The “break up” episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 was the top cable show of the year, for all of 6 days, until the Michael Jackson Tribute BET Awards ‘09 edged it by less than 50,000 viewers on Sunday night with 10.653 million.

Any other non-NFL non-big sports week, the debut of Disney’s Princess Protection Program would have easily lead the list, but this week it’s 8.533 million viewer average only put it in third place. Following the PPP, Wizards of Waverly Place got a big boost to #7 and 6 million viewers.

WWE Raw on Monday night got a Trump bump, and rose to #4 with 7.298 million. The Closer was almost identical to last week’s results with 6.4 million viewers, but that was only good for fifth place this week.

And I think for the first time this season, USA rookie star Royal Pains posted a week to week decline. Still #8 and 5.943 million viewers is nothing to call the doctor about.

Although we don’t get HBO numbers with our regular cable data, True Blood’s episode this week drew 3.7 million average viewers.

Robert is on hiatus until late July, I am on my own till then, so we will not be handling Twitter (or other) requests for ala carte show numbers.

Top 20 cable network television shows for the week ending June 28, 2009:

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I will post True Blood numbers as soon as I see them. We don’t get premium cable data directly from Nielsen.

The week before Jon & Kate announced their divorce, Jon & Kate Plus 8 lost over 1.3 million viewers to fall to #68 with but 2.92  million average viewers. It will be interesting to see how far they pop back up this week with the divorce news boost. If we get any press release numbers early I will post them.

Update: Last night’s Jon & Kate Plus 8 drew 10.6 million average viewers, a record for the show.

Update 2: The show will be on hiatus until August 3.

In non-divorce news, USA Network is having a hot, hot summer. Royal Pains increased its viewership by nearly one million over last week and topped the cable network shows for the week. The net had 10 of the top 20 cable shows for the week.

The second outing of The Closer fell by over 1.5 million half a million viewers from last week’s premiere back into second place and 6.47 million viewers. WWE RAW was up by a little over 100,000 viewers in third. NASCAR’s Sprint Cup race from Sonoma (which caught me in its traffic jam on Saturday) was fourth with 5.79 million. Burn Notice held in 5th up about half a million viewers this week from last when it faced NBA Finals competition.

In Plain Sight fell by nearly half a million, down to #18,  and just 3.72 million viewers, just behind the premiere of TNT’s HawthoRNe at 3.827 million.

For the second week in a row, SpongeBob did not make the top twenty.  The yellow and porous one’s best outing was #23 with 3.5 million. Fear not, he is just biding his time while the human powered shows have their time in the sun. NCIS was again strong on cable (as on broadcast) with five airings in the top twenty.

Robert is on hiatus until late July, I am on my own till then, so we will not be handling Twitter (or other) requests for ala carte show numbers.

Top 20 cable network television shows for the week ending June 21, 2009:

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Update: First, the one piece of information I know people want to see are the numbers for the season premiere of HBO’s True Blood.

Note: the numbers in the table below are for the ad-supported basic cable only, but the 3.7 million for True Blood will be in the top twenty when I see the consolidated data. I have updated the table based on the consolidated info.   This is the first HBO (or premium cable show of any kind) I’ve seen make the top 20 (or even top forty) since the finale of Sopranos was the #1 cable show in June 2007.

Unfortunately I haven’t seen the numbers anywhere yet and other than telling you that it wasn’t among the top twenty shows, I can’t tell you much.  Normally one might read into the lack of information or HBO press releases that HBO is hiding bad news.  But I don’t think you can do that here.  HBO is perhaps the least boastful network we’ve ever encountered.   The DVD launch of season one of True Blood in the first few weeks makes for one of the better launches of a TV series DVD.  Sales estimates put the DVD at over 850,000 units and $30 million in revenue after three weeks of release.  And there was no boasting from HBO.   Sooner or later I’d guess we’ll see the numbers somewhere and we’ll post them.

The season premiere of The Closer stood tall above its summer cable competition and nothing got within a million viewers of it.  WWE RAW (allegedly WWE RAW was just purchased by Donald Trump – The Donald made Vince an offer he couldn’t refuse — whether like the show, that announcement was for entertainment purposes only, we’ll see!).  Royal Pains again scored 5.59 million, though it increased its demo viewing over it’s first week.    Burn Notice dropped to 5th and 5.24 million viewers, but it aired against game four of the NBA finals, so look for it to rebound some this week.

In Plain Sight rebounded nicely from the prior week, going back up over four million (4.27) and back into the top ten, edging out Jon & Kate Plus 8 and Deadliest Catch.

In a rare event, SpongeBob did not make the top twenty.  The yellow and porous one’s best outing was #28 with 3.4 million.

I’m not the only one catching up on NCIS on USA.  Five airings made the top twenty, and ten airings made the top forty.

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Top twenty cable network television shows for the week ending June 14, 2009:

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