| Scoreboard |  |
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| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 5.0/14 | 2.6/7 | 2.4/7 | 1.7/5 | 1.5/4 | 1.2/3 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 3.7/12 | 1.7/5 | 2.1/6 | 1.2/4 | 1.5/5 | 1.4/4 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 14.86 | 10.58 | 6.67 | 6.39 | 3.63 | 2.63 |
Update 4: James Hibberd is reporting that between broadcast and cable the Obama press conference averaged 28.8 million viewers, a 29% drop from his last press conference. Fox News had the most viewers (more than CBS, ABC or NBC). Here is the information for the cable news networks.
Update 3: Full data table now included below.
Update 2: President Obama’s news conference averaged 22.02 million viewers across ABC, NBC, CBS and Univision, and a 6.0 rating among adults 18-49. Lie to Me averaged a 2.4/7 (rating/share) with adults 18-49, and 7.88 million viewers. The 100th episode of Lost averaged a 3.9/10 with adults 18-49 and 8.81 million viewers overall.
As for the president’s news conference more people watched on NBC overall, and ABC and NBC tied in the 18-49 demo, with ABC winning with adults 18-34. I’ll post the full data table shortly.
Update: In the early metered market numbers, the President’s news conference averaged a 14.1/24 (household rating/share) on ABC, CBS and NBC combined. Lie To Me averaged a 4.8/8 coming in just behind NBC and ABC’s coverage of the press conference and ahead of CBS’. But, if the early numbers hold up, Lie to Me doesn’t appear to have gotten any ratings benefit by being counter-programming. Last week it had a 5.3/9 rating share in the same early metered market reporting.
We should have average viewer and age demographic ratings from the fast affiliate ratings up by ~9:30AM PDT. Check back.
–
Just getting an early jump on the ratings post for Wednesday and just getting a placeholder post up that I’ll update when we see the data.
There won’t be much, if anything at all in the data that will impact renew or cancel decisions – American Idol will have big numbers, Lost is coming back next year regardless and, The Unusuals isn’t. But there will be some interest in the night’s ratings.
President Obama took to the airwaves at 8pm, but FOX was the lone hold out of the four major broadcasters, so people will be very interested to see how Lie to Me does up against the Obama’s press conference. People will also be interested in seeing how Obama’s ratings do. He’s been a ratings powerhouse, though his ratings have been sliding a little (whose haven’t?!). Obama’s first press conference in February averaged over 49.5 million viewers between the broadcast and cable nets that aired it, but a subsequent conference in late March averaged just over 40 million.
Previous Wednesday overnight reports are available for comparison.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 8:00 | FOX | Lie to Me | 2.4/7 | 2.1/7 | 7.88 |
| CW | America’s Next Top Model | 1.8/6 | 2.1/7 | 4.00 | |
| ABC | President Obama Press Conference | 1.6/5 | 1.4/5 | 6.12 | |
| CBS | President Obama Press Conference | 1.5/5 | 0.9/3 | 6.01 | |
| NBC | President Obama Press Conference | 1.6/5 | 1.1/4 | 6.68 | |
| UNI | Conferencia de Prensa: Barack Obama | 1.3/4 | 1.3/4 | 3.224 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | American Idol | 7.5/19 | 5.5/15 | 21.85 |
| ABC | Lost | 3.9/10 | 3.7/10 | 8.81 | |
| CBS | Criminal Minds | 3.3/8 | 2.1/6 | 13.27 | |
| UNI | Mañana Es Para Siempre | 2.0/5 | 2.0/6 | 4.64 | |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU (R) | 1.3/3 | 1.0/3 | 4.81 | |
| CW | 90210 (R) | 0.6/1 | 0.7/2 | 1.25 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI:NY | 3.2/9 | 2.3/7 | 12.47 |
| NBC | Law & Order | 2.2/6 | 1.7/5 | 7.69 | |
| ABC | The Unusuals | 1.7/5 | 1.4/4 | 5.08 | |
| UNI | Don Francisco Presenta | 1.2/3 | 1.2/3 | 3.02 | |
Shows are sorted by Adults 18-49 rating in each time slot.
