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| Adults 18-49: Rating/Share | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.1/3 | 1.0/3 | 0.6/2 | 0.4/1 |
| Adults 18-34: Rating/Share | 1.5/6 | 0.9/3 | 0.7/2 | 0.8/3 | 0.5/2 | 0.5/2 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 3.29 | 7.26 | 4.26 | 4.44 | 1.64 | 1.15 |
Last week I wrote that the premiere of Defying Gravity didn’t appear to be optimized for ratings success, and while I tried to remain upbeat about the gloomy predictions, since we’re results-oriented, there’s no way to be upbeat about the results. It pulled a 1.1/3 with adults 18-49 between 8pm-10pm and was the lowest rated scripted series premiere of the summer. Having Ty Pennington: Ty’s Great British Adventure with a 1.0 in the demo probably didn’t help much. Fans will try to take heart that it tied last night’s Merlin (1.1 adults 18-49 rating) and beat part two of The Storm (1.0 adults 18-49 rating), but that doesn’t strike me as very comforting.
FOX and CBS tied for the lead for the night with adults 18-49 and CBS led in overall viewers. A repeat of Family Guy was the biggest 18-49 draw with a 2.2 rating, and CBS’ Big Brother was second for the night with a 2.1 rating.
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 7:00 | CBS | 60 Minutes | 1.3/5 | 0.8/3 | 9.20 |
| ABC | America’s Funniest Home Videos (R) | 1.2/5 | 0.9/4 | 4.77 | |
| NBC | Dateline NBC | 1.0/4 | 0.8/4 | 4.72 | |
| FOX | Til Death (R) | 0.7/3 | 0.4/2 | 1.67 | |
| CW | Easy Money (R) | 0.3/1 | 0.3/1 | 0.65 | |
| 7:30 | ABC | America’s Funniest Home Videos (R) | 1.4/5 | 1.0/4 | 5.50 |
| NBC | Dateline NBC | 1.3/5 | 1.0/4 | 5.36 | |
| CBS | 60 Minutes | 1.3/5 | 0.6/2 | 9.23 | |
| FOX | American Dad (R) | 0.8/3 | 0.7/3 | 1.76 | |
| CW | Easy Money (R) | 0.3/1 | 0.3/1 | 0.72 | |
| 8:00 | CBS | Big Brother | 2.2/8 | 1.6/6 | 7.18 |
| FOX | The Simpsons (R) | 1.5/5 | 1.5/6 | 3.21 | |
| NBC | Merlin | 1.1/4 | 0.9/3 | 4.39 | |
| ABC | Ty Pennington: Ty’s Great British Adventure | 1.0/3 | 0.7/3 | 4.52 | |
| CW | Movie: Overboard (R) | 0.6/2 | 0.5/2 | 1.75 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | Big Brother | 2.1/7 | 1.5/5 | 6.64 |
| FOX | The Simpsons (R) | 1.9/6 | 1.9/7 | 4.14 | |
| NBC | Merlin | 1.1/3 | 0.9/3 | 4.52 | |
| ABC | Ty Pennington: Ty’s Great British Adventure | 1.0/3 | 0.7/3 | 4.14 | |
| CW | Movie: Overboard (R) | 0.7/2 | 0.5/2 | 1.94 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | Family Guy (R) | 2.2/6 | 2.4/8 | 4.63 |
| CBS | Cold Case (R) | 1.1/3 | 0.7/2 | 6.47 | |
| ABC | Defying Gravity (premiere) | 1.1/3 | 0.5/2 | 3.97 | |
| NBC | The Storm: Part 2 | 0.9/3 | 0.7/2 | 4.32 | |
| CW | Movie: Overboard (R) | 0.8/2 | 0.6/2 | 2.31 | |
| 9:30 | FOX | The Simpsons (R) | 2.0/6 | 2.3/7 | 4.31 |
| CBS | Cold Case (R) | 1.1/3 | 0.7/2 | 6.80 | |
| ABC | Defying Gravity (premiere) | 1.1/3 | 0.6/2 | 3.68 | |
| CW | Movie: Overboard (R) | 0.9/3 | 0.7/2 | 2.45 | |
| NBC | The Storm: Part 2 | 0.9/3 | 0.6/2 | 4.10 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Without a Trace (R) | 1.2/4 | 0.8/3 | 6.23 |
| NBC | The Storm: Part 2 | 1.0/3 | 0.6/2 | 3.99 | |
| ABC | Defying Gravity (premiere) | 1.0/3 | 0.5/2 | 3.54 | |
| 10:30 | CBS | Without a Trace (R) | 1.4/4 | 0.8/3 | 6.36 |
| ABC | Defying Gravity (premiere) | 1.1/3 | 0.5/2 | 3.58 | |
| NBC | The Storm: Part 2 | 1.0/3 | 0.6/2 | 4.09 |
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Shows are sorted by 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.
