| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating: Adults 18-49 | 2.6/8 | 2.4/7 | 2.0/6 | 1.7/5 | 0.4/1 | |
| Rating: Adults 18-34 | ||||||
| Total Viewers (million) | 11.03 | 6.84 | 5.49 | 5.25 | 1.34 |
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! And a special thanks to “Travis Yanan” for posting the numbers on the holiday. Show your thanks by following him on Twitter.
Even though CBS won the night, the biggest winner might have been NBC with a two hour The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now? which outperformed last week’s combo of Mercy and Law & Order: SVU. Everything else was down versus last week. You can skip ahead to the half hourly data and view the carnage for yourself. Last week’s results are here.
Some of you might be thinking, “Freaking DUH, it was the night before Thanksgiving! Of Course things were down! Why do they even bother?” It’s a reasonable thing to think. But sometimes you have to remember that TV is an advertising business, and despite lower viewing, advertisers are really, really interested in advertising ahead of the “Black Friday” sales. So much so that some Thanksgivings the broadcast nets have even aired new episodes on Thanksgiving night itself, though tonight I think the only original programming on the broadcast networks is Survivor: Samoa (never mind, it’s technically new but is a clip show recap) and The Jay Leno Show! Everything else is repeats or specials.
Full Details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 8:00 | NBC | The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now? | 2.5/8 | 7.60 |
| CBS | New Adventures of Old Christine | 1.8/6 | 7.01 | |
| ABC | Modern Family (R) | 1.6/5 | 5.54 | |
| FOX | So You Think You Can Dance | 1.5/5 | 4.70 | |
| CW | Movie: Gracie (R) | 0.6/2 | 1.63 | |
| 8:30 | NBC | The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now? | 2.8/9 | 7.81 |
| CBS | Gary Unmarried | 1.9/6 | 6.80 | |
| ABC | The Middle | 1.8/6 | 6.00 | |
| FOX | So You Think You Can Dance | 1.7/5 | 5.05 | |
| CW | Movie: Gracie (R) | 0.4/1 | 1.19 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | Criminal Minds | 3.1/9 | 13.171 |
| NBC | The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now? | 2.9/9 | 7.88 | |
| FOX | Glee | 2.5/7 | 6.08 | |
| ABC | Modern Family | 2.4/7 | 7.12 | |
| CW | Movie: Gracie (R) | 0.4/1 | 1.25 | |
| 9:30 | CBS | Criminal Minds | 3.2/9 | 13.85 |
| NBC | The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now? | 2.8/8 | 7.50 | |
| FOX | Glee | 2.5/7 | 6.13 | |
| ABC | Cougar Town | 1.9/6 | 5.53 | |
| CW | Movie: Gracie (R) | 0.4/1 | ||
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI: NY | 2.8/8 | 12.65 |
| NBC | The Jay Leno Show | 1.7/5 | 5.44 | |
| ABC | Eastwick | 1.2/4 | 3.89 | |
| 10:30 | CBS | CSI: NY | 2.9/9 | 12.68 |
| NBC | The Jay Leno Show | 1.5/5 | 4.79 | |
| ABC | Eastwick | 1.0/3 | 3.41 |
=
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
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.
CBS should have aired Criminal Minds another week. The 100th episode was soooo amazing.
Well, of shows that normally air on Wednesday, Criminal Minds held up remarkably well. So I don’t think CBS regrets airing it.
ohhh God!!! Glee hits a season low….. but that’s OK!!!
Day before thaksgiving… everybody out!!!
well….. let’s see next week!!
Criminal Minds was beyond incredible last night.
Good to see CM staying over 3.0.
Is this the first time Glee beats Modern Family in the demo?
Wow, wtf happened?
Has expected, it’s the day the A18-49 go to visit their elders, and are not allowed to touch the remote. Still it is interesting that Cougartown was nearly matched by The Middle in the demo, and beaten by it in total viewers.
ABC and FOX got killed last night. I was totally shocked when I saw these numbers. What I dont understand is how CBS still managed to do ok. CM and CSI were about the same as last week. Only the comedies were down a lot.
ABC and FOX should bounce back next week hopefully, even though ABC is mostly in repeats except The Middle and Eastwick.
CRIMINAL MINDS was indeed a sterling episode, and for the night before Thanksgiving, held up extremely well in the ratings. FYI, Robert, SURVIVOR tonight is a clip show.
CBS managed to do OK because they had the hook of it being CM’s 100th episode. The figures are actually poor for a “special”, hyped episode. As someone said, it would have done a lot better next week.
