| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 17.672 | 13.936 | 5.723 | 4.673 | 4.642 | 3.876 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 7.1/18 | 3.5/9 | 1.8/5 | 1.9/5 | 1.9/5 | 1.7/4 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 6.3/18 | 2.3/7 | 1.6/5 | 1.8/5 | 2.1/6 | 1.5/4 |
Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen returned to the line up on Thursday, and while it slipped from its season premiere last year, along with American Idol, Fox had plenty to lay a beat down on the competition for the night.
A Thursday appearance of American Idol overwhelmed the repeat competition at 8pm, grabbing more than half the English language broadcast audience and adult demos for the hour. The CW’s Smallville was up down a tick in each demo from last week.
The season premiere of Hell’s Kitchen at 9pm was down about 1.5 million viewers from its season premiere last year and 0.7 rating points in the 18-49 demo, but it was up against different competition (more on CBS with CSI, less on ABC with a Grey’s repeat), so it’s hard to make a guess at the long term levels. Update: And as alert commenter Joseph points out, it was by far the earliest season premiere for the show. Last year’s April 1 premiere being the next earliest. For a Thursday season premiere, Fox tells us it was the network’s best showing in nine years. CSI with Lawrence Fishburne won the viewer and adults 18-49 demo title for the hour, but it had only repeat Grey’s competition. The CW’s Supernatural was up gaining half a million viewers and several demo ticks from last week.
Without a fresh Grey’s Anatomy lead-in, Private Practice plunged at 10pm. Losing the adults 18-49 demo to Eleventh Hour, and taking the adults 18-34 demo with a weak 2.6 rating.
Update: I typically don’t comment on rerun numbers, but the fact that a new Burn Notice on USA, NBC’s corporate teammate, tallied a 2.0 ratings for adults 18-49 and 5.38 million viewers compared to a 1.7 and 4.53 million for a rerun of E.R. is noteworthy.
Here are some additional details about the night from FOX and The CW.
For comparison here are last Thursday’s fast affiliate results.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/ Share | 18-34 Rating/ Share |
| 8:00 | FOX | American Idol | 24.266 | 9.3/25 | 8.0/23 |
| CBS | Criminal Minds (Repeat) | 9.025 | 2.0/5 | 1.5/4 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Ángel | 4.836 | 1.9/5 | 2.3/7 | |
| NBC | My Name Is Earl (Repeat) | 4.835 | 1.8/5 | 1.4/4 | |
| CW | Smallville | 4.178 | 1.7/5 | 1.5/4 | |
| ABC | Ugly Betty (Repeat) | 3.967 | 1.0/3 | 0.9/3 | |
| 8:30 | NBC | Kath & Kim (Repeat) | 3.286 | 1.4/4 | 1.3/4 |
| 9:00 | CBS | CSI | 20.081 | 5.4/13 | 3.5/9 |
| FOX | Hell’s Kitchen (Premiere) | 11.077 | 4.9/12 | 4.6/12 | |
| NBC | The Office (Repeat) | 5.798 | 2.7/7 | 2.8/8 | |
| ABC | Grey’s Anatomy (Repeat) | 5.537 | 1.7/4 | 1.4/4 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 5.508 | 2.2/5 | 2.6/7 | |
| CW | Supernatural | 3.575 | 1.6/4 | 1.5/4 | |
| 9:30 | NBC | 30 Rock (Repeat) | 5.041 | 2.2/5 | 2.2/6 |
| 10:00 | CBS | Eleventh Hour | 12.703 | 3.2/8 | 1.9/6 |
| ABC | Private Practice | 7.665 | 2.8/7 | 2.6/7 | |
| NBC | E.R. (Repeat) | 4.538 | 1.7/4 | 1.4/4 | |
| UNI | Rosa de Guadalupe | 3.583 | 1.5/4 | 1.6/5 |
-
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.
Bill ur mixed Private Practise and Eleventh hour on the networks.
While I know Grey’s repeats horribly, I still can’t believe it can’t even break 2.0 in the demo. Even a repeat of 30 Rock beat it!
Thanks Fin. Fixed.
Private Practice still did better than the last episodes without a lead-in, I was expecting 6.5M,and 2.4 tops in the demo.
Good numbers for HKitchen, I hope that GA will be down next week.
What an idiotic move by ABC, way to leave Private Practice on its own. What moron thought that would work? They just shot themselves in the foot with that move…
Nice to see CSI will do well even without Grissom.
half hourly info for Hell’s Kitchen:
9-9:30p: 11.862M, 5.1/13
9:30-10p: 10.292M, 4.7/12
Bill , which is the order do you thing that will be next week at 9 PM ? I think CSI wins but GA will down and HK will be third.