Memo to ABC. You can try to repeat the magic that got from Grey’s Anatomy. Nice try…
These numbers are terrible. Perhaps the big networks should go back to running repeats all summer long. The numbers couldn’t be much worse than what we’re seeing now.
The idea of trying out new shows during the summer, throwing out a million new shows and seeing what if anything sticks, just isn’t working very well for them. They need a new strategy.
Why did ABC premier this series 6 weeks before the season starts? When viewers return to TV watching in mid-September, this series will be half over and many people won’t bother checking it out.
Maybe if they replace the blond woman with Jennifer Aniston to make out with Peter Gibbons (Livingston), replace the fat guy with Stephen Root as MILTON wielding his trusty red Swingline stapler and they watched episodes of KUNG FU to pass the time, it would get better ratings? Bill Lumberg would be the new mission control guy who would keep telling them to fill out the cover sheets for their TPS reports.
Granted this was 10 times better than the awful STORM movie, didnt even bother with part 2 after they killed off Dan Fielding (Night Court), but DG is just too dull and cerebral for the masses. Its basically a series version of MISSION TO MARS (the French are the only ones who thought that movie was great – at least according to Wikipedia) meets 2001 A Space Odyssey starring “the guy from Office Space”.
Time to blow the cast out the air lock and call it a wrap. I hope at least they explain what the mysterious alien thing is that is telling them what to do and apparently has the power to clog arteries of annoying Indian guys from long distances.
“Defying Gravity” fails because it exhibits three of the worst Sci-Fi movie cliches: 1) long, tepid voice-overs; 2) overuse of FLASHBACKS; and 3) at least one astronaut suffers from what you’ll recognize as “space madness”.
You’re much better off buying the DVDs of Ron Moore’s “Battlestar Galactica.”
Defying Gravity was better than Meteor, Impact, and The Storm. That being said, it wasn’t anything special. I did like how there was some kind of outside entity behind their actions. The voiceovers were pretty stupid and I don’t think Donner ever had anything insightful to say.
BSG? Definitely more worthwhile as it has 3 key elements – weapons fire, robots and explosions. CW could have aired 3 BSG episodes every Sunday night over the summer and gotten better ratings than anything else they aired this summer. Would have been an interesting experiment.
Nice ratings for The CW movie! Sad for Defying Gravity:( I thought it was decent but not great, probably wont continue watching!
2.31 for cw movie!!!its the best number since may for the cw!!!!!!!!!!
in 9:30 SLOT IT WAS SECOND !!!HOW IMPRESSIVE!!!2.45!!!
I ? Merlin
uh, that ‘?’ was a heart a second ago.
So True Blood probably beat Defying Gravity. (The past two episodes have been a step beyond awesome.)
I watched and thought the show has possibilities. I will watch again next week.
Nice to see Merlin beat something this week.
I think 1.1 people saw it.
Good thing Defying Gravity is an international co-production. If it’s successful in at least one of those other countries, it can salvage something, anyway. I believe it’s supposed to air in the UK and Germany, at a minimum. Canada, too?
I thought it was decent, with definite potential. I didn’t have the highest opinion of the Grey’s Anatomy pilot, either, and that show vastly improved.
I liked the flashbacks, the mystery surrounding the mission, and some of the characters. Didn’t see enough of others to say yet.
DG tied/lost to the CW – I think that’s enough said right there.
I tried watching bits and pieces of it (since Canada’s CTV premiered the show simultaneously on TWO of its main networks yesterday) – it was worse than I expected…
I like something other than repeats for summer viewing. Merlin isn’t the greatest show, but NBC has to be happy as it cost them next to nothing compared to an original show would have.