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.
im expecting lost to get over 10 million(heavy promotion), plus the Obama speech might actually help achieving that. (I guess its a better lead in than the ABC sitcoms..
)
Somebody’s anxious.
noticed a typpo: it’s ‘whose’, not ‘who’s’
looking forward to the lie to me data as well
LOST is heading for a awesome season finale! I’ve heard that the next episode will be a Richard Alpert eppy!!!
Fox’s decision was made before the swine flu became bigger news. I think that many more people watched Obama than would have normally because they wanted to get a flu update. I think that the numbers will be much greater for Obama than if it had just been an update on his first 100 days. Thus I think Fox should have low expectations for Lie to Me.
I notice from forums how opinionated the UK “blokes” are on American TV, what is up with that ? Do they long to live in our great country ? I notice the zeal for which they get obsessed with certain tv actors. Don’t they have any good television to talk about in their home countries ? I wonder if they watched Obama online ? Probably not ! But I bet they have all sorts of ignorance based opinions.
I’m going to be bold and say that Lie To Me will get a 20% uptick in viewers from last week’s episode. A pity, too, because I thought this episode sucked.
Haha, I just woke up and come here first thing in the morning as always. I saw the headline and was so confused… “Wait, it’s Thursday, right? The Wednesday ratings can’t be out yet…”
I’m guessing the ratings for Lie to Me will be up. I tried to do my part by watching it live over the air in HD, and also turned my cablebox the FOX also.
It is kind of a bummer that the LTM vs. POTUS ratings situation happened on a particularly confusing episode of LTM. The show had a decent premise for the main plot – who’s lying among the cops about the kid who was shot? But instead of one subplot or secondary investigation, they crammed in an FBI undercover sting within the main investigation, a lawsuit from a case that happened in a prior episode, and Lightman’s personal investigation into the marriage of his partner. IMHO, this episode felt very crammed and dijointed, and it would have been tough to draw the interest of brand-new viewers. Or maybe I was confused because a friend popped in for a surprise visit, and would not stop talking through the whole episode. Pause…play…pause…rewind, pause…may have led to my disjointed “feel” on this episode
I wonder how many Fox affiliates chose to air the speech instead of LTM. I turned on the TV expecting to see LTM and saw a reporter instead. Luckily, I get two Fox affiliates so I switched to the other one. But it made me wonder if a lot of Fox stations bumped LTM for the speech. If so, the ratings could take a big hit.
People might have tuned into Obama and thought they were watching “Lie to Me”, since that’s what he does.
Clutz, I’m going to blame your friend.
The problem I usually have with Lie to Me (though it’s my favorite new show of the season) is that they haven’t quite figured out how to transition between the A story and the B story. I thought last night did it pretty seamlessly for once.
Overnights don’t look too good for Lie to Me. 4.8, down from 5.3 last week. Hope the demo at least looks better.
I’m pretty sure my local Fox station (Kansas City) was showing Obama. I will double check tonight (I like L2M and have it on DVR).
I watched LTM for the first time last night and felt the show had a long way to go. I was not impressed but the production value of the show. Tim Roth is a good actor, but the writing and the plot of the episode I watched needed to be fine tuned. It has a great premise just needs to be retooled to become an elite show and rating winner.
@Lisa, you raise a very good point! If large-market FOX affiliates, or a significant number of affiliates in any market size, chose to air the press conference, L2M will take a hit.
FOX decision had nothing to do with Lie to Me. It had everything to do with American Idol. I’m sure they won’t care about the lower Lie to Me numbers and I’m sure that Fox News had a good amount of viewers for Obama speach.
lost got around 8.9 mil(i guess in the finals it will go to 9) and a 4.0 in the demo, so its the same as 2 weeks ago. Oh well, still good, just expected more from the 100th ep.
“Lie to Me” didn’t actually air in every market last night. Some affiliates (like the one in STL) opted to show the press conference anyway.
Lost 100th episode wasn’t going to bring in any more viewers because if anyone who is not a full time viewer were to tune in now they would have no idea what was going on and most likly would tune out again. 9 million and 4.0 is pretty good.
Top Model is kicking ass. #1 in its hour among 18-34 again. Over a 3.0 in young women.
So, Lost went down a bit viewers but up a bit in demos from 2 weeks ago. At least it’s been staying pretty consistent and hasn’t been dropping in both every week, like Hereos was doing for a while. And a 4.0 against Idol, is pretty fantasic.
As far as the 100 episode gaining more views, I really didn’t think that would happen. It’s not like it was going to be a “very spectial episode”.
BB12 is right, people aren’t going to drop in just because it’s the 100 episode, I do hope the series finale might go up, and if ABC can promote the hell out the last season and keep their promise of new episodes every week, next season might me higher.
wow The Unusuals lost to a L&O repeat that has to sting.
full data table now posted. P.S. I didn’t see Lost going up either, but at least it was a good episode.
Law & Order at 10p was not a repeat, though I originally had it listed as such for a few minutes…
Well, I guess I was wrong, Lost went down in both demos and in ratings. As long as the season finale can get above a 4.0 I’ll be satified.
Unusuals… ouchie.
POTUS viewership is down since the last time, right? Especially demo?
And I guess Fox was smart to go with Lie To Me. While it didn’t break any records, its lead-in had to be far better than what it would have been if they had gone with the press conference.
I have an idea. On Tuesday’s this site gets into a lather about how much benefit Fringe gets from the Idol lead in.
How about this? For a comparison and full disclosure, why don’t we take a look at how the Fox Nightly News on Wednesday at 10:00 compares with FNN the other nights of the week.
That will give us an indicator about the influence of Idol as a lead in.
On the other hand, If he news maintains more of its lead in than Fringe does, I can imagine how devastating that will be to the Fringe lovers.
Carmen, those Fox 10pm newscasts are all local shows, not national ones, so we don’t see those numbers.
Carmen, there is absolutely no chance that we’ll ever see the data for all the FOX affiliates 10pm news, rolled up to a national level, and then produced by the time we do the overnight posts.
Bill and Robert
Of course I know that. I was just trying to be poke a little fun at the Idol lead in argument(s).
Law & Order will be renewed for sure. The show returned after a long hiatus, without any heavy promotion and managed to grow A LOT from its very weak lead-in.
Plus, Law & Order is (along with SVU) the only show on NBC who pull decent numbers in repeats (always around 5M at the very least).
Any chance you fine gentlemen would have half-hourly data? I wonder how many viewers check in with the President then move on after a few minutes. I’m guessing that happens a lot, but I could be wrong.
Not the greatest episode we have seen this season on Lost, but I hear the season finale of Lost is going to be interesting as one of the major characters will be killed off. With the season finales of Lost being routinely one of the most talked about episodes of the television calendar (from the failed attempt to leave the island in season 1 to the very first flash forward episode in season 3), I am expecting Lost to pull in 12.5 million viewers and a 5.0 18-49 demo rating for its season finale.
The viewing habits of people amaze me as LOST is clearly one of the greatest pieces of television ever produced. Not since Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone has a show had such thought provoking twists and turns. The writing is incredible. Still its now pulling in less than 9 milion viewers a week.
Nothing could stop me from watching it!
chuck
When was the last time Law & Order has a decent lead in ? The answer must be something like 4 or 5 years ago.
And why The CW keep wasting the post-ANTM hour ? They should put there Every Body Hates Chris and The Game.
LOST was awesome last night! Great 100th episode!
Do you think they are going to cancel the Obama press conferences since he had a significant drop in ratings?
Just one question. How do the time zone factors account for the ratings on Obama’s speech? Here on the west coast, normally scheduled programming was on at 8pm (at least on CBS and ABC that I know of for sure). How are the numbers factored? Since Obama’s speech was on at 5pm on the west coast, are those ratings counted?
JT, they factor in big for the Obama speech, read all the boiler plate text at the bottom of the post for more info.
Lie To Me was up slightly vs. last week (a tenth in 18-49 and a couple of tenths in the 18-34) although if some of the Fox affiliates did go with the Press Conference some of that may very well get stripped away. Either way I think we can chalk this up as something of a win for Lie To Me. Its still very low though.
Meanwhile the Press Conference numbers seem low. Are people just getting bored of them or is Wednesday @ 8 really just a deadzone no matter what you put there?