If it wasn’t before Thanksgiving, I think it could have approached 4.0.
Criminal minds had its best episode ever last night. A truly amazing episode. Glad it did well despite being aired the night before thanksgiving.
OMG!!!! WTF??? That’s insane MF almost hit 6 million viewers Glee almost in 5 Millions, that’s crazy, ABC should’ve put repeats of everything last night and put the last episodes of MF and CT of the year until nezt week
Is this a joke?! I hope everything will bounce back the next time they air a new episode. I hope it was only because of the holidays.
Its a shame too, because that was the funniest episode of MF yet last night.
Reviews for last nights shows:
New Adventures of Old Christine–8.5/10
The Middle–8/10
Modern Family–9.5//10
Cougar Town–9/10
Glee–8/10
Eastwick–6.5/10
Really hope everything bounces back!!
It definitely IS a shame that viewership was so soft yesterday – ABC had a great bunch of new episodes on last night
On the bright side, at least Jay Leno held steady!
That sucks because Modern Family and The Middle (I record only cause of Gary Unmarried and Glee) were really good last night!! Glee wasnt that great last night!!
Thats not too great, but it would surely pick up next week. Its a shame, all the new episodes were very good. Modern Family and Glee was as usual amazing!
I guess you could look at the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as kind of like a Friday. Anything over 2 can be considered pretty good, and anything approaching a 3 or over did fantastic.
Last night should be on repeats. i don’t understand this network strategy!
CM episode was so good!!! Best episode ever!
Anyone else think Jay Leno will be higher than normal? They’ve got Megan Fox on the show, so that’s gotta be a draw. Plus, besides from Survivor (which I’m not totally sure is a clip show), it’s the only original programming of the night. For Thanksgiving, people might eat that up.
What a great show Criminal Minds was last night
Nick, SURVIVOR tonight is “The First 27 Days,” featuring “never-before-seen” footage. They have indeed done new episodes before on Thanksgiving, but not tonight.
Last night’s Modern Family was HILARIOUS!! Such a great show. And Cougartown as really good too – last night’s episode of CT had more heart than its usual snarky self.
Just like for Fridays, and Saturdays, I still don’t understand why the broadcast networks lose share points on nights with low overall TV viewing (and why that seems to be okay with them).
“Glee”, “Modern Family,” and “Cougar Town” all dropped share points week-to-week (a whopping three, in the case of “Modern Family). I understand that the ratings go down, but why the shares too?
(In other words, why do the few people and watch TV, watch more cable than on other nights? Is it because if you have cable, you’re more likely to watch TV? But 90% have cable or satellite, so it couldn’t be that big an effect, surely?)
Shame for the season low for Glee. Last nights episode was pretty good, and had one of the most amazing moments in TV that I’ve seen in a while. That “Imagine” song with the school for the deaf was beautiful.
CSI NY is a sure value that CBS can count on the night before Thanksgiving.
Not only the ratings were very close to last week but the episode was great: closing the Kompass killer’ arc and keeping with the festive mood by ending the episode on a positive note, stressing the importance of family, friends and joy of life.
In addition to the original post about Black Friday advertising, last night was the final evening of November sweeps. New episodes meant more to the networks last night. December and January are time for repeats, holiday specials and burnoffs.
Wow! Leno soundly beat Eastwick! Instead of episode burnoff perhaps episode burnout would be a better term?
Ray, I think your problem is you assume that there would be an even distribution (or redistribution) of the smaller audience as a percentage. And mostly that did actually happen. The percentage shift you’re talking about (29 share for the big four last week vs. 26 this week) is pretty tiny at 3%.
People who watch a ton of TV watch more cable, and on lighter overall viewing nights, the % of the overall audience that is made up of people who watch a ton of TV is higher than usual. Still, I didn’t find the share differences week over week the least bit eye-popping.
Wow, ABC has seriously no love for Eastwick. They gave it a quite impossible slot for a newcomer, no marketing, no lead-in and then after weeks of hiatus, they air an original on Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Criminal Minds has become the best show on TV. Movie quality!!!Last nights episode was beyond AMAZING!!!!
I see phantom gave us a bingo square.
Eastwick was great last night. Just so sad to see it go, it just gets better and better.