“Good thing Defying Gravity is an international co-production. If it’s successful in at least one of those other countries, it can salvage something, anyway.”
I doubt the international aspect will make ABC renew it. After all, Crusoe was an international co-production, and NBC canned it. I think the same will go for Defying Gravity and Merlin. (BTW, I watched the last 10 minutes of Merlin, and I couldnt stop laughing at that stupid dragon. What an awful show.)
Maybe they could reveal the whole mission is being run by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation? Chest-bursting aliens! Yeah, thats the ticket.
Do we know why Fox is running repeats of ‘Til Death, when it still has fifteen or seventeen unaired episodes made for the 2008/2009 season? I do not watch the show, but I find this quite curious. I searched Wikipedia, The Futon Critic, SpoilerTV, TV.com, TV Guide.com and Google, but drew a blank.
Did Fox effectively cancel it this year, but is reviving it next year; thus, feeling that it is not obligated to run this year’s episodes? Did they actually only order fix or seven episodes for next year and are carrying over the remainders?
Loved seeing Big Brother win its time slot. My favorite guilty pleasure and glad it does well. Not being to expensive to produce, CBS has got to be saying “order up Season 12 for next summer.”
Not really sure why they keep putting shows like Defying Gravity, Merlin and many others on the major networks. In my honest opinion these are cable shows. One thought for things like Merlin and The Listener is that they’re very cheap. Both have already been paid for in the UK/CA so anything extra is gravy. Defying Gravity however is a mystery.
My wife conned me into watching this show. A show has to be really bad before I stop watching it and I couldn’t stand this one for too long. I did enjoy seeing the guy from Office Space (forget his name) get a chance at TV.
Overall this show suffers from trying to include every bit of cliche baloney that the writers could throw in. The astronauts were young horn dogs looking to hump everything. The mission was an international joint effort. The heroes had a tragic past. It had too many of those things. Real astronauts are scholarly, intelligent and boring. This show included nothing like that but threw in some crap to appeal to the younger audience. Another one for the dung heap.
OK, Defying Gravity got beat by reruns of a canceled show (Without a Trace). I’m not sure how anyone can put a positive spin on that and keep a straight face.
“Did Fox effectively cancel it this year, but is reviving it next year; thus, feeling that it is not obligated to run this year’s episodes? Did they actually only order fix or seven episodes for next year and are carrying over the remainders?”
No, FOX did not ever cancel ‘Til Death. However, they got a very good offer from Sony (who makes the show) that they could not pass on. I believe there is 1 episode left from season 2 (which was to air in season 3) about 5-7 episodes from season 3, and 22 (yes, a full 22 episode order) for season 4. Why FOX doesnt air those season 3 episodes, I’ll never know. What makes it even more puzzling is that in season 4, they removed JB Smoove, and replaced him with the daughter and her boyfriend. So when it starts in October, FOX will have one episode with the neighbors, 5-7 with JB Smoove, and 22 with the daughter and her boyfriend. Talk about craziness! (I probably did help much.
)
If “Defying Gravity” is simply “Grey’s Anatomy in Space,” why don’t I just watch “Grey’s Anatomy,” and pretend like it’s set in space?
http://thebrowntweedsociety.com/2009/08/03/ive-never-watched-greys-anatomy-so-why-would-i-want-to-watch-greys-anatomy-in-space/
Easy Money wasn’t a repeat.
demonhog, the strange saga of ‘Til Death is all about syndication. It’s never found any real following, but if they run another season, they can create a big enough block of episodes that they can make a minor syndication sale and recoup some of their investment.
It makes no sense to burn new episodes in the summer at 7 o’clock on Sunday because nobody watches then. So they’re showing repeats to make the show feel current until it comes back.
And by running Til Death in a time slot they understand – they’ve been doing half-hours at 7 for more than a decade – it gives them a sense of the show’s basic strength, which will help them grade Friday night on a curve when the show moves to Fridays in the fall.
As much as I like Merlin, I don’t see NBC screening the Second Series which will air in the UK on BBC1. More likley NBC might move it to sister SyFy or maybe BBC America will pick it up.