Everything else is pretty much what you’d expect although I remain amazed that The CW is still leading out of America’s Next Top Model with repeats. Do they not think its worth just testing the waters with an original 90210 to see how it holds up? You can always blame Idol if it collapses.
ANTM is trash.. but yeah, it kicked ass last night in every target. 7,9 million are good numbers for lie to me, but with no competition, Fox sure expected more, maybe 9 million. next week there are law and order, gary, christine, and the season finale of ANTM, the numbers will go down to 7 million.
I didn’t know the Pres was making ANOTHER speech – what is that..?!… 4 in one-hundred days…was there anything new he talked about?
Good for FOX for moving on…
Here, Obama was on FOX last night.. was the only one?
FOX – here aired Lie To Me & AI – no delay and un-interrupted
cool, comment above from someone in St. Louis saying the local Fox affiliate carried the press conference too.
I’m sad to see people didn’t reject Fox’s counterprogramming. DVR(or catch online the next day) LTM and watch the president or read a book if you don’t want to watch the president. Don’t reward fox’s greed.
dave, you forgot to mention the CW’s greed, as well as the greed of the hundreds of cable channels that failed to carry the press conference.
The combined Obama ratings would rival American Idol. Hmmn… Now if NBC can have exclusive rights to his press conferences, they would have a megahit.
Ah, nevermind…
To Alex.
I imagine many more people watch Presidential news conferences on the cable show of their choice. That is, Fox if you’re Conservative and MSNBC if you’re far left.
The middle watches CNN and the junkies watch C-span.
If you do not have cable,and only have the major networks (plus local stations) well, you’re just stuck watching the news conference if you want to or not.
@entertainmenttodayandbeyond
If you check out the dvr numbers for Lost you will see they are still getting 10+ million viewers. They also get a significant boost in the demo numbers.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/29/special-office-nearly-doubles-its-demo-audience-via-dvr/17696
While DVR numbers don’t necessarily help with the renewal of a show unless people are watching the commercials (C+3 numbers?), Lost has already been given a green light for final season next year. Perhaps the viewers who aren’t into discussing every detail of the show on-line immediately following an episode are giving their support to another show they would also like to see renewed.
Is the Unusuals one of those shows you have to watch from the beginning to know what’s going on? I tried watching yesterday and was bored to tears and couldn’t understand what was going on and the only thing I could think was too bad CBS cancelled Joan of Arcadia because Amber Tamblyn deserves better than this. (Speaking of, Tamblyn seems way too young to play a police detective). I thought this was a standalone and not serialized show?
The Unusuals is fresh and clever, so naturally it looks like it won’t stick around.
Good for CW. I was expecting over 4 mil. No only if they aired new episodes of 90210…
CW finished #2 at 8pm in the demos? They must have had one heck of celebration!
LOSTS ratings no longer matter much. Though I know alot of people who DVR it instead of watching live to knock out the commercials. Its an increasing problem with serial dramas. Though getting upper 3’s in the demos is still good.
As for Big O, what should be done is rotate him around the networks – one time its CBS, next time ABC, then NBC, then FOX. Why he needs to be on multiple broadcast networks at the same time is beyond me. That way the networks take turns getting screwed out of ad revenues.
Just curious, since if FOX was actually greedy, wouldn’t they be disappointed by this?
I’m wondering if it’s more a case of the network trying to save a show that’s floundering. Lie to Me started with 12-12.5 million and 7-7.5 total ratings behind Idol before switching to a lead-in. Outside of this week, it’s lost viewers in both the raw numbers and ratings demos nearly every week, so now it’s down to 7.8 million viewers (7.973 last week) and a 2.4 18-49 demo, which apparently is up a point from last week (combined last week 5.2). If they were trying to give the show a bump this way, they failed. It’s impressive that they’d go to these lengths to save a TV show, but still.
FOX seemed pretty enthusiastic about this show judging by the advertising in January/February. They have to be disappointed that it continues to drop without Idol as a leadin. Is it possible that the show could reach a level where they won’t renew? I mean, the premiere was pretty good from the ratings, but do networks cancel shows that hemorrhage a lot of viewers like this in the first season?