Best Spring performance of Supernatural since the 2006/2007 season.
smallville was up in each demo i think
I think Private Practice was only .6 in 18-49 from EH (who had a 20 MILLION LEAD IN) and still beat EH in 18-34. Stupid move by ABC but clearly the biggest loser was EH, with retetion below the 50% of CSI.
nbc lover, indeed it was, I was mixed up. Fixed.
Vader, I’ve been told (when asking this same question before) that ABC needed to get some PP episodes out of the way in order for the x-over eps later on to sync up as PP apparently was ahead in production.
For as bad as Grey’s repeats, what’s up with Ugly Betty? It might have been equally as profitable to air those much maligned last Pushing Daisies episodes. They could have hardly done worse.
CSI doesn’t seem in any hurry to make that post-Grissom drop people predicted.
I agree with you Vader. ABC is stupid for airing a new PP after a repeat of Grey’s. Just when PP was showing signs of life, too. They are really stupid…always shooting themselves in the foot.
However, ABC is even dumber for not realizing that they need to produce more episodes for serialized dramas Grey’s and DH. It would be one thing if the repeats could muster up 9 to 10 million viewers, but the ratings for the reruns are pitiful.
They should be producing 30 episodes per season. It may cost more, but it would stop the ratings from plunging on these two shows. Either do that or put them on a 6 to 9 week hiatus sometime during the season. The repeats are useless.
Grey’s Anatomy got beat by The Office in total viewers and 30 Rock in the demo?! Ouch. ABC doesn’t repeat well at all. Ugly Betty was worse, a repeat of Kath and Kim beat UB in the demo!
This time last year, 30 Rock was getting those numbers on an original episode.
Private Practice didn’t tank completely on its own, but there’s no way that show can anchor a night like ABC had hoped for originally.
For as bad as Grey’s repeats, what’s up with Ugly Betty? It might have been equally as profitable to air those much maligned last Pushing Daisies episodes. They could have hardly done worse.
Good point. While I know they wouldn’t do this, if ABC really did want to air those eps of PD and DSM like they claim, it looks like airing them in place of UG and GA repeats wouldn’t hurt them very much.
Oh also CSI is still rolling with Fishburne. Sure GA had 1/3 it’s usual audience with repeats but it was still a strong showing for CSI.
Agreed, ABC should air those PD and DSM episodes instead. They’d do better than UB repeats.
i don’t know why people watch Boring crime drama’s like CSI
sure the Writing and Acting is top notch
but after a while it just gets too Repetative and Boring
good performance from Private Practice… but a little strange abc airs a new episode when all the rest is on repeat mode!
Private Practice is plunging because it’s been really bad lately. Sloppy writing, boring plotlines and nameless guest stars. If I see one more “pregnant lady in distress” storyline on that show I’m going to scream. (FYI, I only watch because I recap. But it’s getting really painful to sit through)
^ good writing and acting? seriously? thats why Without a Trace or NCIS is full of Emmys
ABC’s excuses for not airing the final episodes of Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Eli Stone are a joke. It’s not like they’d be any more of a black hole in the ratings than repeats of Betty and Grey’s are (or Lost, which gets about 5 mil on a Wed. repeat). What they would do is please fans of the shows who are still pissed about losing them.
As a matter of fact David McCallum does pretty amazing things on NCIS and while not actually award worthy most of the others aren’t half bad. Sean Murray annoys me with his eyebrow acting, but seriously there is so much bad acting going on on House and Lost and just because one actor gets repeated nominations it doesn’t actually mean the ensemble is any good.
In short, before I promise to get back to ratings, people need to stop stereotyping procedural versus serialized shows so much. Just because CSI Miami has a standing line to the Guild of incredible bad actors.
Are you sure about smallvill’s viewers, acording to ZAP2IT Smallvile had more total viewers than My Name Is Earl and Kath & Kim.
Are we forgetting that ABC gets paid a heck of a lot of money for airing reruns of hit shows than they would if they displace said show for another program, even for just one week? If ABC aired True Beauty Thursdays at 9 in place of Grey’s Anatomy for just one week, they wouldn’t be getting the money that a repeat Grey’s would muster. Additionally, ABC doesn’t need to advertise a rerun. They would have to advertise Dirty Sexy Money, Eli Stone or Pushing Daisies. The saved non-network promos for a rerun program therefore makes ABC more money through an actual paid advertisement. Why do you think ABC Primetime doesn’t promote ABC Daytime? It doesn’t make financial sense to do so when ABC Primetime is doing much better. They only do it when it suits them.