Well here’s a good ratings-related article about the Thankgiving Day Parade on NBC:
“Peacock gives thanks to a turkey: Parade is one saving grace for NBC”
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/25/peacock-gives-thanks-to-a-turkey-annual-parade-is-one-saving-gr/
At least ABC can be happy because The Middle beat up CT in viewers and to be honest a 1.8 with the amazaing numbers of most of shows last night is decent, if TM continues like that maybe we could see it next season
cm was great
Criminal Minds was phenominal last night. I actually stayed up until 4am watching it. That episode would have also worked as a season finale as well.
Judging by the numbers on Eastwick, I guess people who were watching quit once the cancelation was announced and the fact that there will be no true “series finale” for episode 13.
Last night was the final night of November sweeps so CBS would be interested in getting the ratings and that is why most shows were new.
A lot of those missing viewers were most likely in their cars last night or going to bed early for an early start. I bet a lot of people who work retail were getting ready for Friday sales since stores would be closed for the holiday. That’s where my son was, at work, preparing for the Friday rush. Lots of reasons viewing would be down.
The Biggest Loser did amazingly
NBC must be happy
I wonder what the cost/benefit is for The Biggest Loser
it must not be all that expensive to produce…2 hours a week, numerous product placements, spectacular ratings (by NBC standards), 1 host, 2 trainers, only $250000 cash prize at the end of the season, decent lead in for Leno
Nick, I don’t think Leno will get much of a boost just because he’s the only original programming. The Giants-Broncos game is on NFL Network so it will take some viewers. Also, a lot of people just don’t care about Leno.
And just when you thought Eastwick couldn’t drop any lower Thanksgiving comes along…
Criminal Minds was mind-blowing, the ensemble cast was sterling, Great Ep. But please no more personal stories! That was heartbreaking.
Glee’s still way above Fringe on a regular day, and on par with the first half of Bones last week.
Overnight drops:
CSINY 11%
Criminal 15%
Glee 22%
So You Think & Gary Unmarried 24%
The Middle 25%
Modern Family 35%
Cougar Town 41%
I guess procedurals aren’t phased by anything. I think that Glee has the lowest drop outside of that shows how passionate its fans are.
Just reminding everyone to watch Jay Leno tonight. The hottest woman in the world is going to be one of his guests. If some of you have no idea who I am talking about then you must have been living under a rock for the past three years. I’m talking about Megan Fox! Who else? Thank you in advance for checking her out tonight in all of her spectacularly beautiful glory.
CT and the Middle are about to meet in the middle. They’re both average comedies with slightly different philosophies – they ought to end up on the bubble with the same level of mediocrity versus cost that almost all the other sitcoms have. Even Modern family is a pastiche of other shows. All the foam is pretty much blown off the beer as far as ABC Wedensday night is concerned.
While watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade I saw promos for The CW shows and a promo for Parenthood.
I thought it was weird becuase NBC never plays promos for The CW’s shows. It was also weird because Parenthood doesn’t even have a premiere date yet.
Mark, are you sure you hadn’t changed the channel during a commercial? I find it very hard to believe there were CW ads on NBC.
Aww sad to several shows hit season/series lows, it will hurt their averages
ABC and FOX should have a run a special or something
Amazing numbers for Criminal Minds and Biggest Loser
It could have been a local spot, where the local CW affil bought the ad time from the local cable provider. I’ve seen spots like that occasionally.
Mark, I watched the parade and saw no promos for CW. Parenthood will be on NBC in March.
The Middle is the best family comedy on TV.
Criminal Minds 100th Episode was Outstanding Last night.
Here’s the new promo for Parenthood featuring Lauren Graham!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KL3YGRClVY
Julia, I saw a promo for Supernatural and 90210. I’m sure I didnt change the channel.
Mark D., the promo said that Parenthood will premiere in March.
CM was amazing last night.
I think personal stories and touches are what make CM SO great. For me, this is what sets it apart from CSI. I feel much more personally connected to the CM characters and after last night they are gonna need eachother and I hope they let us see that going forward. And Thomas Gibson did a phenominal job. I never felt ‘he’s acting’ while watching it
Hey uhh, where are the finals?
D, if you hadn’t noticed, it’s Thanksgiving. Finals will probably be delayed until Monday. Just be happy there are prelims.
And there were several promos on the Macy’s parade on NBC for…
…cue the Monty Python Chorus and Hoagie Shoppe…
…Chuck! Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!…
…and the promos did look fairly interesting – hopefully, someone who is a Nielsen family saw them as well, as I don’t count
I know this doesn’t count for squat on here, but I thought it was worth mentioning. If you go to Hulu, under the TV section, Glee, Modern Family, and Cougar Town are all in the popular episodes column.
watched the middle for the first time since the pilot, its a dumb show but it does have its moments, but whats with these numbers
In the press release about the dog show: The television broadcast will also be available online after 2 p.m. ET on Hulu.com, a popular online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips.