The problem with the rotation system is that you’d have to not only tie the networks into absolutely airing at least one of these press conferences/speeches and you’d also have to give a multiple of four of them to make it ‘fair’. Of course the way Obama’s going that might not be a problem. I think its better just to let the networks decide whether they want to air them on a case-by-case basis.
Godfather, I’d be stunned if Lie To Me isn’t renewed for 2009-10, but I think it’s likely that Fox is somewhat disappointed in the recent trend in its numbers.
Godfather yes the networks cancel shows that perform like Lie To Me has all the time, from all reports Lie To Me won’t be one of them (although it probably should be) because Fox is very invested in the show. In terms of whether Fox is disappointed in these numbers, I don’t know if that’s the case. I would guess they’re disappointed in Lie To Me’s numbers as a whole but I can’t imagine they were really expecting the numbers to shoot up this week.
Fox weren’t ‘greedy’ in the sense of going for ratings they were ‘greedy’ in the sense of not wanting to take a multi-million dollar hit in advertising revenue airing another Obama press conference and potentially the hit would have been much bigger for Fox than anyone else because of potential problems with Idol had Obama run over and things of that nature.
Alex, I’d doubt that Fox expected a big jump in LTM’s ratings this week. The lame broadcast shows displaced by the Obama press conference weren’t that much competition in the past. I think the primary reason for going with LTM was to not kill their 8pm audience prior to Idol which certainly would have happened based on their past low performance with Obama events.
Lie to Me was slightly up and won its slot but FOX must be dissapointed, I imagine it will get a lead in from House if it’s renew. I think FOX made the right descision and they will reap the benefits with the ad revenue intact.
America’s Next Top Model is still a hit for The CW but they are wasting the lead in with 90210 repeats. I think The Beautiful Life or ANTM: Operation Fabulous will get that slot next season.
I know CBS are keen on the comedies on Wednesdays but I think they could do so better if they aired a new drama in that slot or even a new reality show.
Since some people want to get political, you asked for it. ABC, CBS, and NBC all carried Bush press conferences after 2004 at their own discretion, as is their right. No law, thank God, requires every channel to carry messages from the Fearless Leader, whatever party. Some of yo0u need thas tatooed on your arm or something.
Fox is getting some industry PR over the LTM move though. I have seen a few stories about how LTM “beat” Obama at 8pm (which is silly, it didn’t by any reasonable measure).
Everyone is either critical or defensive of the move Fox made to air regularly scheduled programming. While I personally think that Obama is making a mistake by interrupting primetime programming about every 25 days, just for the fact that people are slowly tuning them out, as our president he should be able to make the choice to do as such if he pleases, just as Fox has the right to make the decision they made as well. Since Obama seems to like this method of communication with the public, perhaps his office might want to just schedule one day per month so the networks have advance notice. While it was Fox who said no this time, I’d bet that ABC or CBS would say “No” if it interrupted their big hit shows (yes, some would argue that LTM is not a hit, but it does generally place first in the demo in that hour…plus don’t forget that Fox has also had to displace AI more than once this season due to his speeches, which has already caused the pre-emptions of their other shows). My guess is that going forward, the networks would be more inclined to go with his speeches if they have more notice. That way they could adapt their schedules much easier than they would with only two days notice. To me that seems like a logical compromise.
Didn’t CBS try a reality show in the Wed@8 timeslot last season? Something about kids running their own town as I recall. It bombed pretty badly, so there’s no guarantee. Still, I think the Wed comedy block is dead come fall.
I have a feeling that CBS is going to move Big Bang Theory to tuesdays @ 8 in the fall, then push NCIS to 9 and The Mentalist to 10. Then on Wednesdays at 8, I think the NCIS spinoff will be placed there. That’s just my guess, but we’ll find out in a few weeks.
I’D RATHER WATCH AN “ACCORDING TO JIM” MARATHON THAN 2 SECONDS OF COMRADE OBAMA
– “I’m sure that Fox News had a good amount of viewers for Obama speach.”
Fox News announced a couple of days ago that they would not broadcast Obama’s speech, going with Lie To Me instead.
True, Fox News (the 24-hour cable news channel) aired the conference. Fox (the broadcast network) did not.
