouldn’t be surprised if either NCIS or Mentalist overtakes it this season considering how much those shows have risen.
OK, I was planning on agreeing with Julia, but looking at the numbers from last year, the Tuesday show dropped below 25 million several times last year with a low of just under 22 million. That’s still 2 million more viewers that NCIS’s best showing this year, but if the premiere is 3 million down from last year, it isn’t completely outside of the realm of possibility. Depending on how Fringe does, I could see CBS beating FOX in viewers on a Tuesday (even if neither show beats AI).
I’m kinda glad that Scrubs is doing poorly because this should really be the last season anyway. If the show continued next year it would be without Bill Lawrence, Zach Braff and Judy Reyes which wouldn’t be worth watching and would ruin the show. Best to go out on top of your game, even if it isn’t at the top of the ratings.
Ouch Scrubs. But yeah I don’t know if I mind, this will be the last season then.
CBS, way to hold in there against Idol!
Holly, I still don’t see Idol dropping below 20 mil (I could be wrong, and would be glad to be in this case). But winning the night (in viewers) is possible. I suspect Fringe will get around 12 mil tops, by the time Idol drops, which will leave FOX with an average of 16 mil if Idol does 20 mil. So CBS could easily beat that, even with Without a Trace dragging it down.
It would be interesting to calculate what % of TV viewers over 60 are watching CBS compared to the other networks. It’s got to be really high, because the other networks aren’t even close to the total viewer count CBS generates.
“The Mentalist” draws 18 million viewers but only a 3.8 in the demo. While a 3.8 is strong overall and any network would take it, it is rather weak for a show that pulls in that many viewers. I suppose ABC isn’t much better off with “DWTS”, which has a comparable demo-TV ratio. I find it funny that shows like Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy are pulling in 3-4 million viewers less yet in the demo are a full point and a half higher. I’m sure if CBS had its choice, they’d rather have DH or Grey’s.
My point behind all this is the fact that CBS does have some shows that are pulling in demo to viewer ratios in the ballpark of DH and Grey’s. Monday night’s episode of “HIMYM” aired on CBS to 11.8 million viewers and a 4.8 in the demo. “Big Bang Theory” wasn’t far behind in the demo. These two shows are the true success story for CBS this fall. Their growth is amazing, and I’m really surprised these shows aren’t getting a little more press about it.
Julia, I’m not saying it’s likely that NCIS will beat AI, but if AI hit its worst numbers and NCIS hit its best numbers on the same night, it is actually possible.
THIS JUST IN THIS JUST IN nbc has pretty much cut kath and kim off the schedule (my prediction) NBC just picked up a new show starting super talented actress/singer hilary duff. this will surly be a winner here is the link…
http://perezhilton.com/2009-01-13-hilary-duff-returns-to-television-asa-lawyer
Sam, NBC has ordered a script for this show, and attaching it to Duff is part of the development deal they signed with her a few months ago. We’ll see if NBC is going to actually make pilots this year, after the disaster this season resulted in. But this show would be for next season and definitely not replacing Kath & Kim this season. If you have a link showing Kath & Kim off the schedule, I’d like to see that. (Not that it’s the least bit surprising, but I always like sources.
)
“Les Moonves is smiling this morning.” methinks you are correct with that comment. I would be pleased as punch with the CBS numbers against the season premiere of AI. AI brought in major football numbers and CBS remained steady.
no i ment next season but thats just my prediction i think it would go good ofter my name is earl (unless NBC replaces that 2
Even if NCIS o The Mentalist beat AI in viewers, AI will CRUSH THEM in the demo… FOX is not worried at all, viewers numbers doesnt mean ANYTHING.
Ah, I see, Sam. I still think NBC would be much wiser to cancel My Name is Earl than Kath & Kim, but I would not be surprised to see both gone next season.
I really have never seen the appeal for the hosts of AI. The talent provides the numbers in spite of them
NBC keeps My Name is Earl for a shortened season next season so they can get the 100 episode mark so they can make more money in syndication
I’m curious to see the CW’s Thursday night ratings since all the other CW shows going down. If Smallville and Supernatural can manage to hold on to their numbers from the fall, there is no what the network can continue to ignore these two shows. But more then likely there numbers will be down too, especially since it’s been so long since the last new episodes.
Jimmy, Earl is Fox production not NBC’s, but given the ‘Til Death example deal, they could certainly try and give NBC a deal they can’t refuse to fill up the show total for syndication.
stacy, the drop for the CW shows on Tuesday wasn’t a “back from holiday break” drop, it was a “pounded by American Idol” drop. There is no Idol, and no significant changes to this week’s Thursday broadcast lineups.
I always thought the networks treated Idol night as a second place horse race. Nobody’s going to beat it so the “winner” is who ever comes in second. That and idol night is a good place to burn off series that were looking at life support anyway. So yay, CBS and Scrubs fans probably should prepare themselves for this being a swan-song season.
josie, I think you’re right. That’s why CBS’s showing (up vs. last week and up vs. last year) has got to please them.
NCIS is doing great. It’s doing better than last year, it’s one of the best night starters any network has and it’s holding up against Idol. Seriously, losing half a million viewers from last week, about a million from the series high, but none of the demos, that’s a drama when you are doing 5 million viewers, it’s normal fluctuation when you are doing 20 million.
29 share for Idol, more than all the others put together – if that’s good news for the others, what would bad news look like? The silver lining for CBS would be a strong follow-up to NCIS with Mentalist, but those shows skew older. Am I not correct in assuming Zach Branff (?) has or is about to leave Scrubs? That would be the death knell for a show that was uneven, but started the whole no laugh track trend.
