WWE RAW cleared five million viewers in both hours and took the top two spots in the weekly charts. Next up was Hannah Montana with 4.538 million. The fourth spot went to Lifetime’s movie Northern Lights, the first of a series of movies based on Nora Roberts’ books that Lifetime will air that averaged 4.531 million, Lifetime’s most-watched movie so far this year.
Save for an airing of iCarly at number fourteen, the rest of this week’s top twenty was made up entirely of SpongeBob and NCIS airings. SpongeBob grabbed eight of the top twenty spots, and NCIS took seven.
The finale of Battlestar Galactica averaged 2.364 million viewers. If you want to know how it did with middle aged men like us, more information is here via NBC press release.
In other finale news, the series finale of Kyle XY averaged 1.662 million. Trust Me looks to be burning off episodes airing two new episodes last Tuesday, but interestingly a repeat the next night at 11pm did better (it was the only one of the three to clear 600,000!). It looks like Trust Me is bumped for NBA basketball tonight, but will air two new episodes between 9p-11p on 3/31.
Damages on FX remains damaged from a ratings perspective, averaging only 632,000. I don’t think it’s quite as good as many of the digerati, but I have enjoyed the second season and am surprised the numbers aren’t a bit better.
Back in the old days (like three weeks ago) there was some special magic for That’s So Raven at midnight on Friday night/Saturday morning, but Disney took that time slot away from Raven and some of the magic is gone. Last week, some show called Life With Derek had the spot, and while it did not clear 2 million viewers as Raven routinely did, at 1.978 million it did best Raven’s best for the week, 1.605 million on a Wednesday at 6:30pm. Bring back the midnight magic!
Update: The Big Love season finale on Sunday night averaged 2.7 million for HBO while the season (series?) finale of Flight of Conchords averaged 678,000. Eastbound & Down averaged 904,000 viewers.
Top 20 cable shows for the week ending March 22, 2009:
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING, THANK YOU!
Please note, all shows outside of the top twenty are sorted by viewers but ARE NOT ranked. If you don’t see a show listed here, the only thing you can conclude for sure is that it wasn’t in the top twenty. The top twenty would include premium cable, if any of those shows ever made the top twenty. But the additional show list is for advertising supported basic cable networks only. We do not see data directly for premium cable channels. I don’t KNOW how Big Love or United States of Tara did, but if I see anything I’ll post it here and if you see anything, please post a link in the comments.
There are over 14,000 shows. I’m not taking requests as it would be impossible to please everyone. Sorry! If you make a request in the comments anyway, I will ignore it, sorry.
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:07P | 5,359 |
| 2 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 5,206 |
| 3 | HANNAH MONTANA | DSNY | Sun | 07:30P-08:00P | 4,538 |
| 4 | NORTHERN LIGHTS | LIFE | Sat | 09:00P-11:00P | 4,531 |
| 5 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Mon | 05:30P-06:00P | 4,277 |
| 6 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,264 |
| 7 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 07:00P-08:00P | 4,236 |
| 8 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Wed | 06:00P-06:30P | 4,208 |
| 9 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Mon | 05:00P-05:30P | 4,142 |
| 10 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,061 |
| 11 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Wed | 05:30P-06:00P | 4,014 |
| 12 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Thu | 05:30P-06:00P | 4,001 |
| 13 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,992 |
| 14 | ICARLY | NICK | Sat | 08:00P-08:30P | 3,921 |
| 15 | NCIS | USA | Sat | 10:00P-11:00P | 3,905 |
| 16 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Sat | 09:00A-09:30A | 3,875 |
| 17 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,769 |
| 18 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | Wed | 06:30P-07:00P | 3,743 |
| 19 | NCIS | USA | Tue | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,737 |