I think it’s fascinating that the president’s numbers are almost a one-third split among the three networks – give or take a half million overall and a dead heat in 18-49’s.
When I’m watching, at the beginning I’ll jump around to see who has the best sound and picture quality. Strangely, they are different. Maybe last night it was NBC?
True: You have Fox News confused with Fox Broadcasting. Of course Fox News aired his speech. Whether they like him or not at FNC, that’s the business they’re in.
Bill, the reason I asked is because it looks like Lie To Me has fallen below the average 18-49 rating for the Network, which you seem to be so keen on. If it stays down there and doesn’t return (or even continues to drop), that would seriously damage it’s chances for a full second season, correct? Maybe a partial season pickup is the likely alternative.
Another question I have though: I noticed frequently that shows with higher viewer numbers will have lower 18-49 ratings. I know a network much prefers the latter because of advertising, but given 2 shows with equal 18-49 ratings but different live viewership, what would a network prefer to keep? A good example of this would be the competition between the NBC bubble shows. Law and Order, Chuck, Kath and Kim, and My Name is Earl all have 18-49 ratings between 2.1 and 2.4, but their viewer totals differ more. If 2 shows had the same ratings, would the network prefer the show with the higher viewer total or a show that has a greater percentage of 18-49 year olds?
Carmen says:
“Fox if you’re Conservative and MSNBC if you’re far left.
The middle watches CNN and the junkies watch C-span.”
Lou Dobbs and CNN couldn’t find the middle if you wet it and threw flour on it.
And how did you get your junkies to watch C-SPAN..As mine hardly move away from the window blinds…Like hummingbirds these guys oh wait one of them is holding a lit lamp on the sofa now…Trying to get warmth ,I tell them to stop playing tag with Dementors but to no avail..LMAO
Lie to Me has the numbers to be renewed…Anybody think it’s a great show..I usually wait for a show to get up to 10 eps before I give it a go….
Gaspode says:
“The Unusuals is fresh and clever, so naturally it looks like it won’t stick around”.
I haven’t given it a go but will agree with you.Fresh and clever shows seem to be the first to go….That’s why I have the 10 ep’s rule less disappointments….
Looks like President Obama even beat the regular shows beating even American Idol. Fox News is controlled by the Republicans and they hate our President. The American people are interested in the Flu Crisis and our Economy not Fox News attacks on the Obama Administration. This is history making for TV Stations as no Station has ever denied the former Presidents from having air time. Racism and hate runs deep with these people and nothing good will ever come from that. At lease we know what Fox News means by Christian Family Moral Values as they have shown us over the 8 yearas.
To VeNom
“Junkies’ refers to News junkies, not literal drugged out junkies. Try reading something in context sometime.
TheGodfatherSJP, I think if 18-49 was identical, the nets would break it down further and favor a show leaning more toward a male gender, a higher income, or a higher 18-34 number.
^^^male OR female depending on desired audience
Jackie, if you aren’t trolling, all the networks over the years have declined to air press conferences for both Bush II and Clinton.
And, in any case, Fox News did in fact air the press conference; it was Fox (the broadcast network) that did not.
@ Carmen what’s the fun in that ….
Also I wanted to use Dementors in a sentence so thanks…
Jackie, why does tv ratings have to get so personal? And all of you, I don’t think this is the platform for all that bickering. There were always be protagonists and antagonists; but i’m sure there is a place for that and correct me if i’m wrong, but i don’t think that tvbythenumbers is that place.
Our Local Affilliate in Miami also did show the Obama conference.
Man, NBC comes in significantly behind ABC and CBS even when they’re showing the same thing! Says something about the state of the network I tells ya.
We had three choices yesterday evening.
1. Lie to Me (FOX)
2. President Obama (ABC, CBS, NBC, Various Cable Networks)
3. None of the Above
I was one of the approximately 200,000,000 who chose (3)
Lost performed as expected. Episode was really good. Depressing though. LTM did fine. I’m satisfied with the numbers
I also watched “Lie to Me” for the first time and wasn’t impressed. The show is definitely not well written like “Damages”. Guess I’ll resort to my DVD’s instead.