It isn’t.
Megan Fox is overrated…
Leno beats Eastwick is the 2nd biggest heading out of this data.
Robert,
I do think dropping three share points week-to-week (as “Modern Family” did) is quite unique. However – me, I am really only tracking the new shows of the season, so it did strike me that all three dropped points week-to-week. But I agree that 26 vs 29 is not that huge a difference. Maybe we should continue this discussion on an entry for a Friday, where the difference is certainly more striking, and a 6 (or even 5) share seems to be acceptable for a network show.
People who watch a ton of TV watch more cable
Proportionally, in prime time, you mean, I think. Well, that’s kind of what I figured, but why I can’t think of a compelling reason why they should distribute their viewing minutes (as it were) differently from light viewers.
JR Herbaugh, Hulu is definitely popular. Not as popular as youtube. But still.
Ray, I don’t find anything quite unique about what happens the night before Thanksgiving, but I am guessing you find it much more unique than I do because because you’re in Germany and I’m in the United States where Thanksgiving is a very big deal. In general, the data suggests that people who watch more TV watch more cable in all day parts, but I did mean primetime. Whether it’s compelling for you or not, people who watch more TV watch more cable. I can’t think of any compelling reason for anyone (let alone someone from Germany) to put much stock in what happens ratings-wise the night before Thanksgiving!
Parenthood, uh, you drank way too much eggnog spiked w/vodka or something. J.R. meant that the Dog Show wasn’t on Hulu yet (and it’s after 2pm) not that the Hulu wasn’t popular.
I’m in the business of understanding television viewing behavior, that’s why.
As you noted, my main experience is with Germany, and a lot of the effects and phenomena are the same for the US and Germany. But we don’t have quite the same broadcast/cable dualism here, so I have no good point of reference, and I’m trying to understand this particular thing in order to be able to better interpret American ratings data.
But as I said, maybe this post was not the ideal place to have this conversation because it’s not really just the night before Thanksgiving. It’s every Friday, every Saturday, and most of summer.
Anyway, thanks for bearing with me.
I didn’t watch any TV Wednesday and forgot to set my DVR so
I missed the Middle…ABC did not have it on their web site
to watch.
It taught me a lesson to set up my DVR to record all of the shows
since ABC doesn’t replay the Middle at least not last Wednesday.
I heard it was very funny but I guess I will have to wait till reuns.
As far as the already made Hank shows why not play them at late nite
when one doesn’t want to watch an info commerical.
If he toned down his character and added Shelly Long as his wife
I think the show could be saved but I am glad they took it off before
my favorite show The Middle its was hurting the Middle’s rating.
Holywtflyingphcuk! What is with the ratings? Why didn’t all the channels just air a bunch of reruns?
Hey, what happend with the sindication ratings, why aren’t they up yet the last post is from 18 this mount?
Thanks, Robert.
Later I found NBC put the dog show up without commentary on msnbc. I just expected hulu to have it, since it was a taped show and hulu still posted some videos yesterday, but a second press release didn’t mention online video at all.
Modern Family was amazing
Quoting Robert:
“It’s a reasonable thing to think. But sometimes you have to remember that TV is an advertising business, and despite lower viewing, advertisers are really, really interested in advertising ahead of the “Black Friday” sales.”
I wasn’t quite sure if you were trying to make the argument for or against putting fresh eps on Wed or Thanksgiving, but here are the historical reasons why the Nets put things on each of these days:
Wed before Thanksgiving
This typically ends up being the last day of the Nov sweep, so the nets are still inclined to give a boost to their owned and affiliated stations on this day, even with the softer numbers. Plus, simple competitiveness kicks in and the nets will sometimes make last-second changes just to say they won a sweep.
Thanksgiving
This one depends…if it falls out of sweep, like this year, then simple supply-and-demand kicks in: it almost doesn’t matter what’s on in Prime, the demand will be so overwhelming for Black Friday advertising that whatever’s running will be worth a princely sum. I would suspect this has gotten more competitive with two key football games (one NFL, one TX/TX A&M college) in the mix as of late, not to mention the endless marathons on cable.
If Thanksgiving falls IN sweep, which does tend to happen every few years or so, then the nets with the strongest competitive position (NBC in the 90’s, CBS in early 00’s, ABC lately) tend to keep fresh programs on to please their stations. The nets that are not so competitive can go either way, either fresh or repeats. The nets do have option of “re-titling” episodes that run on Thanksgiving so that they don’t harm the season-long average, and they typically do.