Hahaa to you people who have said ABC is not atupid.
They cancel their emmy winning Pushing Daisies and pick up a crappy show from a lower network, a show thats gets even lower than PD?
Yeah very smart!
Abc is going down babyy!!!
ANIL, PD deserved to go, it was ABC’s lowest rated show. Scrubs is produced by ABC (Touchstone). They knew that any short term ratings pain they took for airing the show would be more than made up by the large profits in syndication for creating more episodes. Hahaaa to you.
AI will easily win the demos–total viewership doesn’t much matter. I remain a fan. The few changes to the show this season haven’t been bad. I like the new judge, and they still had a mix of good and crappy singers. I’d love if they got rid of Seacrest, of course, but one can’t have everything.
I don’t see Privileged returning next season. I haven’t for months now, but recent numbers are truly dismal. The CW needs to bring in a new show that might do better. BTW, TV Guide did not remove the CW listings because the network has low viewership. Think about the subject for all of two seconds, and it’s obvious that many stations with far fewer viewers are still included in the listings. There’s another rather disgusting, IMO, reason beyond the drop of the CW listings but I have to see if I can find a source that has it in print before I’ll repeat it (I was given the possible reason via private email).
Wow, I don’t know what’s more impressive, AI’s premiere numbers or the totally unphased performance by NCIS and The Mentalist. The good news over at NBC has to be their solid performance from 9pm through the 10 pm hour. ABC experienced a first week gut punch with ‘Scrubs’, but must feel some relief that Homeland Security USA didn’t suffer the huge drop that The Biggest Loser took at the 8 o’clock hour (11.8 last week vs 7.9 last night) and their ‘Primetime’ newmagazine actually increased viewers versus last week.
Yeah yeah….now Scrubs deserves to go too.
Lisa, please tell us the super sekrit reason!
Or we could go with the simple explanation that TV Guide gave that the young demo that watches the CW doesn’t subscribe to their magazine.
My guess is that TV Guide is in semi-disarray after the splitting of the magazine and the television channel guide and they really don’t know what they heck is going on right now.
yeah i could see them doing that to earl but the new show will be called barely legal sinse duff will be a lawyer i think it will be a hit like the Office
Just skimming so this may have been addressed but the competition on CBS for “Lie to Me” is “Criminal Minds.” Those are two really different shows since “Criminal Minds” is usually so dark. “Lie to Me” has a sense of humor.
CBS looks better and better each night.
oh please, PD only won 3 minor categories on the Emmys and all for the Pilot. It wasnt even nominated in Best Series.
i dont get y shows produced by one network is on another..(scrubs was on nbc but produced by abc’s touchstone)
Vader, it will be CBS’ last football game of the year, and great time to put on a new episode. The audience won’t be as big as the Super Bowl, but still a very large one to lead into the show. The game starts at 6:30 Eastern, if the game runs late, like most NFL playoff games do, it will be a late starting time to bring out a new episode. I enjoy the show and will be watching, it will be interesting to see how many do watch on Sunday.
Chris, the studios and the networks are separate. The money each earns goes to the same place, so a network has an incentive to keep a show on that doesn’t get good ratings but does earn money elsewhere (DVD sales, syndication, etc.). But if a studio finds a script they want to produce, they shop it around to anyone who might air the show. WIth House, NBC passed on it before the studio took it over to FOX.
Scrubs: They already said this would be the last season. I loved the show, but it’s no ER, and it’s past its prime, just like Seinfeld, they should know when to quit.
THE CW: Those have been their usual ratings. I mean, who the hell watches America’s Next Top Model? Cycle 334 is about to start and it’s still in the air. If it had been on a major network it would have been dropped years ago.
90210 is safely betting for a second season. I am sure the show will be back next fall.
AI: 32 million are REALLY REALLY GOOD numbers for what people expected. A lot of TV prophets said this would be the beginning of the end for AI… don’t think so.
Scrubs was really good last night, just too bad no one was watching!! Scrubs is just overmatched on Tuesday, maybe ABC should move it to another night!!!
Pokerface, they said last season was the last season as well.
I don’t know that “TV Guide’s” explanation re: CW listings makes all that much sense. If they drop every channel that’s designed to appeal to the younguns, that’s quite a few channels. But I can’t imagine what a “rather disgusting” reason for the drop might be, unless the “TV Guide” people found out that people were tearing out the CW listings specifically to line their birdcages or housebreak their puppies. (That’s about all that anything CW-related is fit for, anyway, but still, it would be pretty darn bizarre.)
NCIS has increased it’s # of viewers each season and I can’t think of many other shows that have done that this many years into a show. Now with the 1-2 punch of NCIS and The Mentalist CBS has that 2nd slot well wrapped up on Idol nights.
NCIS is a spin-off of the old Jag series for those who dont watch those shows. NCIS made a big change behind the scenes this year and so far some of this years shows have been some of the best they have done yet.
CW is a dead horse, they just need to run out the rest of the shows they have shot already then let that thing die. Maybe 1 or 2 of their shows might be worth picking up by one of the other networks or a cable network … maybe.
@Anil, last season Scrubs beat Pushing Daisies, and PD’s performance this fall was far worse than in Fall ‘07. The natural decision was kill PD and pick up Scrubs.
So sad that most people would rather watch a show like American Idol instead of a clever and funny show like Scrubs. That says so much about the viewing public.
Brainless reality shows.