I’m not normally a fanboy, but I truly do love Burn Notice so I’m happy to learn that last night’s season two finale did a series high 6.1 million average viewers.
Via Multichannel News:
The season two finale of Burn Notice burned very brightly last night.
The March 5 installment drew a series best 6.1 million viewers, with a 4.5 national rating, according to Nielsen Media Research data. The episode also scored a series best 2.74 million adults 18 to 49 and 3.07 million adults 25 to 54. Compared to the mid-season finale this summer, last night’s telecast was grew 33% among 18-to-49 viewers, 37% with the 25-to-54 set and 31% in total viewers.
[...]
Relative to the season finale, it was not only the biggest telecast on cable on March 5, but beat a number of broadcasters in the process. USA said the show ranked first on TV among men 18 to 34 in its 10 p.m. timeslot; topped an encore of ABC’s Private Practice in that hour among adults 18 to 49 by 55%, persons 25 to 54 by 44% and total viewers by 36%; and outperformed ABC’s entire primetime lineup, including a fresh Ugly Betty episode and a repeat of Grey’s Anatomy, with the aforementioned demos.
wow. Congrats. I was one of those 6.1 million
things can only get better from here
Iv only seen season 1, but il catch up on dvd !
OUTSTANDING!
It did better than the whole NBC lineup except ER.
This type of rating equals 11 million viewers on NBC.
Can’t wait until June.
That’s a huge, well-deserved number for this show. Bravo!
Hot Pocket, the 4.5 is the HOUSEHOLD rating, NOT the 18-49 rating, (if converted to 18-49 rating the 2.7x million would be very low 2.0s and perhaps lower than any show on NBC did). However, those are still outstanding numbers for a cable show and I can’t wait for June either.
Wow, Stephanie is perhaps even a bigger fan than I am (not to mention a far better writer and reviewer):
No other show on television has managed to marry dark and light quite like USA Network’s Burn Notice, which has balanced some wonderfully devious characters while never losing the fun, colorful energy that made it the No. 1 scripted program on basic cable last year
Very nicely said. Read Stephanie’s in-depth review of the season finale!
I’m very happy it did so well it was an excellent hour of television.
On another note is 6.1 million going to be enough to put it at the top of the cable rankings for the week? Or did WWE Raw beat it out?
Robert, you made me blush
(On a side note, my colleagues got me a case of yogurt for going eight days without spoiling the season finale. I literally had to pour everything into that recap because I wasn’t allowed to talk about it!)
Alex, i didn’t see WWE RAW #s for last Monday yet — it’s probably pretty close. I’m pretty sure Burn Notice thrashed Saving Grace though — I didn’t hear anything about those numbers yet either.
Stephanie: I keep thinking I need to start eating yogurt and get some $500 sunglasses. I guess product placement works!
This is awesome. BN has never surpassed 5m viewers right? Its like Michael just went and recruited an extra 1m viewers or so.
Seriously though..best show on TV right now
what happened to In Plain Sight? it is cancelled?
In Plain Sight comes back in April (April 19 I think)
It’s coming back April 19
Is there an echo in here
No..no….no………….no
Thanks Holly and Robert.. IMO, IPS is a better show than Burn but that’s just me.
Just caught up and watched the BN season finale on DVR tonight. Fantastic! This show is my absolute favorite show on TV! The character development is fantastic and Jeffrey Donovan’s narrating is what makes the show so great. Now, can’t wait until April for In Plain Sight, which IMO is just as good as Burn Notice, and follows the same general, successful formula. And of course, I can’t wait for the return in June!
Alex, WWE Raw averaged 5.2 mill and 5.6 mill for the 2 hour show which is down becuase if the ratings were based on the last two weeks Raw would have killed Burn Notice. But Burn Notice is the #1 show on cable for a week! But then i think WWE will continue to dominate into the summer as the show is setting highs every week.
USA NET is doing great
Raw averaged about 5.5 mill this week which is down from the highs of last two weeks. WWE will dominate into the summer time
kylexy, where are you getting Monday cable data? We don’t see it for this weeks shows until next Tuesday.
I think even USA Today might have included the most recent Monday in its Tuesday cable post for the previous week. but if not, the WWE regularly puts out press releases w/the RAW data. here’s a site with the Monday data:
http://www.pwmania.com/newsarticle.php?page=238297341
Robert, With those kind of numbers I think you were right saying that NBCU should have put BN on NBC.
These kind of posts make me so happy. USA Network has some of the best shows on television right now, and it’s so nice to see them getting the recognition they deserve. Thanks, Robert!
Mike left his shades behind! The show will never be the same!
NBC should consider moving Chuck to cable or BN to NBC.
Spy Tuesday. Chuck on at 8, BN at 9
Well-deserved ratings, kudos to Burn Notice! I’ll be tuning in to Michael and company with a new perspective now, and I cannot wait!
I would believe that the Cable ratings have different expectations from Broadcast. 6.1 million is still a lot and kudos to them at USA.
I think its pretty funny how USA has shows that are stronger then some on NBC.
I’ve never seen Burn Notice, but perhaps I should check it out. Currently, I only watch one show on USA, In Plain Sight.