Tom, Those are the correct numbers above for all three of those shows. For average viewers: Earl > Smallville > Kath & Kim.
Perhaps what Zap2it meant was that over the entire hour Smallville beat the *combination* of the two NBC shows, which was the case.
I don’t think Eleventh Hour was the biggest loser since it’s keeping almost the same amount of viewers from last week. It’s still strong. And with CSI as a lead in without Grissom.
Private Practice is boring as well as Grey’s Anatomy. Sorry
And CSI viewers don’t need to stay and watch Eleventh Hour since they’re totally different shows, totally different tastes.
I don’t see the doom and gloom in Private Practice’s ratings. Over the years as ABC has aired new series behind repeats of Grey’s, the tendency has been for the new episodes to score worst than the low rated GA repeats. The fact that PP picked up over 2 million viewers on GA lead-in and really was only off its new avg. of 9.1 million by about 1.5 million viewers is really the most telling aspect of this weeks numbers. It’s a clear signal to ABC that the show is growing, unlike Life On Mars which is just pathetic.
Until Life On Mars aired Wednesday, I didn’t know it was possible to make a bad crime drama. To create a great premise and go absolutely nowhere with it, takes alot of skill. Whatever happened to the LOM series that was the awesome pilot episode, is a mystery for the L O S T survivors to answer. L O S T had yet another stellar episode Wednesday night and the proficiency in the writing of this penultimate season continues to be unparalleled.
Getting back to Thursday night, CSI’s story of the crime fighting mentally ill guy was so original, so intense, and such a thriller, it was everthing a crime drama could hope to be and then some. The cute cleverness at the end of the story with the Don Quixote book and the mental patient was the equivalent of putting a cherry on top of your ice cream sundae- so good!
Another good move would be for ABC’s programming to take some advice from JT. Why they aren’t producing 30 episodes a season knowing that the repeats don’t repeat to big audiences is really a no brainer. It’s one thing to have all the tools in the shed to work with and it’s another thing to be able to use the tools. Unlike NBC’s one or two series, ABC still has a boatload of healthy, vibrant series scoring double digit audiences even while DWTS is on vacation. They also have another boatload of pilots that sound like winners. If they had a programming dept. that was on top of things that could easily make this spring a three way race.
So is SUPERNATURAL benefiting from good marketing (for the first time all season the show’s episode was marketed through out the week) or is it Jensen Ackles new popularity stemming from BLOODY VALENTINE or a combination of both? I know from friends it was a fight to market the show so heavily and it was only allowed because it was a “Highschool Episode,” but the numbers for it were incredibly strong. Or is it that it was up against repeats of GA? I’m not sure they’d share the same audience…
It also backs up my thought that right now it’s the most promising show the CW has for ratings earnings for the future. Too bad next season is supposed to be the last season (for the CW). With FRIDAY THE 13TH coming out in 2 weeks their other star is starring in that film. Maybe that film can boost SUPERNATURAL a little more.
3.5M without NFL hidden boosts is something to be proud of on the CW.
I think it was no new Grey’s Anatomy…and a good Sam & Dean “when they were young” story (no real drop off from 1st half hour to the second). The Grey’s thinking isn’t 100% speculative since SN had season-highs among women 18-34 and women 18-49, but, still speculative.
I agree with Matt2. I thought the story line for CSI was very well done. Mr Fishburne is also doing a good job wth his character. I enjoy the subtlety of his not being comfortable with fingerprint processing. I also enjoyed Mr Guilfoyle (Det. Brass) being more involved in the plot.
Robert, I agree the high school thing for SUPERNATURAL probably kept viewers around as it was amusing. However it did receive its highest marketing level of the season from the CW, it had promos aired not once but twice during GOSSIP GIRL, ONE TREE HILL, and 90210 which is something they normally do not do. The show usually gets 1 promo a night. BLOODY VALENTINE is doing real well in the female demo at the theaters and Ackles is the hero in the film. I think it may well be a combination of all the above, but the huge jump in women 18-34 not positive that GA being a repeat caused that. I mean GA has had repeats before was there significant boosts then?
Nick, please tell me you get some report about the promotions and aren’t actually watching Gossip Girl and 90210 to see how many promotions it is giving to SN/Smallville!