Merlin is a great family show which sometime does not work as well in America these days. BBC1 really tapped into something when the ever famous Doctor Who returned to TV.
I don’t know why you guys are so down on Merlin. It is a perfectly entertaining family ahow. For every commenter who laughed at the cheap graphics of the dragon (which, incidentally, saves NBC a mint) there are kids like mine who gasped in wonder. I watched it with my son and he loved it (and, quite frankly, so did I). I love the idea that I can watch Merlin with the kid and then HBO’s adult lineup when its his bedtime.
RJ–No, ABC won’t care how the show does internationally. They won’t tolerate low numbers in the U.S. airings, and they have no ownership stake in matters. Doesn’t matter to them if it goes to #1 in Canada or wherever, if it can’t do anything on their network. But if the show is successful in other countries, it at least has a fighting chance of producing new episodes to air in those places.
I think few people are watching Merlin because it simply isn’t very good. Friends have told me it picks up toward the end of this season, but how many viewers want to sit through 9-10 crappy episodes to get to something that’s reasonably decent?
was overboard the movie with adam sandler
cause if it is thats pretty crazy because i was watching funny people last night
I have to say, Merlin is simple and silly, but it’s a lot more entertaining than the same old crime and medical show repeats, the trashy reality shows, and the badly done disaster movies that flood networks in the summer.
Maybe I’ve set my bar lower with all of the summer reality shit clogging the broadcast channels but I enjoyed Defying Gravity. The ratings might have sucked but I think there’s a really good show in there, especially if they drop the pointless voiceover and tone down some of the soapy stuff. I’ll be watching to see where it goes.
Defying Gravity was boring and the acting was awful and worse than most daytime soaps, used too many cliches as someone previously stated, in addition, there was the cute but annoying mexican girl who threw in unrealistic Spanish in for no reason (look at tvtropes.org under “Gratuitous Foreign Language”), even if in the future Spanish becomes more of a major language, it’s still completely ridiculous if the girl speaks English (almost) perfectly, and yet she’s speaking random Spanish words to everyone else whose common language is obviously English, it’s just complete Hollywood bullcrap and unrealistic, Spanish speakers if they speak English, they’re not gonna speak in random Spanish to “gringos” who won’t understand what they’re saying, it was so stupid and just one of the many things wrong with this show. Also those corny musical sequences, how about replacing those moments with actual good and interesting dialogue? Sorry, that’s my critique.
I enjoyed it too, and I’m depressed that it didn’t do better in the ratings.
I wish Hollywood writers would stop inserting random Spanish words in the scripts to indicate that the character is Latin, it’s like, YES, WE KNOW THEY’RE LATIN, WE HAVE EYES!
If the crew of the Antares was captured and assimilated by the Borg, would anyone notice? Ok, the Borg dont like Zero G sex…. but still.
One has to remember this series is heavily Canadian and European influenced (hence the Stanley Kubrick 2001 type feel to it). They violated the rule to keep Canadians away from SCI-FI series – anyone remember the horror that was THE STARLOST? It like PLAN 9 FROM OUTERSPACE only worse.
If this series is going to survive they need to crank up the action dial from 1 to 10. Lasers, malevolent aliens, explosions, chest bursting aliens… whatever it takes.
On a technical level it was well done, but ongoing if it remains as boring as this it will end up being exiled to Saturdays to join KINGS, PUSHING UP DAISIES and HARPERS ISLAND in the cemetery of un-dead expensive shows to burn off the remaining episodes.
The song “Blue Danube” will play in next week’s episode…I’ll put Monopoly money on it!
Yeah, there’s not going to be much action on DG given its budget. And I doubt ABC payed enough to classify it as “expensive”.
Oh, and Canada did have a good sci-fi series – Charlie Jade.
I think you’ll find that Charlie Jade was South African (like the forthcoming film “District 9″). Canada has its hands all over good Sci-Fi – the Stargate series (SG-1/Atlantis) were made, staffed and part funded in Canada, as was BSG, as is Santuary. A lot of the primary actors are Canadian too. I am not Canadian BTW.
I liked DG – yes there was a lot of set up but I think it shows potential. God knows there was a lot of slack in True Blood early on too – now it is rip roaring along! With the alien in the hold and still no idea what the mission is, I am looking forward to it picking up the pace.