The finals are up here:
http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/63310451/m/633105702/p/6
The Unusuals are down to 4.86 million viewers and a 1.5 in the demo. It’s almost like the Unusuals and Cupid are having a contest to see who can do worse.
Lost rose to 9.04 million viewers and a 4.1 in the demo.
I’m astonished that Fringe is now beating Lost in the ratings!
“Fox is getting some industry PR over the LTM move though. I have seen a few stories about how LTM “beat” Obama at 8pm (which is silly, it didn’t by any reasonable measure).”
I guess that depends on whether you think its reasonable to take each networks Obama numbers individually or not. I don’t think its unreasonable to spin it that way but it is major spin to push that agenda.
Godfather Fox is pretty high on Lie To Me, it tests incredibly well with audiences and they’re making all the right noises in regards to investing in it and making it a hit, which is why the general belief is its back next year. I’d agree that Fox will likely give it a 13 episode order and see how things pan out in the fall and that’s easily the best route for them to take at this point. I wouldn’t be amazed if they give it a full season pick-up though.
In terms of how networks fall when it comes to shows with the same 18-49 it can vary from show to show and relative costs. 30-minute sitcoms can for example survive with lower 18-49 numbers than a 60-minute show as sitcoms are cheaper to produce, which is why its so difficult to compare the numbers between the two. When you’re looking at 60-minute dramas how the 18-49 breaks down in terms 18-34, high income homes, trend setters and things of that nature will play a large part. As will how much the show costs to make, how much money it brings in and sometimes who’s involved. There are a lot of variables to take into account with buble shows.
I just saw the update on the side bar which says that Fox News had the most viewers for the Obama press conference. Kind of blows Jackie’s conspiracy theory above. I think people are just getting fatigued and there are so many other ways to get information on things like the flu outbreak. I usually read transcripts online of any speeches or press conferences. It’s faster and more efficient. He needs to be really careful or he’ll wear out his welcome with folks and when he really does have something to say people will have tuned him out. Plus I have to wonder if the little “flyby” stunt in NYC hurt his ratings there. People were really upset about the whole thing.
ThePattern: “I’m astonished that Fringe is now beating Lost in the ratings!”
In total viewership, not in the 18-49 demo. The finals put “Fringe” ahead by under 600,000 for total viewership, but “Lost” was ahead by 0.1 in the demo this week:
Fringe:
- 9.623 million viewers
- 4.0 A18-49
Lost:
- 9.037 million viewers
- 4.1/10 A18-49
L Patel, I added that update to the post as well, but neglected to change the excerpt on the home page. I’ll do that now…
Well, there’s some good news for Lost at least!
Jackie, I guess you missed the part of the article that stated more people watched Obama’s press conference on FOX NEWS than the other stations. FOX must be really evil to not only provide the most widely used outlet for watching the press conference, but to also provide regularly scheduled programming for the people who didn’t want to watch the address. I really hate it when a company like FOX tries to shove ‘choice’ down my throat.
** mohs
and yeah lost in the season 5
and fringe in the one !!
we will see after five seasons !!
Jackie: “Fox News is controlled by the Republicans and they hate our President.”
I’m sorry, but what an ignorant comment that is. I’m a republican, and I certainly don’t hate our president. In fact I voted for him as many republicans did. I suppose your next argument is the republicans control the cable news ratings as well. That must be the reason Fox News beats CNN and MSNBC combined. It’s always the opposing party’s fault, right? Ahh, life would be so much easier if that were true, but I find serious faults in both parties that make them equally reprehensible. Perhaps you should take a closer look at what’s really going on instead of blaming the opposition.
Are the DVR numbers already included here? I think that they are, but I just wanted to make sure. Last night Criminal Minds had the best episode ever with the very talented Alex O’Loughlin. (Yes, he was the lead in Moonlight).
Bianca33, all the numbers on our site *except* those in specific DVR viewing related posts are Live+Same Day which include DVR viewing before 3am, which is typically 40-60% of all DVR viewing within 7 days of airtime.
Bianca33, I don’t think Alex’s appearance on CM mattered much in the ratings at all. I just became a huge Moonlight fan about a month ago and while I think he’s a good actor(on tv) I never really thought his appearance on CM would be that huge(in terms of ratings). I also have my doubts about Three Rivers’ possible success.