Most of the times Grey’s has run repeats this year so has SN. I’m not going to go back and check out all the overnights (please feel free to do it though!) — I don’t think it’s pure coincidence that SN experienced highs in the female demos against a repeat of Grey’s, how much was that, how much was additional promotion and how much was popularity of the movie — my hunch would be Grey’s absence, in addition to reruns on NBC were the bigger contributors.
Robert, I looked back at the 10/30 episode where SUPERNATURAL pulled in very similar numbers. GA was not a repeat that night. Yet SUPERNATURAL did extremely similar numbers in the 18-49, overall, and 18-34 (don’t know about women). The difference between that night and this night? That night was the 2nd most promoted episode of the season (after last nights) because it was the HALLOWEEN episode.
I’ve always thought that SUPERNATURAL could pull in better numbers if the CW treated it better with marketing even marketing it to their blessed female demo viewers of their teen soaps. I think when you now look at these two nights you have an argument for it with some valid numbers to back it up.
Guys love the show for the macho testosterone levels and horror aspects. Young women dig the show because the leads are young hot men. I’ve never understood Dawn’s idea that the show wasn’t appealing to her demo. Promote the show more, and maybe they can get another show over 4M viewers on a regular basis.
Robert, I have the details on SUPERNATURAL promotions from their marketing department. I don’t watch GOSSIP GIRL, 90210, or ONE TREE HILL, or PRIVILEGED. Not that there is anything wrong with those that do.
They aired 1 or 2 promos for SN during the Privileged repeats on Tues/Weds. That’s fairly normal I believe…its usually only one though. But whatever, its nice to see the show on the rise again. Hopefully it can sustain its growth.
Do you guys have the half hour breakdowns of Smallville and/or Supernatural?
Half hour breakdowns
Smallville:
4,060 1.6/5 1.4/4
4,296 1.8/5 1.6/5
Supernatural
3,597 1.6/4 1.5/4
3,552 1.6/4 1.5/4
Bloody Valentine bombed in the box office.
Thanks Bill! Interesting that Smallville rose at the half considering the episode was far from stellar. And I mean really far. Those Smallville writers, I’m telling ya!
No it didn’t. Bloody Valentine made over 20 million opening weekend, and another 10 the following weekend, which is nothing to whine about for a slasher film.
Bloody Valentine is still making money at the 3D capable theaters. It’s a 3D experience.
Charles, yes SN generally gets one promotion a night, sometimes (rarely though) 2. Getting 2 promos an hour is a very rare thing for them.
Charles, I think that episode of Smallville was pretty good. Some hardcore fans didn’t like it because they’re Lana and/or Clana haters. The new team of writers is amazing.
One more thing: I watch Gossip Girl and Smallville & Supernatural are among my favorite shows. I hope there’s nothing wrong with that…
JT and Matt, I don’t watch Grey’s but they may not be *able* to produce 30 episodes a year. An enormous amount of work goes into the production of most hour-long dramas — more than you might think. The writers may not want to churn out 30 a year. The cast may not want to do that many episodes. So it’s not necessarily ABC’s fault.
I wouldn’t exactly say that Private Practice “plunged.” Sure it dropped in the ratings, but it did better than most of it’s run on Wednesdays. And considering most of the stuff on TV was a repeat this week, I think people forgot. I wouldn’t have known about Private Practice or CSI being new this week if it hadn’t been for my TiVo season passes.
Ike is right. On most hour long dramas production time is 8 working days per episode. (I think? Something close to that.) As it is a lot of actors, particularly on a popular show, have to fit filming movies around their TV filming schedule. 30 episodes a season would be nearly impossible.
Hell’s Kitchen may be off from its previous season premiere, but this is by far the earliest it’s ever began. The first three seasons began in June or the last week of May, and season four began at the start of April (probably due to the writer’s strike). This is the first time it’s ever been a midseason show. There’s probably quite a few people who didn’t realize it’d be starting this early.
Joseph, all good points. In fact, I should have made them in the original post. I will edit them in.
wow a repeat of 30 rock beats a repeat of greys anatomy
RIP Kim Manners of Supernatural. He was a great director/producer. I kinda wondered if the numbers went up a small tick from X-files fans who may have found out Kim Manners worked on Supernatural. I’m not sure if that’s any kind of factor, but if is, it’s probably not a very large percentage.
Bring on Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy new episodes!!!
no more replays until the end of the season.
I missed the new episode of Private Practice this week. Last week’s promo was all “In 2 weeks time, the Crossover begins..blah, blah” so I assumed both shows were back then.
Crap move by ABC to air a new episode of Private Practice when the promos clearly said in 2 weeks time !! Ratings-wise, I think it did well considering that !