Note: coverage of live events like last night’s sports (College Football (ABC),  makes their numbers approximate and subject to greater than normal adjustment. See definitions below for more information on these Fast Affiliate ratings.

Scoreboard
Adults 18-49: Rating/Share	1.7/5	1.6/5	1.3/4	1.0/3
Total Viewers (million)	5.99	5.06	3.65	5.59

Last night most of the country saw Stanford best the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame 45-38  in what will almost certainly mark the end of Charlie Weis’ career as head coach of Notre Dame.  Roughly a quarter of the country saw Georgia best rival Georgia Tech 30-24.   Combined the games averaged 5.99 million viewers and a 1.7 adults 18-49 rating in the preliminary, non time-zone adjusted numbers.

FOX came in second for the night with adults 18-49  with the longstanding lineup of Cops and America’s Most Wanted.  CBS was second in viewers, but last with the 18-49 crowd.

Details:

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You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. Source: Marc Berman/Mediaweek.

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.