| 20 | NCIS | USA | Thu | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,732 |
| Other shows (sorted, but not ranked) | |||||
| BACK AT THE BARNYARD | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 3,600 | |
| SUITE LIFE ON DECK | DSNY | Fri | 08:00P-08:30P | 3,437 | |
| THE OREILLY FACTOR | FOXN | Wed | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,298 | |
| STAR WARS:CLONE WARS | TOON | Fri | 09:00P-09:30P | 3,297 | |
| HOUSE | USA | Thu | 09:00P-10:00P | 3,280 | |
| SOUTH PARK | CMDY | Wed | 10:00P-10:30P | 3,266 | |
| S SONNY WITH A CHANCE | DSNY | Sun | 06:30P-07:00P | 3,237 | |
| MIGHTY B! | NICK | Sat | 10:30A-11:00A | 3,219 | |
| SECRET LIFE/AMERICAN TEEN | FAM | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,117 | |
| PHINEAS AND FERB | DSNY | Fri | 08:30P-09:00P | 3,056 | |
| WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE | DSNY | Sun | 08:30P-09:00P | 2,871 | |
| FAIRLY ODD PARENTS | NICK | Sat | 08:30A-09:00A | 2,830 | |
| FAMILY GUY | ADSM | Wed | 11:30P-12:00A | 2,811 | |
| USA/JAPAN | ESPN | Sun | 08:00P-11:26P | 2,784 | |
| FOR THE LOVE OF RAY J | VH1 | Mon | 10:00P-11:00P | 2,701 | |
| TRUE JACKSON, VP | NICK | Sat | 08:30P-09:00P | 2,691 | |
| GHOST HUNTERS | SCIF | Wed | 09:00P-10:00P | 2,690 | |
| LAW & ORDER: SVU | USA | Thu | 11:00P-12:00A | 2,514 | |
| GEORGE LOPEZ | NAN | Fri | 10:00P-10:30P | 2,472 | |
| GLENN BECK | FOXN | Tue | 05:00P-06:00P | 2,448 | |
| ANGELS FALL | LIFE | Sat | 07:00P-09:00P | 2,401 | |
| MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE | DSNY | Sat | 09:00A-09:25A | 2,374 | |
| BATTLSTR GALACTICA (ORIG) | SCIF | Fri | 09:00P-11:11P | 2,364 | |
| I LOVE MONEY 2 | VH1 | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 2,361 | |
| DAILY SHOW | CMDY | Wed | 10:59P-11:30P | 2,264 | |
| JON & KATE PLUS 8 | TLC | Mon | 09:00P-09:30P | 2,258 | |
| IMPORTANT THINGS | CMDY | Wed | 10:30P-10:59P | 2,093 | |
| INTERVENTION | A&E | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 2,057 | |
| LIFE WITH DEREK-LN | DSNY | Fri | 12:00A-12:30A | 1,978 | |
| ECW | SCIF | Tue | 09:00P-10:00P | 1,954 | |
| KYLE XY | FAM | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 1,662 | |
| THATS SO RAVEN | DSNY | Wed | 06:30P-07:00P | 1,605 | |
| REAL WORLD XXI | MTV | Wed | 10:00P-11:00P | 1,389 | |
| CHELSEA LATELY | EN | Mon | 11:00P-11:30P | 910 | |
| DAMAGES | FX | Wed | 10:00P-11:01P | 632 | |
| TRUST ME | TNT | Wed | 11:00P-12:00A | 619 | |
| TRUST ME | TNT | Tue | 10:00P-11:00P | 577 | |
| TRUST ME | TNT | Tue | 09:00P-10:00P | 541 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
We also have weekly rankings of the top advertising supported cable networks.
WOW! Those numbers for Trust Me are really bad. Leverage was getting almost 2 million viewers in that same spot.
I know you guys don’t see Starz numbers, but I hope someone does, because I’d really like to see how Party Down did, though I don’t really know if there’s any way to know if the numbers are good or bad.
Good for South Park!
Those Lifetime movies do really well on a Saturday. Didn’t the last Nora Roberts TV movie get nearly 6m?
Trust Me is dead and TNT know it, I’ve mentioned that TNT were a little overabitious with their originals all year round strategy. I guess they will stick to procedurals when they next commission a pilot.
kyle xy: 1,66 milion viewers, is there any improvement for the show?
Sara, was definitely up versus last week’s 1.283 million, but it has been canceled and that was the series finale, and I don’t see that changing any based on the finale numbers.
I’m expecting the RAW rating to be higher for the next three weeks. ECW looks like it has gone up in the viewers too
Robert, do you still think Damages is safe? I really never thought it’d get this low and am starting to get worried. I know you talked about DVD revenue giving it a good chance of surviving but can FX really afford these kinds of numbers for a show that can’t be cheap to produce? And it seems like there’s a decent chance they fall even further. I don’t think this season has been as good as the masterful first one but it’s a real mystery to me how anyone can watch this and not be gripped and itching to see the next installment. Where did everybody go? Unless repeat airings and the DVR give it out of this world boosts, I don’t know how FX would see this as a good investment.
