| Scoreboard |  |
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| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 2.0/6 | 1.6/5 | 1.6/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 0.5/2 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 1.8/6 | 1.0/4 | 1.0/4 | 1.6/6 | 1.1/4 | 0.6/2 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 5.711 | 7.563 | 5.717 | 3.592 | 4.708 | 1.295 |
On a night when So You Think You Can Dance? lead Fox to a win with a overall nightly 2.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demo, the bigger story was the wall to wall tribute specials to Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett which made for an extremely tight race for second place.
New episodes of the canceled Samantha Who? and In The Motherhood managed only a 1.0 and 0.7 18-49 demo rating respectively against all repeat competition.
So You Think You Can Dance? Was down 0.4 ratings points from last Thursday against 2 specials at 9pm.
In the battle of the dueling Jackson/Fawcett specials it was dead even in the 18-49 demo at 9pm between NBC and ABC. With CBS in the mix at 10pm, ABC’s 20/20 special had a clear advantage with a 2.3 demo rating.
In the battle of the dueling Jackson/Fawcett specials it was a tie in the 18-49 demo at 9pm between the Michael Jackson specials on Dateline (NBC) and 20/20 (ABC). At 10pm, the ABC 20/20 special on Farrah Fawcett was the winner with a 2.3 rating, as the NBC Dateline Fawcett special, and the CBS Jackson special trailed.
Edits: Since the actual schedules diverted from the planned schedules by so much last night, I am making ongoing changes to the post during the day today as I receive corrections.
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating | 18-49 Share | 18-34 Rating | 18-34 Share | Viewers Live+SD (Millons) |
| 8:00 | FOX | Bones (repeat) | 1.4 | 5 | 1.1 | 4 | 4.561 |
| NBC | 30 Rock The Office (repeat) | 1.1 | 4 | 1.0 | 4 | 3.134 | |
| CBS | Criminal Minds The Mentalist (repeat) | 1.1 | 4 | 0.7 | 3 | 6.618 | |
| ABC | Samantha Who? | 1.0 | 4 | 0.7 | 3 | 3.729 | |
| CW | Smallville (repeat) | 0.5 | 2 | 0.6 | 3 | 1.468 | |
| 8:30 | NBC | The Office (repeat) | 1.3 | 4 | 1.2 | 4 | 2.973 |
| ABC | In the Motherhood | 0.7 | 2 | 0.5 | 2 | 2.692 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | So You Think You Can Dance | 2.5 | 7 | 2.4 | 8 | 6.862 |
| NBC | Dateline: Michael Jackson & Fawcett | 1.7 | 5 | 1.3 | 4 | 5.245 | |
| ABC | 20/20: Michael Jackson & Fawcett | 1.7 | 5 | 1.1 | 4 | 5.711 | |
| CBS | CSI (repeat) | 1.6 | 5 | 1.0 | 3 | 8.505 | |
| CW | Supernatural (repeat) | 0.4 | 1 | 0.5 | 2 | 1.105 | |
| 10:00 | ABC | 20/20: Jackson & Farrah Fawcett | 2.3 | 7 | 1.3 | 4 | 8.230 |
| CBS | Special: Jackson | 2.0 | 6 | 1.3 | 4 | 7.566 | |
| NBC | Dateline: Jackson & Farrah Fawcett | 1.6 | 5 | 0.9 | 3 | 5.826 |
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Shows are sorted from highest 18-49 rating to lowest 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 and Numbers 102.
To be accurate, 9pm on ABC and NBC was solely Jackson and 10pm was solely Fawcett. CBS at 10pm was Jackson.
Also, NBC showed The Office at 8 and 830 and did not show 30 Rock.
Yesterday was a very weird day with Jackson and Fawcett dying and the office was on at 8pm instead of 30 rock
The 20/20 specials on ABC were different. The one @ 9 was about Michael Jacksn, which consisted mainly of old interviews. The one @ 10 was about Farrah Fawsett and had new interviews, which won the hour for ABC.
Don, thanks for the heads up, the line up above was what we got from our sources. Will adjust.
Correction: NBC at 10pm might have been a mix, but I think it was just Farrah
Also Farrah has two Rs
Thanks for the corrections. I have a feeling I may be making them all day.
ABC should’ve put an AFV repeat on @ 8. That probably would’ve performed a lot better than Sam Who?/ITM. Even reruns of The Office did better!
Is it really possible that SYTYCD got a 2.5 in both 18-49 and 18-34?!?
gmeyers, in cases like that a typo by me is always the likely alternative, but in this case, that 2.5 for 18-34 was actually a rounding error from one of our sources. It should have been a 2.4. Will fix.