Well deserved numbers for a fantastic show and what was perhaps the best episode of the series. As much as I love Jeffrey Donovan, Michael Shanks (Victor) just made the season finale for me. It will be interesting now to see how In Plain Sight does,
I wish now that USA would dust off ‘To Love and Protect’, the Shiri Appelby vehicle that got greenlit along with BN, but got shelved due to the writers’ strike. After all, Tim Matheson (the director of last week’s BN season finale) was one of the leads.
At this point, I hope NBC does not renew Chuck and instead has Warner move it to USA to lead Burn Notice. Those two shows could be major players back to back.
Here’s a random question, what are the chances of Bonnie Hammer (President of NBCU Cable) getting the call to replace Silverman? I mean given how good her track record is on cable…
will people quit dreaming that NBC is going to move shows to different networks. The only reason it happened to CI was because it was pulling decent ratings its last season on NBC (i think in the 8 mil range) and that it was already in syndication. They cut a few costs and get more episodes to make more money from syndication. If chuck isn’t on NBC next season, it will be canceled. It won’t be on SciFI, it won’t be on FX, it won’t be on USA, it will be canceled.
It is a totally improbable show and completely lovable! I love all the actors, but especially happy to see Sharon Gless back on the screen. It would be wonderful if they got Tyne Daley in some of the episodes too. She and Mom Sharon could be old time friends who get into a scrape and need saving – or at least a little help – they are pretty good at saving themselves!
Sorry, Jimmy, but I am not buying that Warner won’t try to sell the show elsewhere. The CW or a cable network could easily see a solid revenue stream from picking Chuck up and lowering its budget. Why would they not try it when they could pick up 5 to 6 million viewers? It is not like NBCU owns Chuck.
you think a show that pulls in 6 million viewers on NBC will pull in 6 million on the CW or USA? Is that a joke?
gotta go with jimmy on this one…. chuck is either on NBC or its dead…
There’s no way it would pull 6 million on the CW, but the question is could the CW make money on the show if it pulled Supernatural style numbers? I tend to agree that if it’s not on NBC its dead, but Nick C has said that CW’s Dawn Ostroff has promised Chuck producer Josh Schwartz (who also produces Gossip Girl) that if NBC passes, she’d save his baby.
Wow Robert is that true? Please tell me it is lol
Congrats to Burn Notice! Great show, great cast. It deserves it.
nobody know if it’s true ant.
Ah. Kinda blows. Pity theres no way to contact JS or Dawn herself to ask
Come on Rob or Bill. You must have some contacts haha
I’m sure Universal Entertainment regrets putting this show on USA instead of NBC. 6.1 million viewers on cable would be twice that on a network channel
Given NBC’s current state I don’t think Burn Notice would have survived to see a season two finale.
On the subject of Chuck I’m with the ‘if its not on NBC its dead’ crowd. I don’t think any cable network gets anything from picking it up, whilst the show hasn’t been panned by critics it isn’t winning rave reviews either so it doesn’t even have the critical acclaim angle working for it. As far as The CW goes I have trouble seeing that for various reasons, primarily because I don’t see what The CW gets out of it. They’re going to pick up a show that NBC axed? I repeat that NBC axed? It’s not like this is a show struggling to hold its own against the big hitters on CBS, ABC or Fox this is show that’s struggling on NBC, which counts Heroes as one of their biggest scripted shows. Nobody else is seeing anything wrong with that picture?
Having said that if Chuck worked as part of the all important CW ‘brand’ then I could see it happening but somehow I don’t think its a big show for young women. Maybe I’m wrong. And again if Smallville or Supernatural weren’t coming back next year I could maybe see The CW picking it up for the Thursday slot or maybe Ostroff will pick Chuck up and serve it up as the sacrificial lamb to Idol next year like she is Reaper this year? That’ll win her fans…
Awesome! Yes the folks at USA are VERY happy. In Plain Sight comes back in a few weeks- lets see if can keep the numbers going for the cable station.
USA needs to shore up its lineup with Monk ending with this next season- Burn Notice is primed to be its top show. I find myself watching more and more cable dramas- and way too many NCIS repeats…..
Isn’t Burn Notice already the top cable show in 18-49 (aka the only people who matter)?
J, if it isn’t, it has to be near the top, but unfortunately we don’t regularly see the 18-49 info or see any of it on a season-to-date info for individual cable shows (unless its like releases above). We do see the aggregate network rankings in primeime though, and there USA generally leads 18-49 viewing (for the whole day and in primetime). For the week ending March 1, for example, USA averaged 1.39 million 18-49s in primetime (whole week), TBS, 1.21M, and TNT, 1.08M. They were the only networks to average a million or more 18-49s in primetime that week.
By comparison, for the same week NBC actually did more than 100% better than USA (also including weekends) averaging 2.94 million adults 18-49.
Thumb up to “Burn Notice” Thumb down to “In Plain Sight”
hey just curious here but when is the next season of burn notice starting up or have they even signed on for a new season after the season 2 finale? just curious cause it is a part of my weekly activities, go to classes, go to soccer, watch heroes and burn notice. so if i lose one of those two i dont know what i will do hahaha. anyway just curious when it will be on with new episodes again. thanks all!!