PS – The points about the Spanish speaking are classic blather from people with no passports or language skills. She isn’t talking to the other crew, she is broadcasting to a global schools audience (like they do on some shuttle missions), many of whom would be native Spanish speakers. It is a major global language and America’s second tongue. Maybe ABC would like to get some viewers from Univision?
It is a shame that ABC will probably can it early given the low figures but if it gains international success, then at least I can torrent it.
It’s boring. I don’t give it too much of a chance at lasting. Mind you it makes you wonder if V is going to be this much of a snooze-fest.
V? From the trailer, it looks sanitized and dull. Hopefully it wont turn out to be as bad as I think it will be. Not having the original creator Brian Johnson involved is a bad sign. Hopefully he can get his big screen movie off the ground – which would erase the event of V” The Final Battle and deal with Earth after 25 years of lizard occupation.
DAY ONE looks promising – sort a mix of LOST and CLOVERFIELD and WAR OF THE WORLDS.
But after so many disappointing sci-fi series lately, I will be shocked if either one succeeds.
Oh, I didn’t know that about the global schools thing, but I’m talking about the scene where she’s talking one on one with that red headed guy, I understand Spanish fluently, I learned, hehe, and the words she were saying were simple phrases like “digame” which is like “tell me” and it still didn’t make any sense considering how unrealistic that is, I mean as a gringo myself, I have Spanish speaking friends, they don’t go around saying random Spanish words to non-Spanish speakers who won’t have any idea what they’re saying, and it’s unrealistic on this show especially as astronauts where effective communication can mean the difference between life and death. Also, the words she were saying in Spanish in the global schools things weren’t direct translations of what she was saying in English, so that also didn’t make sense, you’d think that if they were trying to teach future astronauts or whatever, they’d get every sentence translated to Spanish, and the things they were saying in Spanish, the English speakers should hear too, AHHH! Whatever, it’s a big ol’ mess. Hehe.
Capnbob: No passports or language skills? I’m an American, I speak Spanish fluently, you’re a pathetic human being if you have to go around insulting others for their opinions, and that makes me laugh at how pathetic you are, hahaha, and I won’t waste my time reading your pathetic replies to put me down, but I’ll be laughing anyway at what an insecure loser you are that you have to put random strangers on an internet forum because you don’t have the balls to stand up for yourself in your pathetic real life, hahahahaha!
Capnbob: Why don’t you just go back to Mexico or the South American country you’re from? I smell an offended Latino who’s gonna pull out the racism card, which is just pathetic since I was defending Latinos by pointing out how stereotypical and unrealistic the Spanish dialogue was. Even more reason for me to laugh at how a pathetic insecure human being you are, hahahaha!
Oh God!
The numbers for Defying Gravity is just awful!
People need to accept Merlin for what it is…a nice little family show produced on the BBC without the special affects of Transformers. My kids LOVE it and look forward to it. I think it’s reminiscent of the old Disney Sunday night shows. We all sit around, eat popcorn, laugh and have fun with a SAFE script (no fear of naked people, sex talk, heavy innuendo). Is America too high on reality tv and sex not to be able to give their kids one great family show a week?
Thank you, Gina. That’s EXACTLY what I wanted to say but was not as articulate in doing so. Merlin is the type of show that ended the weekend for me in the late 1970s when I was a kid. NBC’s Sunday night programmming at around the same time has a special fondness for me. And it warms my heart that I can spend the same time with my son — who loves Merlin — and pass that along. I highly suggest that any of you with kids watch it with them and see it through their eyes (and the eyes you had when you were their age).
Now — If you want to be snarky, go right ahead. If you’d rather watch yet another family unfriendly police procedural in the timeslot, I can’t stop you from writting. But that’s not going to stop those of us who have warmed to the simple magic of the show.
At least its better than There Goes the Neighborhood. Now THAT show is dreadful!
Bad Robot ! says:
“They violated the rule to keep Canadians away from SCI-FI series – anyone remember the horror that was THE STARLOST? It like PLAN 9 FROM OUTERSPACE only worse.”
Hell, I’d take the Starlost, in all its absurd historical context, over anything that’s oozed out of J.J. Abrams.