The season finale of Clone Wars did pretty well. I thought it would have been beaten by Battlestar Galatica, but it trounced it. I also didn’t expect it to beat South Park.
Trust me.
Nick, I don’t know. Unfortunately I have no insight into how much commitment there was for the 3rd season (whether FX signed on the dotted line, etc). The numbers are not good, but if FX takes the multiple airings into account, as well as On Demand (which I’ve seen no numbers for) and the DVDs are good…
…it still sounds like a lot of IFS to me.
Nick, I think logically Damages should not be safe, but FX confirmed that the third season is a go. So I think you can trust them. Maybe.
I expect Damages will get another season despite its awful ratings, it’s a critical darlings like Mad Men, The Wire etc which are/were low rated but get praise heaped on them.
Jon, in season two Mad Men did better than 2x as well as Damages is doing and improved over its first season, and on AMC at that. HBO had subscription fees. I don’t think the landscape is the same for Damages at FX and these ratings aren’t improvements over the first season, though I do agree networks do like to hold on to their critical darlings.
Robert, I agree though Mad Men did launch its second season around the time it got got the Emmy for best drama while Damages launched in January which was a few months after Glenn Close got best actress so any momentum was gone when it launched. Although saying that, Breaking Bad launched later and was up from the previous season.
Trust Me is doing AWFUL!
Jon, Emmy awards were in mid September, and by the time season one of Mad Men had won its Emmy, season two was ~3/4ths through its run. The Emmys didn’t seem to help a ton for the later episodes — they went down after Mad Men won the award. Some of that might have been due to Mad Men taking a week off the night the Emmy Awards aired so there was some lost momentum.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/10/22/mad-men-ratings-for-season-two-july-2008-october-2008/
kyle xy = season high:P too bad it’s dead now:(
i am glad kyle xy finished well!! I hope the new abc family shows fail miserably!!!!
South Park was really good with Cartman being “The Coon” lol funny stuff….I was wondering since ECW numbers are on here can we start having the TNA numbers on the weekly cable ratings too? it’s the two hour wrestling show that comes on Spike TV thursday nights i’d like to know how well they do if it’s possible Thanks
Joe – TNA Impact got a 1.3 household rating last week, and 1.9 million viewers.
Thanks Kyle
I can understand the ratings for the WWE, Spongebob, I Carly etc… BUT I don’t get NCIS repeats scoring as well as they do. I just don’t know anyone that ever has watched this show but it’s all over the place and it’s huge. It’s boggles the mind how a repeat of a NCIS will destroy an incredible series like Damages(and it’s not even close).
with daily and south park doing well… i’m wondering how futurama is doing in that lineup? any info?
Was iCarly a repeat?
Gosh WWE RAW losing viewers
I think they will be up next week and the upcoming weeks but they are still the #1 Cable show in Americicana!
Yeah mon, Nothern Lights Ruled! Hooray for Nora Roberts. Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! Will become a Saturday Night regular at LMN for the rest of the month!
God bless Romance Novelists Everywhere!
Can’t say I’m not surprised though. But if you do romance right, it works for you, its that simple.
With all the promotion of Lifetime, I expected Northern Lights to be #1 this week. I can’t really say much cuz i haven’s seen it yet.
The City :’(
Any idea why Marc Berman included the following in today’s Programming Insider:
–
-Record Burn Notice on USA:
The second season-finale of USA drama Burn Notice rose to a record 7.31 million viewers in the Friday 10 p.m. hour on March 20. Comparably, this was the largest audience in the time period since WWE Raw on Sept. 11, 2000. And it was USA’s best performance among adults 25-54 (3.90 million) since the series-premiere of The Dead Zone on June 16, 2002, and best among adults 18-49 (3.56 million) since the debut of theatrical The Pirates of the Caribbean on July 15, 2006.
–
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/community/programming-insider/newsletters/e3iafdb4cafada99f43e42dc07d37329cd1
Doghouse, not really since the finale was on March 5… But, I speculate the numbers are perhaps otherwise correct but with Live+7 DVR viewing baked in. I don’t regularly see the Live+7 #s for cable shows, so I can’t confirm.
According to the USA Network site, they were airing SVU at 10 pm on March 20.