It’s weird how people watched the ABC ones even though no one watches their reruns. I didn’t watch any specials, but how much were they different? If the casual viewer doesn’t tune in to the ABC reruns, what made them stick to ABC for the Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson specials?
samantha who didnt do too bad considering no promotion. if it would have been promoted, it wouldve done better but ABC wont promote a show they cancelled. i really will never know why ABC cancelled Samantha Who? Fans of the show now vow they will not watch any ABC shows in Fall unless it is brought back.
I cant blame people not watching ABC shows. They all just get cancelled. its ridiculous.
The_1337, Samantha Who? and In the Motherhood were not repeats. But I was flipping back and forth between ABC and NBC all through the 9 pm hour. They were not exactly the same, though they were similar. But ABC had Barbara Walters (at least for the Farrah Fawcett part) which is probably why it beat NBC and CBS.
Samantha Who may have done badly, but it still gets twice as many viewers as Better Off Ted, so why did ABC renew Better Off Ted and cancel Samantha Who?
Also, in the spirit of correcting Bill, I didn’t watch the CBS special, but it was on briefly while I was in the living room, and it seemed like they were talking about Farrah Fawcett as well as Michael Jackson. But someone who actually watched it would have to confirm.
CBS had a tribute to Farrah Fawcett in the middle of their Michael Jackson tribute.
Nigel gave a nice acknowledgment to Ed McMahon (for Star Search finds and for The Tonight Show), Farrah, and a larger one to Michael Jackson (for his contribution to dance and music) on So You Think You Can Dance. You could tell that they were all a bit subdued on that show since it was live. Cat, who usually does not look like she is reading her cue cards, was very obviously doing so. And the elimination was a bit rushed. They mentioned that FOX apparently is rerunning some special Jackson show on Monday night but I am not sure of the details.
Just noticed. CBS actually ran The Mentalist in the first hour at 8. I’m Central time so it was 7 for us. Weird TV night to be sure.
On and off I watched a lot of Keith Olberman on MSNBC. He was on live from 7 Eastern replacing Chris Mathews show, his own show, and Rachel Maddow’s too, and his and Rachel’s repeats, until 11 Eastern.
Samantha Who? and In the Motherhood were very funny as usual! I’m sad they got canceled. At least I still have Better Off Ted.
FOX will be re-airing American Idol Top 13 …The tribute performances of the Michael Jackson songs they did early in the season…it re-airs this Monday Nite
CBS special was called “The Life and Death of Michael Jackson”. It was all about him, with a very brief brief segment on Farrah.
thefutoncritic confirms mentalist aired at 8
Weird TV night. I ended up DVRing USA’s BN and RP. The cable news ratings are probably up and the non-music cable ratings are probably down. I see MTV, VH1 Classic, BET, and Fuse are all-MJ-videos-all-the-time today.
Yes, The Mentalist was on at 8pm. I watched a bit of it.
a little odd that all the prime time Farrah coverage got more viewers than Jackson RIP both
@Sam
That’s because it was non-stop Jackson on the cable news, and Farrah was pushed aside there.
Strange to watch the specials about M.J. Maybe it’s just me but it feels like he’s been gone for a long time, the entertainer anyway. The last decade or so he’s really been nothing more than a pop culture oddity. When he was in his prime, before all the scandals, his talent was unmatched.
“Dead even?” Really, you elected to use that phrase?
The CW did better than last time.
BTO, D’oh! My subconscious controls all! Tastefully modified.
Can we get ratings for the speials on MTV is going to do and how they are doing with the Michael Jackson videos all day? Same with VH1 and BET. The best tribute you can give the King of Pop, one of the greatest of all time is play his music non-stop on TV and Radio.
Julian, my guess is that MTV doesn’t release a press release with those numbers, but I’ll look for them on Tuesday’s weekly report.
Funny that more people watched a repeat of CSI than watch the specials on Michael Jackson on the 9pm hour.
Samantha Who should have never been cancelled, and Burn Notice, always was great, but DVR most all last night to watch Micheal Jackson tribute, still hard to believe and still brings a tear to my eye.
can probably get rid of that question mark after mentalist
I haven’t watched network tv in years, even my local news channels, I get my news from Fox and local stuff from the web
I am about ready to cancel my cable and buy books. TV is not what it used to be.
It’s rather crass to compare which obituary tribute got the most viewers, don’t you think?
Kay, this is what this site does everyday. You expect them to change based on what you find to be “crass”?
Anything for Royal Pains yet?
Am I the only one in the world that doesn’t get SYTYCD? It’s sooo bad and sooo lame. Judges cackling, Judges with big ugly chicklet teeth, “dance for your life”. I don’t get it