Sorry for the long explanation, but hopefully that helps everyone as they try to figure out what’s going on over the holiday!
I guess they won’t really be doing anything new next year Thanksgiving week because those numbers are an abomination. And all of them are such awesome shows…
I think Ray’s question brings up an interesting point in favor of the current broadcast/cable paradigm lasting a good decade more ( even though some of the reports on the technology available = empirical experience of new crazes for products starting up and spreading like hotcakes). Proponents of the current system can always say, TV viewing goes up slightly every year. Cable and possibly the VCR have been responsible for making TV more relevant to a fragmnented audeience which has developed a taste for variety, shock, etc, just like with an new public art form. So why gamble on something where you can’t reliably ” monetize eyeballs … eyeballs … eteballs.”
Everyone was outta town, for thanksgiving people relax, they all be back up tomorrow
Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, 3&1/2Men, and Will and Grace were all slow to pick up ratings, but did so and became hits. The Middle should also pick up the ratings if they can keep up the writing and not permit the show to get too far fetched.It’s strong point is it’s dry humor, rather than the slapstick, but this show definitely has both, which may account for the strong mixed reviews. It’s a great satire. I would rerun an episode every nite for a week to expose it to the viewers, advertising it’s regular slot with each episode. If viewers see it, they will follow.
BL was interesting Wed. nite, but probably ran into the same issues Dancing With The Stars faced… Too much show. Capitalizing on the show to close out Nov. sweeps, I understand the all-evening time slot, but it was a little long. I imagine most viewers had it on as they went abut their Thanksgiving chores, which turned out to be a good plan for ratings, but let’s not water down the show too often, O.K. NBC? Thankgiving shows us that people tend to pull away from the table if you give them too much of even a good thing.
Survivor has moved away from recapping during it’s “recap” clip show to make it almost entirely new footage. I’m just hoping to get people moving away from using language that would discourage tuning in, and “clip show recap” could do just that.
FINAL ratings from Travis Yanan. Yay Modern Family is up to 2.5, maybe this will be the rating( or maybe a little higher to at least 2.8) MF will get when it faces AI hour 2 next year
Modern Family (R, 8pm)
- 5.507 million viewers
- 3.4/5 HH
- 1.5/5 A18-49
The Middle
- 5.940 million viewers
- 3.5/6 HH
- 1.7/6 A18-49
Modern Family (9pm)
- 7.148 million viewers
- 4.1/7 HH
- 2.5/7 A18-49
Cougar Town (31 minutes)
- 5.539 million viewers
- 3.3/6 HH
- 1.9/6 A18-49
Eastwick (59 minutes)
- 3.600 million viewers
- 2.4/4 HH
- 1.1/3 A18-49
Old Christine
- 6.863 million viewers
- 4.2/8 HH
- 1.7/6 A18-49
Gary Unmarried
- 6.678 million viewers
- 4.0/7 HH
- 1.8/6 A18-49
Criminal Minds (61 minutes)
- 13.605 million viewers
- 8.2/14 HH
- 3.2/9 A18-49
CSI: NY (59 minutes)
- 12.681 million viewers
- 7.9/15 HH
- 2.8/9 A18-49
The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now? (121 minutes)
- 7.623 million viewers
- 4.5/8 HH
- 2.7/8 A18-49
The Jay Leno Show (59 minutes)
- 5.094 million viewers
- 3.2/6 HH
- 1.6/5 A18-49
So You Think You Can Dance
- 4.894 million viewers
- 3.0/5 HH
- 1.6/5 A18-49
- 1.4/6 A18-34
- 2.0/7 W18-34
Glee
- 6.169 million viewers
- 3.6/6 HH
- 2.5/7 A18-49
- 2.5/9 A18-34
- 3.5/11 W18-34
Gracie (120 minutes)
- 1.343 million viewers
- 0.8/1 HH
- 0.4/1 A18-49
- 0.4/2 A18-34
- 0.5/2 W18-34
I can not believe you people are cancelling Eastwick! The show is great!!!! Everyone at work are really disappointed that this show is being taken off the air!! We take a break so we can watch and I always have my dvr on at home to tape the series! I have only been watching abc channels this season and it is mainly because of shows like Eastwick, Cougartown, Flash Forward and Greys Anatomy and Private Practice. Please reconsider this decision and maybe take it to another night or time slot. The nursing staff would greatly appreciate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!