@TomSD: I was wondering the same thing, and it seems icarly was a new episode. that’s a big dropoff since the last new one (which i believe was ~6m). these kids shows mystify me.
How come TNT’s Saving Grace isn’t included in the ratings? It had a new episode last week and it surely did better than Trust Me.
“Was iCarly a repeat?”
No. It was a new episode that for some reason was not promoted by Nick. I watch Nick and Nite everyday and when there is a new icarly coming out
they have non stop ads. Last week I did not recall seeing an ad for the show. if it wasn’t for Tv Guide I would have had no idea there was a new episode.
Kyle, fair enough. there were hundreds of cable shows that did better than Trust Me though, by my count there were more than 115 airings on TNT alone last week that did better! But Saving Grace was its top scripted program with 2.123 million (it trailed a couple of movies, so it wasn’t TNT’s top show, but it did come in ahead of both the Thursday NBA games on TNT)
Wow, the new episodes of SpongeBob did great! So glad! Thanks for this.
Northern Lights had a very strong showing.. I think I read it was Lifetime’s biggest movie in years..
Can anyone help me in finding out how Lifetime movies– Sigourney Weaver’s “Prayers for Bobby” and Rosie O’Donnel’s “America” rated earlier this year? I enjoyed both and hope they faired well.
Do you have info on ‘Breaking Bad?’
Where’s Making the band 4?????????
why did you stop posting making the band 4
Can u give me a site where i can see all the shows viewers?
Ugh, your website is frustrating. You say these are “ratings” for cable, but I don’t see ratings. Aren’t ratings a percentage? You’re providing us viewership in raw number format. So can you re-label yourself as such so you don’t keep coming up on my google search as providing cable ratings WHEN YOU DON’T.
KWise, because of the way we receive the cable data, including the household rating (percentage of TV households viewing) would be somewhat problematic in these posts, though I will think about including it for the top 20 shows. We could easily include the P2+ rating which would give the % of people watching rather than households, but that becomes confusing in that people aren’t generally familiar with P2+ ratings points. I’m not sure what your Google searches are on, this particular post is not optimized around the word “ratings”, and we do have many posts on this site that *do* list ratings. I do agree there is a distinction between ratings and viewers, and sometimes we offer one or the other, and sometimes both.
Glad to see that Kyle XY’s numbers went up for the finale at least. I really believe that trend would have continued if the series kept on going because many viewers were finally learning that it wasn’t canceled a long time ago. The long months between seasons forced many viewers to forget about the show and it seemed that they were finally trickling back. Sux that such a long hiatus and poor marketing doomed such a great show.
Jon & Kate Plus 8′ Season Finale Grabs 4.6 Million Viewers
Beats CBS, NBC CW and Fox in key female demos
By David Tanklefsky — Broadcasting & Cable, 3/25/2009 2:13:34 PM MT
TLC’s hit reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8’s season finale Monday night was the highest-rated episode in six demographics. The show was watched by 4.6 million viewers and ranked first among all ad-supported cable in the 9:30 p.m. half-hour among HH, W25-54, P18-49, W18-49, and W18-34.
Where was this on your list?
Sil, this list is for the week ending Sunday, March 22. That episode was on Monday the 23rd. It will be in next weeks list.
to Holly,
Leverage was actually pulling in an average 3.2 million if I recall correctly. That was realy good and I can’t wait for season two. Where’s Saving Grace on this list? And what about the Big Love finale? That must’ve topped 3 million viewers at least. Best season of Big Love so far!
Roomates premiered to 1.5 million viewers and Sophie did even worse with only 892,000 viewers! Haha.. good! They deserve to crash and burn after the horrible treatment Kyle XY received!
Shea, Big Love is on HBO, which Bill and Robert don’t see the numbers for. For some reason I doubt it got 3 mil, but if it did, I’m sure someone will have news on that.
I updated the data with Big Love finale info on Tuesday, it’s in the post’s prose along with other HBO shows.
There are sites with age breakdowns for top cable shows. They only give top twenty. Cable ratings are still for the pros or fanatics. Speaking of which, South Park seems to be back. I must be a tunehead or bored with ” humanity ” because I always watch Futurama, but its ratings don’t show up on the radar screen. Good for Family Guy – its not a waste of time while you’re waiting for the hardcore adultswim shows.
Its sad that a great show like Damages, cant find an audience