Maybe I’m wrong, but to me it looks like CM had pretty much the same ratings last night as it has the previous past weeks.
If CBS is thinking of picking up Three Rivers based on O’Loughlin’s fanbase, they may want to think again. Either that fanbase lied when they said ad nauseum that they were never going to watch a CBS show again after they canceled Moonlight or they didn’t tune in last night. Last night’s CM got exactly the same ratings as the last airing in the normal timeslot and lower than last week’s special 10 pm airing.
Bush pretty much always held his speeches (except State of Union speech to Congress which has to be on Tuesdays) and occasional night time press conferences during the Thursday CSI/Office/Grey’s Anatomy/whatever else was on, 8 Central-9 Eastern time slot. My guess is that someone knew that this was an optimum viewer slot. Thursdays have always been a big ratings night.
Obama chose last night because it was the 100th day and all the network and cable news people were making such a big deal of it all week. It wasn’t as if the networks couldn’t have seen that one coming. And honestly they have reporters who could ask about the scheduling of these things.
note that bush had WAY fewer news conferences than obama…
Bush didn’t like being on T.V. Obama does.
Holy, I truly believe there were a lot more people out there who loved Moonlight for the show that it was and the ENTIRE cast than CBS gave them credit for. Yeah, there were a lot of “Alex fans” out there but they really dissed the show with their comments. I wish Alex well in his future projects but like I said, I have serious doubts about Three Rivers. Not so much because of Alex but because I don’t think another medical drama is going to be successful, and to be honest the premise of TR doesn’t seem all that great to me.
One things for sure, people who want Three Rivers to succeed better hope the show is in the top 10 for ratings of CBS shows or it won’t stand a chance. More than likely, it won’t have the comfy spot of being between two strong ratings shows(GW, Numbers) that Moonlight did.
lol, “ThePattern” comparing Lost to Fringe – this just cracks me up. Fringe is a good show, but even with TV’s biggest show, it barely outperforms it’s competitors, even in the young demos, where CBS is known to fail.
Plus the retention is horrible. It’s going to last for a while, but on it’s own, it probably wouldn’t. Plus it’s episodic. Technically much easier to get into than Lost, yet Lost gets better ratings than Fringe – in the key demos, without any sort of lead in.
Lost got 18 million viewers in season 1, I’d like to see Fringe hit that number. But even in season 3, it averaged 13 million at 10pm. So, yeah. Comparing Fringe to Lost is to quote Dr. Chang “utterly absurd”.
I enjoyed the eppy The Big Wheel very much. I admit to tuning in because of Alex O’Loughlin. I found his portrayal of the OCD serial killer chilling and as far removed from Mick St John as he could get. He did a fantastic job in keeping with the quality of the show that CM is. His portrayal of Vincent certainly showed a different side of his acting ability. He made you CARE for a serial killer and made you SAD that he died. You can write a great part, like Mirren did, but you have to ACT the part to bring the audience along with you through your tortured journey…and Alex did all that and more. I’m am VERY proud to be a fan of Alex O’Loughlin.
“Lost” should be moved to a different time slot. “American Idol” and “Criminal Minds” are just ruining that show.
After waiting anxiously for months to see Alex O’Loughlin in the episode “The Big Wheel” on CRIMINAL MINDS, I was thrilled by his performance on 4/29. Having seen all of Alex’s work, and knowing that it is all outstanding, I was still just blown away by his amazing portrayal of Vincent. Alex puts so much time and care into preparing for his roles, and it sure does show. He didn’t even have that much dialogue in that show, and how many actors could evoke such feelings of sympathy for a serial killer like Alex did with Vincent?! Yes, Simon Mirren did an excellent job on the writing (I bet Alex did much of that writing with Simon), but only Alex could have pulled off that part the way he did. It was touching, thought provoking and just simply awesome. I look forward to everything that Alex does in the future, including Three Rivers (I just know that CBS will pick that up for the fall), WhiteOut (due to FINALLY open in theaters 9/09) and The Back-Up Plan which begins filming 5/11.