Below is the table of top 25 syndicated shows for the week ending November 8, 2009.

Please note that the syndicated weekly results are delayed versus normal reporting.  While we get the broadcast and cable ratings for the prior Monday-Sunday period every Tuesday, there is an extra week of lag time with the syndicated ratings and these numbers are not for last week, but for the week before last.  So while Friday Night Smackdown! is now counted as a syndicated show and we are seeing the numbers again, they are delayed.  The numbers below are for Friday November 6, not November 13.

Legend of the Seeker fans, the show’s season two premiere didn’t make the top 25, below, but I did a separate post on those numbers (average audience of 2.58 million viewers).

Top 25 Syndicated Shows for the week ending November 8, 2009:

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Below is the table of top 25 syndicated shows for the week ending November 1, 2009.  For  context and additional numbers, check out Broadcasting & Cable’s write-up on the week.

Please note that the syndicated weekly results are delayed versus normal reporting.  While we get the broadcast and cable ratings for the prior Monday-Sunday period every Tuesday, there is an extra week of lag time with the syndicated ratings and these numbers are not for last week, but for the week before last.  So while Friday Night Smackdown! is now counted as a syndicated show and we are seeing the numbers again, they are delayed.  The numbers below are for Friday October 30, not November 6.

Legend of the Seeker fans, the viewer numbers for the season two premiere over the weekend of Nov 7-8 will be available in next week’s report. If I see any number’s before then, I will post them.

Top 25 Syndicated Shows for the week ending November 1, 2009:

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via Josef Adalian at The Wrap:

Oprah Winfrey still has plenty of Nielsen firepower.

Monday’s 24th season premiere of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” — which featured a heavily hyped interview with Whitney Houston — notched an 8.0 rating/12 share in Nielsen’s metered market overnight ratings. That’s the highest single-day rating for “Oprah” in nearly two years, and up a healthy 45 percent over last season’s premiere.

Press reps for Winfrey’s show note that “Oprah” scored well despite being delayed or pre-empted in nine major markets due to CBS’s neverending coverage of the U.S. Open.

Update:  here’s Broadcasting & Cable’s coverage with different numbers cited than the above:

CBS’ The Oprah Winfrey Show, syndication’s top talk show, had its biggest premiere in three seasons, opening season 24 on Monday at a 4.8/13, up 55% from last year’s 3.1/8, the show’s lowest-rated premiere ever. The premiere featured an exclusive interview with pop diva Whitney Houston.

This year’s premiere also beat 2007, when Oprah opened at a 4.6/12. Like all syndicated shows, Oprah’s ratings have dropped steadily in recent years. In 2004, the show premiered at a 7.3/21; in 2005, at a 6.4/16 and in 2006, at a 5.5/14.
CBS’ Dr. Phil had intended to premiere with a live episode shot in New York City, but decided to tape it and hold it for Tuesday because Dr. Phil was preempted in many markets for CBS’ coverage of the Men’s U.S. Open Tennis Finals from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET. A repeat episode averaged a 2.8/7.

George Burns/Harpo Productions via AP

Ever since Oprah’s endorsement of Barack Obama, the media has tried to spin stories that Oprah’s ratings decreases for her daytime talk show are tied to that endorsement.  Even though there is not any evidence that clearly supports such a view, the stories persist.

For a while, we were getting multiple requests a week to look at that data, and whenever we looked at it, we couldn’t come up with anything to actually support the case.  At least unless we could somehow attribute decreases with Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune to Oprah’s endorsement of Obama too.

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Our friends at the SNTA have a nice presentation promoting how well syndicated shows did in June and July (PDF download) and though it’s not surprising,  it is still impressive to see Family Guy’s dominance with all the youth demos we normally track (18-34, and 18-49).   Two and a Half Men is a god among syndicated shows as well, but with younger viewers (18-24) Family Guy outperformed Men by 100%!

Also, we rarely see any C3 information (live+3 days commercial viewing) and the ratings in the presentation above are C3 averages.  This makes it hard for us to compare to specific broadcasts or cable shows because we never see the C3 information, but it was still interesting to look through the presentation.

Because of the way syndicated numbers are reported (they lag, and there is no overnight reporting) and even the way the shows air, which is not necessarily the same time everywhere, we don’t wind up spending much time focusing on syndicated ratings, but when it comes to ratings, syndicated shows are a big, big deal.

from our friends at Syndicated Network Television Association:

Note that the ratings below are for the week ending July 19, 2009. Syndicated ratings lag the rest of the numbers on our site by a week.

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The heyday for syndicated magazine show ratings from the Michael Jackson story kept up with year/year increased tallied by Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, and Access Hollywood, but not the weekday The Insider and again ironically not TMZ that broke the Jackson story.

After more “Oprah’s a goner, was it because she endorsed Obama?” chatter last week, wouldn’t you know it, she was back up 16% to a 3.7 rating. When will the next silly Oprah rumor begin?

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