We’ll see if it continues, but NCIS on USA is starting to look like the adult equivalent of SpongeBob. There were five airings of NCIS in the top 20 and nine in the top 40. The difference is in the number of airings. NCIS aired 25 times last week at various times on USA. There were over sixty airings of SpongeBob on Nickelodeon.

A sampling of some shows not in the top 20:

• iCarly last Wednesday with 3.671 million
• Back at the Barnyard on Saturday with 3.632 million
• The movie “Old Fashioned Thanksgiving” Saturday on Hallmark with 3.506 million
• House on USA (Friday) 3.3 million
• Bengals vs. Steelers (Thursday, NFL Network) 3.226 million
• Holiday in Handcuffs on the Family Channel 3.087 million
• Ghost Hunters on SciFi (9pm Wednesday) 3.081 million
• A repeat of Jeff Dunham’s Very Special Christmas (Comedy, Sunday at 9p) 2.976 million
• Star Wars: Clone Wars (9p Friday on the Cartoon Network) 2.775
• Total Drama Island (9p Thursday on the Cartoon Network) 2.763 million
• Sons of Anarchy (10pm Wednesday) 2.457 million
• Mythbusters (Discovery, 9pm Wednesday) 2.348 million
• Colbert Christmas (Comedy Central 10pm Sunday) 2.332 million
• South Park (Comedy Central, Thursday 10pm) 2.255 million
• Real Housewives of Atlanta (Tuesday, 10pm on Bravo ) 2.212 million
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Thursday, 10:00p on FX) 1.297 million

The True Blood season finale on HBO drew 2.4 million, and the Entourage season finale drew 2.0 million

Nielsen’s top cable shows for the week ending November 23, 2008:

Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved

Saturday Night football on ESPN came in third with Alabama’s beat-down of Mississippi State averaging 4.955 million. Even in re-airings, iCarly’s iGo to Japan movie placed number four and WWE RAW rounded out the top five.

Hannah Montana scored well for Disney, as Miley Cyrus had cable’s number one scripted show for the week. I know some of you will say “WWE RAW” is scripted, but until Nielsen buys into it, Hannah is number one, and Disney’s Suite Life On Deck was number two. But NICK’s iCarly has some legs - the iGo to Japan movie which first aired the prior week also landed the 14^th and 19^th spots, and the regular iCarly series airings took the 12^th and 15^th spots.

Lifetime’s Saturday Movie, The Two Mr. Kissels took the 11^th spot with 4.168 million.

The NFL Network game on Thursday featuring the Jets and the Patriots placed ninth with 4.411 million. I’m pretty sure that includes viewers in Boston and New York who watched the game on their local affiliates, but a brief explanation. NFL games in aired on Cable, are simulcast on broadcast networks in the local markets for the teams playing. This is true for Monday Night Football, and the local market numbers are definitely rolled up into it. I’m pretty sure that’s the case for the NFL Network, and if so, that means almost everyone watching the game was in New York and Boston and almost nobody watched it via NFL Network. I’ll see if I can find anything out on that.

The NFL Network’s first week matchup between Cleveland and Denver didn’t rank in last week’s top forty, but that was likely due to so much election coverage being watched on cable. But the New York and New England area has more TV viewers than the Cleveland and Denver markets.

Update for HBO Sunday Show fans:  True Blood hit a season high 2.7 million Sunday, as did Entourage with 2.1 million.

Nielsen’s top cable shows for the week ending November 16, 2008:

Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved

The Monday Night Football matchup where the Pittsburgh Steelers put the beat down on my beloved Washington Redskins came in number two for the week. And the beat down got the “Redskins Predict Election” myth back on track - it has predicted 18 out of the last 19 elections correctly. Not shabby. Perhaps not as good of a predictor as the “Law of 14“, but hey, not everyone can be “fresh”.

Other than the football game, the only other program not related to the election to make the top 20 was the iCarly movie, iGo to Japan. Props to iCarly because a rebroadcast of the movie also came in at #23 with 5.02 million.

With numbers that typically would’ve place them in the top 10 the 9pm airing of WWE RAW was #24 with 4.98 million viewers, Hannah Montana was #26 with 4.94 million, a regular episode of iCarly was #28 with 4.87 million. The NASCAR Sprint Cup race on Sunday night was #34 with 4.61. Still more election coverage and aftermath analysis made up most of the rest of the top 40.

I’m sure the top cable show list will look different on USA Today when they get around to posting it tonight. I’m not sure why in the data we received Nielsen broke up shows like “Election Night ‘08” on CNN into discreet hours (so I added the air time to the table below as well) even though it was really only one show with a multiple hour duration which would normally only be counted as one show. But, you get to see some of the hourly differences which may amuse at least a few of you.

Nielsen’s top cable shows for the week ending November 9, 2008:

Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved

In a presidential election politically fueled week, coverage from the news networks splattered the list. Two more airings of The O’Reilly Factor (#6, and #18), Countdown With Keith Olbermann (#10) for MSNBC and two airings of Hannity and Colmes (#12 & #13) made the top 20 for FNC.

WWE RAW on USA took the eight and eleven spots with over four million viewers on average, and the season finale of Army Wives on Lifetime drew 3.9 million on Sunday. A rerun of NCIS on USA and iCarly on Nick rounded out the top twenty (see full list below).

Not in that list, but in the top 40 was more Hannah Montana, Hannity & Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, NCIS, iCarly and of course, SpongeBob. NCIS which is a stud for CBS even in reruns on Friday — at least in total viewers (sadly we don’t see demo numbers for the cable shows) placed four airings in the top 40 for USA.

A rare, rare appearance by The Daily Show in the top 40, which pushed at least one of the 1,087 weekly airings of SpongeBob off the list. Jon Stewart’s little show came in at number twenty-six for its Wednesday airing with 3.58 million viewers. Need you ask? Barack Obama was interviewed in that airing.

Wizards of Waverly Place (#24) made the list for Disney and our friends at Back at the Barnyard appeared twice (#27 and #37) with 3.57 million viewers in its best airing for Nick. Fairly Odd Parents (#35, 3.34 million) also made the list for Nick.

Nielsen’s top cable shows for the week ending November 2, 2008: